January 18th, 2010 by Robin Green

If you need a productive and efficient employee, you can consider online training to overcome the performance gap. As a company one of the greatest assets is a valuable employee. When a company hires an employee they are making an investment in their future. Employee retention is extremely important because every time the company has to start from scratch training a new employee it costs more money to them. Therefore, it is more cost effective to the company in the long run to ensure the employee is happy in their job. Part of this entails paying a fair wage and benefits for the position but another responsibility of an employer is to ensure proper training.

Why Train Employees?
Online training can help facilitate your organizational training needs. Employee training includes ensuring the employee is qualified and trained in the position for which they were hired. However, it goes even further than that. If the company wants to ensure employee retention they have to provide a stable future to the employee. An employee wants to be challenged in their area of expertise and they also want to know that there is room for advancement. If they can not advance both professionally and financially internally with the company, the employee will start looking elsewhere. In addition, it simply makes sense to ensure the employee has all the available tools needed to work efficiently and effectively. The more knowledge the employee has, the better they will be at their job.

What can Online Training Offer?
Online training allows employers to offer employees tools to advance themselves within their career and personally. Internal online training can mean training materials and course work geared toward a specific position. New hires can take online training courses to learn how to do their job and test on policies and procedures. Existing employees can begin taking job specific courses that will ready them for their next steps within the organization. For example, if an employee wants to move to another department, that employee can begin taking coursework to become familiar with the operational procedures within that department.

Additionally, online training can provide personal improvement possibilities. This can help the employee do their existing job better as well as prepare them for more advanced positions within the company. For example, an employer may have available computer courses. This will allow the employee to add skills to their resume. A savvy employee will look first at their existing position to see how they can apply their new found knowledge to improve their work. This will result in getting noticed my management and their proactive stance in their position will give them an advantage on the competition when it is time for internal advancement.

Advantages to Online Training
Many companies are moving toward online training as opposed to sending employees to traditional brick and mortar learning institutions. The two primary reasons for this are cost and convenience. First, online courses typically cost less so the company can provide more training at the lower cost. Next, the employee has the advantage of being able to work from the office or home as is convenient. In the office they will be available for questions or in case of emergency. But, they also have the option of taking continuing education classes in the convenience of their own home when they have free time to do so.

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Coggno.com’s online LMS provides e-learning to anyone, anywhere.

January 15th, 2010 by Robin Green

A learning management system or LMS is a database system that allows you to customize and track a training program or training system.  For an organization this can be extremely convenient.  You can create your course work for employees or students and track all aspects of the curriculum.  This is especially useful when it comes to updating the course work.  Instead of needing to republish printed materials continually which may delay important changes, they can be accomplished immediately and as needed in a learning management system.

The Need to Update Training Materials
Fluidity is essential when it comes to all aspects of business.  In order to be successful a company needs to be able to recognize when there are issues that need to be addressed and how to address them when it occurs.  This sometimes means changing processes in order to address potential customer service issues or to adopt emerging technology for e.g., implementing a learning management system to facilitate better efficiency.  If training materials address the outdated processes it defeats the purpose of training in the first place.

Therefore, it is imperative that training materials be updated regularly and as needed to address any changes in processes.  This way anyone taking the course will get the most up to date information and it will avoid having to retrain in person or possible errors that may happen with an employee.  Training employees by leveraging a learning management system begin with is more efficient, will save time and is less confusing.

Uses for an LMS
An LMS is useful for two basic purposes:  internal training courses within a corporation and learning institutions that specialize in training materials for outside training.  A learning management system is most useful in a corporation that has multiple departments with specific training needs for each position.  This is an ideal vehicle for housing all the training needs for each position.  It can accomplish the tasks of:

• Training new hires in the policies and procedures of the position for which they were hired;

• Being available as reference materials for those who are currently in a position and need to know the way to accomplish a particular job; and

• Allowing others outside the department to learn about the position in order to be proactive and prepared for possible advancement opportunities internally.

For learning institutions that provide continuing education, the learning management system can provide many functions that will help administer all aspects of the training courses.  An LMS can:

• Administer the course calendar;

• Track registrations, changes and drops;

• Conduct the online training work;

• Gather assignments, administer tests or homework; and

• Report grades

A learning management system is a highly valuable system that will help administer all aspects of coursework for organizational training.  It can be used within a company for internal training as well as in learning institutions specializing in outside training courses.  It is especially useful as an easy way to facilitate necessary changes within the training materials.  Training processes will change occasionally due to advancements in technology or because of altered policies.  It is important that training coursework also be updated as needed in order to remain current.  A learning management system can administer such changes quickly and easily for maximum efficiency.

Do you want to receive news and updates on learning management systems? Follow us on Twitter, http://twitter.com/coggno.

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Coggno.com offers a wide variety of e-learning  courses for users worldwide.

January 10th, 2010 by Robin Green

Advances in online training have led to a revolution in the learning space by providing learners with skills they need to have to succeed in their job. For a successful business, e-learning needs to focus on learning for adults and with primary focus related to their job. This simply means, leveraging technology, training needs to be delivered to ensure they have necessary knowledge to be productive and have a constructive impact for their employers.

How would online training guarantee this learning transformation? Most training delivered in class is made for the organization or to achieve business goals. This might not be the solution since training should be designed for learners and help each learner achieve a superior performance. E learning makes this possible by moving away from a ‘one course suits all’ approach to an individual training method.

For any organization that has a large geographic spread, online training of employees can ensure consistent learning. A well designed e-learning provides learners with up to date knowledge using practical scenarios. Most e-learning helps organizations, both small and large reduce training costs tremendously.

For instance, if you have are a product based company, that has regular updates to a product or have a global product launch, you will need to ensure your employees are knowledgeable about the product. In most cases, you will need to send trainers to each region to train the staff or even have regular trainings scheduled to ensure that the information provided to customers is accurate. With such requirements, online training ensures uniformity in training delivery within a fast paced environment.

It reduces travel costs and provides your staff with the flexibility of taking courses to their convenience. Deploying courses online is easy and can be done quickly which allows employees to get up to speed as early as possible. With online training gaining popularity, it is not a huge expense on the budget but can be built rapidly and cost-effective. Some of the training designed includes audio, video and other audio-visual enhancements that can keep the learners engaged.

Some online training for business includes simulations that help learners to understand the product without actually risking a live environment. Tailor made courses are not high-priced and can be built in-house with the right tools. In fact, there are e-learning service providers that identify training gaps, design a training strategy and recommend solutions that can suit your budget.

Usually, online training is a one time expense, you can always choose from customized solutions to ensure the training is focused to the business in entirety or you can pick off the shelf courseware that can be aligned with your business requirements. Corporate training and e-learning are quite sophisticated and have drifted away from usual page turners. The training designed is more oriented to meet higher learner retention and improve employee productivity.

Online training is available for most industries and can be used to train unskilled laborers to prepare them for management. E-learning has had a positive impact on business that have implemented it has a training solution.

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Coggno.com provides high-quality online training.

January 6th, 2010 by Robin Green

Using a Learning Management System has many advantages when you have a global audience. It provides trainers, learners and moderators with a variety of features from administration of courses, documentation, tracking, scheduling courses, reporting, etc. Your LMS can provide your organization with a gamut of customized services that can increase efficiency and reduce training costs.

If you are considering implementation of a Learning Management System in your organization, you will have a scalable learning solution, with the capability of supporting multiple languages. A LMS will provide you with Competency Management, the ability to track and manage workforce competencies to ensure alignment with business goals. Identifying skill gaps, learning paths to fix skill gaps are some of the features of competency management in a learning management system.

Not all organizations have converted their classroom training to e-learning, most of them use a blend of e-learning and instructor led training. When you have a global workforce, a learning management solution can be a valuable solution to manage ILT and e-learning. It is a centralized tracking system that saves time and improves training efficiency.

When you need to manage student reports, or require customized reports, using a LMS can offer you such flexibility. A learning management system is capable of providing you with user history, test scores, summary of test by user groups, pass and fail statistics. Each of these reports are provided with ease and can be accessed with the click of a button.

Learning management systems are known to be successful for the administration of training within an organization. It facilitates completion of enrollments, both for individual users and batch registrations, ensuring users meet course pre-requisites, auto sending event notifications etc.

When you have a shortage of skilled workforce, using a learning management system can ensure that your employees have consistent training. Even if they are geographically spread, you will be capable of delivering the training across all operations, 24×7 and in multiple languages. Most organizations that have implemented a LMS have a collaborative learning community, with a variety of learning solutions that depend on the organizations training needs.

With a fast paced business environment, to have stand-alone training for each function and then deploying the training at intervals is not a feasible option. With corporate accountability, using a learning management system can help achieve an all inclusive approach for education. With each region or country, the training needs to align with local regulations. A LMS can give you the flexibility of managing content and updating this to meet each user groups training needs.

As you can see, a learning management system is an effective solution for global education. In addition to this, there are other features that a LMS supports that as a result add to the user-friendliness of the solutions such as;  advanced search functionality, easy integration with existing CRM, ERP and HR systems, etc.

The learning management system also has security features to protect user data, privacy, and prevent unauthorized access. This ensures that your organizations e-learning experience is not only effective and scalable but safe as well.

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Coggno.com offers world-class LMS platforms.

December 24th, 2009 by Robin Green

As you look back throughout the years of education history it is amazing to see where we started, who would have ever thought learning would be conducted online, or that someone would think up of a learning management system where online courses could be hosted and delivered? However, this is not the end of progression. Technology seems to always be ever changing as they strive to break through new realms. We even see signs of new advances as the learning management systems and online learning modules are becoming more and more advanced. They are bringing new features to the system that will facilitate easier use.

I am sure everyone has seen movies that date back to the 1700’s where the classroom consisted of 4 or 5 grade levels, students used abacuses for calculators, and classes were conducted in an overcrowded one room school house. Education quickly progressed, as schools developed, education was opened up to all children of every gender, age, ethnicity, and social class. For the first time age groups were segmented to create a more age appropriate and focused subject matter for the classroom.  Specific lesson plans were created based on the grade level that the student was in and determined what the students would be learning during that time. Now skip ahead a few Centuries to when computers were first introduced into the classroom. Sure the first computers were the size of an entire room, however, they became “streamlined” for the classroom and students were able to learn how to used the DOS system and even participate in typing classes.

From the time computers were integrated into the schools and computer classes became a mandatory subject matter in the curriculum, it was taken another step further. Now wireless internet is offered on nearly every school campus and is widely available in cafes, apartment complexes, and in the workplaces. Even in the High Schools, students no longer hand in paper assignments as all of their work is done and submitted online, the lesson plans are posted on line for each student’s course schedule along with their electronic report card that enable parents to keep tabs on their children’s progress in school . College Students are participating in higher education online with the help of the Learning Management System platform that facilitates course distribution allowing them to receive their education via distant learning programs.

It does not stop there. As education is progressively evolving and moving to the web, technology continues to advance by creating a more effective and efficient learning management system with interactive courses, virtual webinars and live instructors, as well as advanced assessment tools that are used to measure how successful the online training or online courses are. Various learning methodologies that appeal to the visual, auditory, and kinetic learners are implemented into the courses or modules to provide the students with the option to pick which method that best enables them to fully comprehend the material.  The world of technology has opened up so many opportunities that enable to further education with the state of the art learning management systems and resources. It is truly a feat to look back and see where we have started to where we are now and even looking to the future as we as see signs of the next stage where technology is taking us.

December 23rd, 2009 by Robin Green

While living and working in the industrial world has its benefits, there are also some environmental downfall, but can a Learning Management System allow you to train your workforce and increase awareness of these problems? The main problem these days is the pollution, specifically carbon and other gas emissions.  We’ve all heard of the problems being created around the world when it comes to climate change and global warming. Because of the drastic affect it is having on the environment, many corporations are now deciding to do something about it. They are implementing measures such as recycling and sustainability plans to combat carbon emissions.

However, many companies can’t afford to hire fulltime sustainability experts and are turning to online training programs and Learning Management Systems instead.  These systems will assess each company individually and calculate how much carbon emissions it’s generating. A reduction strategy will then be planned out and implemented to help reduce the company’s carbon footprint.

These assessments will conduct a full energy audit and investigate many aspects of the business including water, waste, electricity, travel, paper, and fuels and paper. These elements are then converted into the tons of carbon emissions created and the best way to cut them down. The plan is presented to the business and the carbon management company will work hand in hand with them to help achieve their goals, monitoring their progress all the way.

While implementing a Learning Management System may sound like a pretty complicated process. With
the help of the right training, it’s usually surprising to every company how easily their carbon emissions can be reduced. Studies have shown that up to 15 per cent of total gas emissions are produced by improperly trained staff.  So the first thing on the agenda is to make sure all employees are educated properly. This is usually done by holding workshops with interactive audio and video presentations, handing out educational reading material, posting signs, and engaging in various competitions, etc.

A good learning management system will allow you to train a large number of people at the same time. This can be accomplished at a relatively low cost per person as most systems charge a flat fee instead of a per-user rate.  The company’s administrators are able to create content, upload it, and assign it to employees in training at whatever pace they choose. If each employee is aware how their actions can reduce the company’s overall carbon emissions, you should see a reduction pretty quickly.

There are some very simple solutions to cutting down on emissions and reducing your carbon footprint. It can be done as easily as recycling various day- to-day items such as newspapers, cans, bottles, aluminum foil, plastics, used equipment, furniture and other materials. However, people need to be properly educated when it comes to all aspects of emissions reduction as there are many other ways to help accomplish it.

It’s not too hard to reuse and recycle things when trying to lower your company’s carbon footprint. But to be successful, it’s essential that everybody is well trained by a learning management system and does their part to chip in.

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Coggno.com offers a wide variety of online training courses.

November 13th, 2009 by Robin Green

So you have decided to pursue an online degree, and narrowed your preferences to a few online training courses! At this point, you will have a few concerns like, ‘how is this going to reflect on your resume?’ or ‘will this be acknowledged by employers in the market’ or ‘is this online degree recognized internationally?’

There are quite a few pros and cons to securing an online degree, and you need to be careful that your course is offered by a legitimate distance learning college. Why? In 2003 a report by USA Today revealed four hundred businesses that catered to online training and profited by selling fake degrees. While there were a few legitimate distance learning schools that offered degrees but provided poor quality of education that did not surpass the conventional learning environment.

To this effect, employers were skeptical about the knowledge acquired in an e-learning environment. Some were concerned about the content of the courses, curriculum and even with the outcome of the learning in an online environment.

To assist students that wish to pursue an online degree and ensure that the online training is valid, the National Education Board of the U.S. government has approved six accreditation agencies. These six agencies evaluate and accredit institutions that impart distance education and online degrees. This ensures institutes provide online training programs and degrees meet a certain quality standard and distinguish them from fake educational schools.

Today, all institutions covet to be top providers of distance education and provide access to virtual classrooms, modern online testing methods, online libraries and much more. They have courses accredited by the accreditation agencies and other renowned international agencies that evaluate online training.

There are other specialized accreditation agencies that only accredit particular online course programs. These agencies ensure that the online training meet a superior level of training excellence with major focus on course curriculum.

To most employers, accreditation from recognized agencies is a seal of trust and guarantees that the quality of education meets basic requirements. To parents and graduates, a degree from an accredited institution is an assurance that the online training qualification acquired is justified.

An important point to remember before you sign up for an online degree is to verify if the institution providing the certification is recognized by the U.S. Department of Education. In addition to this, you can also check with Council for Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA). CHEA is an NGO which recognizes agencies that accredit online training programs in the US, organize policy and research on issues concerned with accreditation.

When you list your online certification on your resume, you need to make certain that the learning outcomes, relevance and course accreditation are included. Eventually, it is the decision of the employer to evaluate the validity of the online program. They might be cautious with the rise in fake online course certification but would definitely be at ease to see an accreditation by an agency recognized by the US Department of Education. Doing this is a great way of avoiding prospective employers from trashing your application and clearing any doubt regarding your online training degree.

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Coggno.com offers a wide variety of online courses.

October 23rd, 2009 by Robin Green

In the earlier years of the education system, learning was limited to the four walls of a class room; however, Learning Management System has brought about a new concept to teaching. Varieties of teaching methods have been restricted due to teachers who have their preferred teaching style and may not know how to adapt to their students in regards to what works best for their learning capacity. This has left some parents to wonder why their child is not able to understand the curriculum being taught to numerous other students who are able to comprehend the concepts. For other parents they wondered why it was so easy for their child and may worry that they are not being pushed enough intellectually.

A simple answer to this problem? All students have a unique way of learning and with the difficulty in collaboration between teachers and their students learning mannerisms, Learning Management System has created an answer to appeasing all learning methods. It provides numerous courses that appeal to all students whether they are visual, auditory, or kinetic learners. No longer will students fall behind or have difficulties comprehending the curriculum due to an incompatibility with a teachers and learning styles.

Visual learners associate color coding, pictures, graphs or maps to compartmentalizing various lessons and concepts. As a result, some courses have been created into pictures, movies, slides, visual examples that enables visual learners to grasp a concept easier as they associate what they have learn to that picture. The Learning Management System delivers such videos or graphical material to each student’s computer whether it is at home or in class computer implemented courses.

Auditory learners associate learning by sound, sound bites, music, voice over’s, just as if they were listening to a seminar or a lesson. Such resources are available on these e-learning training courses that provide video with sound to ensure that students will not be lost in written material.

Kinetic learners are those who learn better by “doing”. These are the individuals that have to go through the motions to remember a task. For example, when opening a lock, some people may be able to tell you for memory what the combination is to open it, where as “kinetic learners” have to physically turn the knob to remember what their combination is. In response to these learners, Learning Management System contains e-learning courses that implement labs into the curriculums to ensure a student can go through the motions to truly lock down their understanding.

Thousands of content creators work hard to deliver a number of courses to mollify copious learning methods and make learning easier and fun for students. Learning Management System creates a solution for trouble students who are falling behind in school or students that are excelled in their learning capabilities by creating a resource that provides exactly what they need for their education needs in an inexpensive but very effective way.

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Coggno.com provides high-quality online training.