Web Based Training

What is Web-based training?
Web-based training is an affordable alternative to traditional training. Any computer with access to the Internet can access online courses delivered through a web browser. For effective learning to occur, though, courses need to be designed for online delivery. This means including special interactive activities that engage students and enhance the learning process. AKLearning officials will help you develop these activities for maximum learning.

Is Classroom SCORM compliant and can Classroom lessons be combined with older-styled e-learning modules?
Yes, Classroom lessons are SCORM compliant. Within your Learning Management System, they appear as learning activities. The student clicks on the activity, completes the lesson, and all of their data is automatically stored into your LMS. – SCORM compliance is a great feature of Classroom because it means that you don’t need to abandon any of your existing investment. All of our lessons can easily coexist with your older style e-learning modules.

The Classroom Teaching and Learning Environment

What is Classroom?
Classroom is a powerful learning tool. While Learning Management Systems (LMS) focus heavily on discussion and management, the actual teaching part of an online tool is often forgotten about. Classroom is an interactive and enriched environment in which people can truly learn and remember information.

How will Classroom lessons help us make money?
Classroom lessons are much less expensive than traditional training methods such as sales meetings and local seminars. But not only are they less expensive, they are also more effective.

First, Classroom lessons are highly immersive and they make it more likely that your sales team will ENGAGE and learn the material. Let’s face it, sales meetings are filled with distractions and not a lot of learning takes place. With Classroom, sales reps can focus; they can highlight and print out the transcript, review resources, explore LearningLinks, ask questions, and take a quiz. Classroom is designed to be a teaching and learning environment, and the built-in teaching tools guarantee that your sales team will learn and remember all of the important information.

Second, these lessons are available to your sales team 24/7; your sales rep can review the lesson exactly when she needs it.
Third, the LearningLinks and communication tools are designed to promote community and provide a convenient way for the sales team to share their strategies for selling particular products. This on-line team building may be the greatest advantage of all.

Why Classroom?
For centuries, formal learning and knowledge transfer took place inside the walled gardens of regulated schools, universities, and large organizations. The Internet, social networks, open source software, and multimedia have changed everything. Some call it Learning 2.0.
But now, Classroom and Campus take it a step further. They combine the vast community potential of the Internet with all the advantages of authentic live human interaction. This is a revolution in learning.

Will Classroom work within our LMS?
Chances are, yes! The Classroom lessons are compliant with AICC and SCORM 1.2 standards. As a result, our lessons can be easily and seamlessly dropped in to any LMS compliant with one of these technologies.

Can a sales person use the Classroom lessons at the point of sale?
Yes. The content of these lessons is entirely up you. You can author the presentation so that it can be used for training and for sales purposes.

Hosting and SCORM Compliance

Is Classroom a Hosted Solution?
Yes. Classroom lessons are hosted on our secure, ultra reliable servers. Your students log in through your company authentication or LMS, and Classroom lessons are seamlessly streamed to them.

Can we host Classroom on our server?
Yes. We can work with your IT team to arrange different solutions. Please contact us for more information.

Can Classroom lessons be viewed off-line or from a DVD?
Yes. We can custom configure a lesson to operate off-line. Most features operate fully, and only certain database operations, such as polling, do not function in the off-line version. Contact our technical team for more information.

Costs and Return on Investment

What does it cost, and what’s my Return on Investment?
Using Classroom, you will enjoy a very rapid return on investment. Let me provide you with two illustrations. Lets assume you have 1,000 employees and each one needs 40 hours of training. One solution is to perform your training at a national sales meeting. According to surveys, a one-week national sales meeting involves direct costs of $2,500 per person. Put another way, each hour of employee training costs the company over $60.

Lets compare that to delivering training using Classroom. Creating 40 hours of Classroom lessons will cost you about approximately $300,000. In turn, the cost of delivering the lessons to 1,000 people is approximately $240,000. Therefore the total cost of delivering the training on line is $520,000.

Thus, while training at a national sales meeting costs over $60 per training hour, training using Classroom costs about $14 per training hour.
Now lets evaluate the Return on Investment in a different scenario. Lets say that you really want to sponsor an annual sales meeting for your one thousand employees. However, you have decided to shorten the meeting by three days and you want to provide some 20 hours of on-line training before the meeting occurs.

In this scenario, Classroom again provides a significant return on investment. Delivering your training on-line and shortening your meeting by 3 days will save you about $1,000 per person. In turn, the cost of using Classroom to deliver the training on-line is about $260 per person.
As you examine these numbers, you might think that this is not really an Apples-to-Apples comparison. After all, the meeting provides face-to-face networking opportunities that don’t exist using on-line training.

While that is true, you should note that on-line training provides its own significant advantages that further increase your Return on Investment.

First, Classroom includes communication tools that allow your sales team to participate in chat, threaded discussions, and exchange best practices. These tools allow your sales team to become a “community of sellers” who share their strategies and succeed together.

Second, the Classroom lessons are available exactly when they are needed. If the big sale is next Tuesday, the sales rep can review the lesson just beforehand and be well prepared.

Third, Classroom training sessions are very effective and you can easily monitor employee participation and achievement. Try doing that at a sales meeting.

Fourth, the learning modules can also be displayed to customers and can be used as a direct marketing tool.

Fifth, Classroom reduces the cost of bringing on new sales people because all of the critical training sessions are immediately available to them.

And sixth, online training does not remove the sales team from the field. Classroom keeps them out there selling, increasing everyone’s bottom line.

What factors can improve my Return on Investment?
As you know, your return on investment will depend on several factors. With Classroom, your return on investment will be greatest under three conditions.

First, Classroom will provide the largest return on investment when a larger number of people are taking the same lesson. -- When more people are watching the same lesson, the cost of development can be more widely leveraged.

Second, Classroom will provide a larger return on investment when “team building” contributes to the ability of individuals to make sales. Classroom is uniquely able to encourage teamwork and sharing of sharing of best practices.

Third, Classroom will provide a larger return on investment when information and learning is critical to the sales process: Classroom will insure that your sales team is well informed, and therefore if knowledge is an important part of the sales cycle, Classroom will definitely give a big bump to sales.
If you want to explore your potential return on investment in more detail, please feel free to contact us at AKLearning.

Is Classroom affordable?
If you're a smaller company, Classroom can seem intimidating. But AK Learning offers per-seat pricing on pre-built lessons that makes it affordable to everyone. Contact us with your needs, and we'll find a plan that works for your budget.

Do you license the lecture creation tool?
Not at the present time. We are considering making this patented tool available if there is enough interest.

Learning Management Systems

What is an LMS?
An LMS, or Learning Management System, is a system that helps organizations to deliver on-line education. In short, the LMS helps to manage courses and educational records In many instances, corporate training departments purchase LMSs to automate record-keeping as well as the registration of employees for classroom and online courses. There are currently dozens of LMSs which cater to, and focus on, different educational, administrative, and deployment requirements.

Do I have to use an LMS?
No. We can provide you with a standalone lesson that lives on our server. However, consider the vast management benefits to using an LMS such as Campus.

Does my organization need an LMS?
An LMS can vastly simplify the task of organizing a curriculum. It IS possible to create a database solution that can organize all or your records, but the LMSs are already mature and it is usually worthwhile adopting one rather than reinventing the wheel.
That said, keep in mind that having an LMS alone does not mean that your students will learn well. Learning management systems focus much more on management than on learning. That is, an LMS will help educators organize their administrative responsibilities (enrollment, billing, grade book), but the courseware within LMSs tends to be text-based, repetitive, and ineffective.

We don't have an LMS. Can you provide one?
Absolutely. Our Campus LMS provides a rich range of capabilities that will meet the needs of small or large organizations.

What is "Campus"?
Campus is a powerful learning management system (LMS) that will allow you to deliver, track and manage all of your on-line learning. Campus provides a hosted solution that allows you to own your own personal campus. With the Campus, you can deliver, manage and track online learning across your organization. It is easier and more affordable than ever.

How does it work?
Classroom-Campus enables you to create a branded knowledge portal to manage all of your organization’s learning activities and digital materials. You’re in charge of the content, the teachers, and the students. We can host your Campus and provide the support. Every client and learner receives access to Campus’ world-class educational help desk, staffed by teachers and IT specialists who care about your success.
We will work with you to develop your campus to an aesthetic and educational ideal. AKLearning’s support staff will guide you every step of the way.

Creating Lessons

Is it difficult to create Classroom lessons?
It is very simple to create a Classroom lesson. Just have your marketing team make their normal presentation in front of a stationary video camera. You can have them in front of a green screen (which will allow you to place them into a virtual world) or you can have them stand in front of a nice “real world” background. – In any case, be sure to provide sufficient and well-balanced light.
Then send us the video, a transcript, an outline, and a set of assessment questions and we will have your lessons built, branded and on-line in only two weeks. -- It’s that simple.
You and your team can produce the materials yourselves, or we offer complete production services and can perform any of these tasks for you.

How do I make these exciting lessons?
There are four easy steps to create a Classroom lesson and we can help you at every step along the way. First, contact our sales team. They will work with you to distill your educational message into a clear thesis. Second, we'll help you shoot your host lecturing in front of a green screen. This performance can be made by your subject matter expert, or by one of our on-call actors. Third, we will enrich your lecture with pedagogical tools to enhance learning. You can be as involved as you wish, and we will customize these tools to your liking. Finally, we will package your lesson into a SCORM package, allowing it to be viewed by your learners 24/7.

Teaching Courses

Can I monitor whether my sales team is actually using these lessons?
You bet. Classroom has built-in assessment tools that keeps track of the amount of time the sales rep spends on a lesson And it assesses how well they are learning the material. Furthermore, Classroom is SCORM compliant so your team’s quiz results are automatically saved to your learning management system.

What If I've never taught an online class before?
We understand that many teachers and trainers are most comfortable in a physical classroom. Teaching online has its unique rewards but may present new challenges because of the technology, teaching methodology, and new tools. Our job is to make it easy for you. We’ll help you through the entire process, from authoring and designing Classroom activities, to styling your Campus for maximum advertising.

Miscellaneous

How do I add comments and highlights to the transcript?
It is easy to customize the transcript. If you want to add highlights to the text, just hold down the control key and click and drag over the transcript. To add notes to the transcript, type into the comments box and hit return. You can make even longer notes using the Notepad features. All of your highlights, comments, and notes are stored permanently for you.

Be sure to open the advanced features window to see other available options. And if you have more questions, click the “On-Line Help” link in the top right side of the screen.

How do I get more information?
If you want more information, please visit our web site by clicking the link below. You can also contact us directly by sending an email to sales@AKLearning.com. We look forward to working with you and your sales team.