How to move your training business online

Does your business train others in your industry?  Before the current health crisis, did you primarily offer face-to-face trainings?

The training landscape has changed; it’s important that you’re nimble enough to pivot to an on-line virtual format. You probably already have enough content – or can quickly access digital formats of your desired content for free – that you’re ready to move your training online fast.  We recommend moving fast to a baseline of training quality that you can scale up as you gather feedback from your learners.  Here’s how you can do it.

Start with a branded campus shell.

Most LMS vendors can help you create a campus with the look and feel of your corporate or personal site with tailored CSS styling.  Most LMS vendors also have the ability to roll this out for you quickly, so you can move your content into course and lesson shells awaiting you.

Build your courses and lessons using the content that you have or can quickly acquire.

Custom course development can be really expensive, but it doesn’t have to be.  You probably already have a great sense for how your courses should flow.  There are many resources that cover how to effectively construct and layer lessons; as needed, consult an instructional designer.  At their core, most courses tend to include introductions with goals; a sequence of lessons that include engaging content examples that address one concept at a time; followed by knowledge checks and quizzes. Depending on your course and context, you may also want to add on a survey to gather feedback about your course.

With SyberWorks, you can quickly add existing documents, PDF’s, recorded Zoom / Webex / Teams videos, Powerpoints, spreadsheets, YouTube video links, and many more formats as lessons. Having a diversity of content helps create more engaging content and makes it easy for you to move your training online fast.

Video content tips for lessons.

Take a breath – your videos don’t have to be masterclass quality to start.  In fact, large video sizes can degrade the overall student experience. So while that may be a goal, it’s one to iterate toward, not to consider as a limit to getting started. Here’s how to convert your video to a smaller size, so you can make sure your online experience is responsive to learner needs.

Find a popular tool like Adobe Media Encoder to quickly handle a conversion that optimizes for video quality. Add your video, then click a button to convert. There’s more to it, but not much.

It is typical to expect a 90% reduction in file size, depending on how the video has been minified in the past. 

You should be able to easily upload your new video to an LMS course folder using an LMS content manager, then create a lesson to tie the video to.

Add surveys to every course.

Particularly as you’re launching first or early iterations of your courses, you’ll want to make sure your lessons are clear, concise, and providing value to your learners.  Even collecting feedback from a small cohort – say 25 – is enough to determine if there are common enough themes for you to take into consideration as you continue to improve your course quality.

SyberWorks offers simple ways to add standard quality surveys to each lesson to make sure you get the feedback you need.

Move your training online fast with a hands-on technical partner.

Most LMS vendors are hands off when it comes to tailoring campuses, helping you build courses, and ensure quality.  With SyberWorks, your campus and approach can be tailored to your exact needs. To learn more about our unique offerings and to experience our strong customer service, visit us at www.syberworks.com or contact us.