Hello readers, if any of you are following us on Twitter (if not then check us out at http://www.twitter.com/comevo) you have noticed an increase in the number of articles we are directing you to. We feel that these online resources we have been taking advantage of lately should be just another method for us to serve you and we just want to share our research in the eLearning market. However, with a limit of 140 characters, Twitter is not always teh best way to give analysis on those article. Now we will enver post something to our Twitter unless we feel it provides valuable information, but we understand that it's always nice to hear what we have to say about those articles. This is where our blog comes into play! Every so often we will take the time to write about some of these links we post to Twitter, starting today.
The first article "Why do Students Like Online Learning? (found at http://www.worldwidelearn.com/education-articles/benefits-of-online-learning.htm) discusses the benefits of online classes for college students. We posted this article for two reason:
1) There was plenty of crossover with their list and ours about the benefit of online learning (notably students enjoy the ability to to access the online content anytime from anywhere).
2) The title of the article alone gives insight into the desires of students, they want to be able to access content they need for school online.
There is even some conent they provided we had not previously mentioned we felt was valuable information. The one that stuck out the most was teh fact that online learning is less intimidating than in person learning for many students. New college attendees already have pleny of apprehension as they enter college, online orientations can help prepare them for that switch without adding any pressure. The more prepared they feel before entering college, the less anxiety they will face.
The next three articles were posted to provide more information from outside sources on the benefits we have discovered come about from using online training. For saving money (article found at http://operationstech.about.com/od/costsavingstrategies/a/CostSavTraining.htm) this article by James Bucki lists online training and computer based training first in discussing ways to save money and still properly traing your employees (which comes as no surprise to our readers!). The benefits of consistency can be found in the article "Get Online Training to Work for YOU" (found at http://www.articlesbase.com/management-articles/get-online-training-to-work-for-you-1422780.html ). One line that stuck out was where the author mentioned that we live in a day where almost anything you can teach ina classroom, people can learn online. So we already know online training can save you money but we are coming to a point in time where online training offers just as much quality as an in class session. The final article (found at http://www.cbtplanet.com/articles-tutorials/benefits-online-training.htm) is a good summary of all we listed. The author mentions the benefits of consistency and gives insight into other benefits about training new employees. One thing we took away from this article was the ability to traing employees from multiple departments at the same time during the same training session. Just another way online training can help save time for H/R directors and give them the ability to focuse their attention on more urgent matters.
Thanks for reading! We would like to wish all our readers a happy and healthy Thanksgiving from all fo us here at Comevo LLC.
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Online Orientation- Preparing for Success
Hello readers, just a quick update on the blog, this will be Carrie’s last post for us here at Comevo, she will be graduating from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo in a few weeks and moving down south. We would like to congratulate Carrie as well as thank her for all the great work she has done for us! Now here is her contribution on yet another found benefit of online orientations:
“Participation in recommended in-class orientation and GPA are significantly related to student success in online undergraduate business course” (Wojciechowski and Palmer, 2005). This quote came from the article “Required Online Orientation: A predictor of Success?,” written by Linda DeFelice and Karen Durkin. The authors explore a study conducted using Gloucester County College in New Jersey. The study looks at whether students who were required to take an online orientation before participating in an online Communications course.
The results found proved to be quite interesting. The authors concluded that “GPA and orientation grade are the most significant predictors of student grade in a course,” meaning those who participated in online orientation prior to the course and had higher GPA’s were more likely to excel in the course.
These findings relate to Comevo, the leading provider of online orientation in several ways. Like an orientation to a class, orientation to a school can be quite beneficial. Instead of just handing out a syllabus on the first day of class or a pamphlet about the school, an online orientation allows for an interactive and in-depth preparation for what is to follow. It allows students to ease into the process and gauge what to expect.
Orientations can be appreciated by students for various reasons including 24/7 accessibility and easy navigation. Most important though is that online orientation provides a suitable introduction to the school. The moral of the article is that proper preparation can never be underestimated. Online orientations can provide a solid and informed beginning that ensures success.
Happy Training,
Carrie Peck
Comevo LLC.
“Participation in recommended in-class orientation and GPA are significantly related to student success in online undergraduate business course” (Wojciechowski and Palmer, 2005). This quote came from the article “Required Online Orientation: A predictor of Success?,” written by Linda DeFelice and Karen Durkin. The authors explore a study conducted using Gloucester County College in New Jersey. The study looks at whether students who were required to take an online orientation before participating in an online Communications course.
The results found proved to be quite interesting. The authors concluded that “GPA and orientation grade are the most significant predictors of student grade in a course,” meaning those who participated in online orientation prior to the course and had higher GPA’s were more likely to excel in the course.
These findings relate to Comevo, the leading provider of online orientation in several ways. Like an orientation to a class, orientation to a school can be quite beneficial. Instead of just handing out a syllabus on the first day of class or a pamphlet about the school, an online orientation allows for an interactive and in-depth preparation for what is to follow. It allows students to ease into the process and gauge what to expect.
Orientations can be appreciated by students for various reasons including 24/7 accessibility and easy navigation. Most important though is that online orientation provides a suitable introduction to the school. The moral of the article is that proper preparation can never be underestimated. Online orientations can provide a solid and informed beginning that ensures success.
Happy Training,
Carrie Peck
Comevo LLC.
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Quality Training While Saving Money
Hello readers, hope this article finds you all in good health and in good spirits. We here at Comevo certainly have a lot to be excited for with various conferences we have attended and new clients…but this blog is not about us, it’s about helping you gain a better understanding on how an online training and orientation can benefit you and your institution.
ASTD has recently announced that the eLearning market in the United States has reached $16.7 billion dollars in 2009. Their research went on to state that the market is growing by an average of 7.4% per year and estimates that revenues will reach $23.8 billion in the year 2014.
The article stated how the demand for online training continues to be strong even in a struggling United States economy. This clearly points to one of the major selling points for an online orientation/training, the money that will be saved as a result.
These are trying times for all of us in this country, and we all are forced to make sacrifices that we would love to avoid, but in the same sense this is also a time when we need dependable employees that we can rely on and the best way to develop these employees is to offer them proper training in the company when they first start.
Online training is the best way to provide effective training sessions to your new employees without having to sacrifice quality as a result of price. There are numerous money saving benefits of an online training including:
· No need to buy or download any hardware to a computer, if the training is online a
computer only needs the capability of going on the internet for someone to access their session
· No paperwork to print, this is also a sustainable benefit, but there is also a great amount of saving done by having all training online and eliminating all printing costs.
· No longer will employees have to waste their work time, as long as the training is available online they can go through the orientation whenever they want and go through it at their own pace. This allows your employees to remain productive but still get the training they need to find success with the company.
More and more people expect to be able to perform everyday functions through a computer online. Couple that with the financial stress an online training relieves and making the switch to online training is a very attractive opportunity for any institution to look into.
ASTD has recently announced that the eLearning market in the United States has reached $16.7 billion dollars in 2009. Their research went on to state that the market is growing by an average of 7.4% per year and estimates that revenues will reach $23.8 billion in the year 2014.
The article stated how the demand for online training continues to be strong even in a struggling United States economy. This clearly points to one of the major selling points for an online orientation/training, the money that will be saved as a result.
These are trying times for all of us in this country, and we all are forced to make sacrifices that we would love to avoid, but in the same sense this is also a time when we need dependable employees that we can rely on and the best way to develop these employees is to offer them proper training in the company when they first start.
Online training is the best way to provide effective training sessions to your new employees without having to sacrifice quality as a result of price. There are numerous money saving benefits of an online training including:
· No need to buy or download any hardware to a computer, if the training is online a
computer only needs the capability of going on the internet for someone to access their session
· No paperwork to print, this is also a sustainable benefit, but there is also a great amount of saving done by having all training online and eliminating all printing costs.
· No longer will employees have to waste their work time, as long as the training is available online they can go through the orientation whenever they want and go through it at their own pace. This allows your employees to remain productive but still get the training they need to find success with the company.
More and more people expect to be able to perform everyday functions through a computer online. Couple that with the financial stress an online training relieves and making the switch to online training is a very attractive opportunity for any institution to look into.
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Thoughts on an Effective Online Orientation
This week’s blog will feature an article I came across that highlights the importance of Online Orientation from someone else’s perspective. The article was written by Christopher Hill, a distance learning specialist and is titled “Six Steps to Creating an Effective Online Orientation Program.” He investigates the distance learning team at Cuyahoga Community College in Ohio.
Now it is important to point out that even though this article focuses on online orientation, it is a bit different than what we here at Comevo offer. Our orientation goes one step further – we save your staff even more time because with our @school Online Orientation your staff does not need to be present to administer the orientation. However, I thought the information was valuable and hope you enjoy the article as much as I did!
“If you’ve never taken a web-based course you don’t know what you do in the online classroom, you don’t know how to use the tools in the online classroom; you don’t know how to do the equivalent of how to raise your hand.” So says Danielle Karpus, Distance Learning Support Specialist at Cuyahoga Community College.
Cuyahoga is Ohio’s oldest and largest multi-campus community college with about 10,000 online students, many of whom were entering these classes with no idea of what to expect.
To address this problem, Karpus and the distance learning team at Cuyahoga created an online orientation online orientation program for students.
1. Move from in-person to online orientation- Cuyahoga started by doing in-person orientation sessions in the classroom, but met with student complaints. “We had students saying ‘I signed up to take a web-based course, I don’t want to be coming to campus,’ Karpus says. “That’s when we started playing around with virtual orientation tools.”
2. Logistics- Karpus conducts the virtual orientation live, in her office with a webcam and headset. She records each session, so that it can be offered to students any time they log in. There is a link to register for in person sessions, but there is always a link to a recorded virtual session.
3. Convenient scheduling- Not only did the students want virtual orientations, they want them at times that were convenient for them. They don’t want them from 8:30 to 5 when they’re working, so Cuyahoga has taken to scheduling orientations in the evening and even on the weekend.
4. Hands-on training- Students are surveyed after every orientation. Part of the feedback Karpus and her team got from the students was that it was helpful to watch the instructor showing them how to use Blackboard, but they wanted to try it themselves. So the distance learning group created a sample site called “Blackboard for You” to give students some hands-on experience.
5. Keep students engaged- When Karpus runs a session she starts with a pre-formulated curriculum that’s about 40 minutes long. Then she opens it up to the students to allow some interactivity—she solicits feedback on any questions they may have, and what they didn’t understand.
“It’s important during a virtual orientation to have a way to see if they’re paying attention,” Karpus says. If she has a small group she can give them power to use the whiteboard. She’s also experimenting with a phone bridge, to allow students to call in during a session rather than just using text-based chat.
6. Show an impact on retention- Every public college and university is feeling the pressure to show increased student retention, student success and performance. Karpus is in the middle of a research project to determine if orientation makes a difference in a academic performance and online orientation rates. She’s at the data-gathering stage, and she will be doing focus groups with students who go through orientation.
Excerpted from 10 Tips for Running an Effective Online LMS Orientation, Distance Education Report, May 15, 2008.
Happy Training,
Carrie PeckComevo LLC
Now it is important to point out that even though this article focuses on online orientation, it is a bit different than what we here at Comevo offer. Our orientation goes one step further – we save your staff even more time because with our @school Online Orientation your staff does not need to be present to administer the orientation. However, I thought the information was valuable and hope you enjoy the article as much as I did!
“If you’ve never taken a web-based course you don’t know what you do in the online classroom, you don’t know how to use the tools in the online classroom; you don’t know how to do the equivalent of how to raise your hand.” So says Danielle Karpus, Distance Learning Support Specialist at Cuyahoga Community College.
Cuyahoga is Ohio’s oldest and largest multi-campus community college with about 10,000 online students, many of whom were entering these classes with no idea of what to expect.
To address this problem, Karpus and the distance learning team at Cuyahoga created an online orientation online orientation program for students.
1. Move from in-person to online orientation- Cuyahoga started by doing in-person orientation sessions in the classroom, but met with student complaints. “We had students saying ‘I signed up to take a web-based course, I don’t want to be coming to campus,’ Karpus says. “That’s when we started playing around with virtual orientation tools.”
2. Logistics- Karpus conducts the virtual orientation live, in her office with a webcam and headset. She records each session, so that it can be offered to students any time they log in. There is a link to register for in person sessions, but there is always a link to a recorded virtual session.
3. Convenient scheduling- Not only did the students want virtual orientations, they want them at times that were convenient for them. They don’t want them from 8:30 to 5 when they’re working, so Cuyahoga has taken to scheduling orientations in the evening and even on the weekend.
4. Hands-on training- Students are surveyed after every orientation. Part of the feedback Karpus and her team got from the students was that it was helpful to watch the instructor showing them how to use Blackboard, but they wanted to try it themselves. So the distance learning group created a sample site called “Blackboard for You” to give students some hands-on experience.
5. Keep students engaged- When Karpus runs a session she starts with a pre-formulated curriculum that’s about 40 minutes long. Then she opens it up to the students to allow some interactivity—she solicits feedback on any questions they may have, and what they didn’t understand.
“It’s important during a virtual orientation to have a way to see if they’re paying attention,” Karpus says. If she has a small group she can give them power to use the whiteboard. She’s also experimenting with a phone bridge, to allow students to call in during a session rather than just using text-based chat.
6. Show an impact on retention- Every public college and university is feeling the pressure to show increased student retention, student success and performance. Karpus is in the middle of a research project to determine if orientation makes a difference in a academic performance and online orientation rates. She’s at the data-gathering stage, and she will be doing focus groups with students who go through orientation.
Excerpted from 10 Tips for Running an Effective Online LMS Orientation, Distance Education Report, May 15, 2008.
Happy Training,
Carrie PeckComevo LLC
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