Go To Training: a new e-learning option?
Posted by Melanie in 
I woke up bleary-eyed this morning to sit in on a webinar explaining the new GO TO TRAINING – Online Training Made Easy.
Why would people be interested in an online learning tool? In a snap poll the reasons included having to do more with less (72%), being able to access more people with training (72%) and being able to deliver training more quickly (58%). So savings (time and money) and reach are the biggest motivators. For me, being able to deliver training in smaller chunks at times that more people are able to be available is also a key reason. For example, this tool enables you to deliver a 5 hour session on a weekend, a 2 hour session in the evening or a 1 hour session at lunchtime. You save on room, catering and facility costs, travel time, travel expenses, and you can deliver with just one person.
Firstly, it was a good product presentation and it did make me interested to learn more. Here are some key points for you. …
The product comes from the stable of GO TO MEETING and GO TO WEBINAR by Citrix. A lot of people already use GTW to deliver some learning. At AITD I know we use this tool for teaching how to run webinars and learn about Social Media. In fact, the people who may be most interested in this product are those who are already delivering training online. Here’s how the three products differ click any image for a larger view)
Schedule Sessions
Once you login to your account you are taken to a Control Panel. Your menu options reside on the left hand side and you can navigate to any of these items Schedule a Session, Manage the library of materials, Manage Recordings of previous sessions, View History or Manage Reports. First page view after login gives you access to your future and past training sessions. By clicking on a session you can go straight to it to modify anything or you can start to set up a new session by clicking the tab at the bottom.
Add New Course to Schedule
Setting up a new session is quite easy. Administration-wise, what can takes weeks to organise can be done in minutes through the system and much of the communication is automated eg email invites, reminders etc. For me, that was great to see. As a boutique training provider, time saved is highly valuable and I can invest that time into developing content and working closer with clients.
Once you set up the session details, you can edit the course itself. As you have your course content compiled (offline of course) it’s an easy process to upload and define what course materials apply to a session. You can define what tests you may want to include, what polls you might want to have, etc.
Register Participants
Adding the registration page is easy and you can define what info you want attendees to enter. And once people register, all the work in compiling attendee lists etc is done behind the scenes for you. No ore typing up lists. Reminders can be set up easily. If you need them to do a pre-test, set that up and it’s arranged automatically. Cool.
Predefined fields or custom fields are available to make registration suit you and your organisation. Make it simple or comprehensive for people to register. Ask pre=condition questions. Arrange tests, opinion polls, have them review material whatever. You control it here.
Registration is instantly online. People are either directed to a webpage or you can insert a link to the page in an email invitation (which can be automagically sent!). This is what the participant might see when they arrive at the registration page. All the info is seamlessly blended in the backend for you.
Go To Training then confirms the registration of the delegate for you. It delivers a confirmation page and you can control what is included. They get instructions on how to join the session, what to do beforehand and where to go for questions. If you want to do some pre-work, let them know here!
Course Listing
In Go To Training you build a Course Catalogue which is available to people to see which course to enrol in. Ideal for compliance training, accreditation courses, CPD offerings and general course options available. You can set up a series of sessions or include everything you’ve got!
Content
In your Admin Control Panel one of your menu items is Library. This is where you store your course content items. These can be anything you can put online – PDF files, PPT slides, Audio, Video, Word docs, Web Links, Whatever. GTT has a storage limit of 2gb per ‘trainer’ registered 
under the Account. So if you have trainers in the account you get 10gb. That’s a fair whack of storage (unless you use lots of audio and video which will suck it up quickly!). All or any of this material can be made available to attendees Pre-course, During course or Post course – as determined by you. Tests and Evaluations you design are included in separate tabs. You can only upload 300mb each time you upload but so long as you don’t go over your 2gb limit you’re sweet. If you think you will go over your limit you may want to load audio and video elsewhere and just put the link to them in the Library.
Tests
Sample test pre course. Tests can be made available pre/post or during … or all three! You can set up multiple choice, short answer, long answer, true/false. Each test can have up to 25 questions. You can set a series of tests for a session. You can decide if you want to give participants the right answers after scoring, give them their scores, or not. It’s a reasonably flexible test system.
Reports
Under the Reports menu item, there are three categories of reports 
Attendee, Tests and Evaluations. The inbuilt reports are very accessible and the option to choose a date range is great. If you notice a particular question in a test is not getting the right answers you can review what’s changed and tweak your course or test to hit the mark better. It may be the question is clear to you but not the participants.
Summary of GoToTraining
Overall, the Key Benefits of Go To Training are these:
- ease of use, especially if you are familiar with webinar technology
- flexibility in modifying, adding and scheduling content and sessions
- frequency of training delivery unlimited
- reach more people, especially those who geographically miss out on training
- deliver engaging training and monitor attention/interactivity
- save on training costs – facility costs, admin costs, travel costs and more
- enable learning even if people miss the session
Online learning as we all know is not the be-all and end-all of delivering training. It will never replace face to face learning just as recruitment technology hasn’t replaced the need for face to face interviews. What online learning does is enable more people to access learning who were limited before. It enables learning to be delivered in time frames that suit the learner. It enables learners to focus on the interactivity and content rather than the admin to support the learning. So it is a great adjunct to existing training options and in some cases may be the major training delivery mode for regional staff. The product offerings in online delivery keeps getting better and GoToTraining is a terrific extension that integrates e-learning within the constraints of the product itself. It doesn’t have all the bells and whistles that a dedicated e-learning tool may have but it sure is a great solution for those who don’t have the infrastructure or resources to build a dedicated LMS.
Get a Trial of Go To Training
Want to have a go? Get a free 30 day trial. Just hop online and try it out. You have to give all your details and Citrix will call you/email to make arrangements. Sign up for the trial or hopefully this review will give you enough to go on for now. Click here for the trial.
What a Cool Tool
I came across this site purely by default, as I often do. What it does is take any word you choose and instantly populate in graphical terms, all the antonyms and synonyms associated with it. For example, I used my company name, “Natural” and it produced this brilliant graphic with related nouns and adjectives. So cool! Practical and pretty.
Click on the image to see a larger version.
What could you use it for?
- Explaining terms.
- Communication courses.
- Definitions.
- Smarten up your next presentation.
A myriad of uses really. A cool tool that’s quick to use and needs no prior knowledge! Love it.
See it in action yourself at http://www.visualthesaurus.com/
Email and SMS Language
Shorthand has been around since before the days of Pitman I’m sure, and every generation seems to invent its own language. Lately in my training sessions I’ve noted an increase in younger delegates texting away during sessions (that’s another topic!). I’ve noticed they use short codes the same as the ones in Email, Chat programs, Forums, SMS’s and other space and attention is at a premium.
If, like me, you’ve felt like a dinosaur because you couldn’t work out what that abbreviated language meant, then here is a post that should enlighten you.
| <G> | Grinning |
| <J> | Joking |
| <L> | Laughing |
| <S> | Smiling |
| <Y> | Yawning |
| AAMOF | As A Matter Of Fact |
| AFAIC | As Far As I Can… |
| ASAP | As Soon As Possible |
| BBFN | Bye Bye For Now |
| BFN | Bye For Now |
| BTW | By The Way |
| BYKT | But You Knew That |
| CMIIW | Correct Me If I’m Wrong |
| EOL | End Of Lecture |
| FAQ | Frequently Asked Questions |
| FITB | Fill In The Blank |
| FWIW | For What It’s Worth |
| FYI | For Your Information |
| GBU | God Bless You |
| GMTA | Great Minds Think Alike |
| HTH | Hope This Helps |
| IAC | In Any Case |
| IAE | In Any Event |
| ICL | In Christian Love |
| IMCO | In My Considered Opinion |
| IMHO | In My Humble Opinion |
| IMNSHO | In My Not So Humble Opinion |
| IMO | In My Opinion |
| IOW | In Other Words |
| LMAO | Laughing My Arse Off |
| LOL | Lots Of Laughter |
| MGB | May God Bless |
| MHOTY | My Hat’s Off To You |
| NRN | No Reply Necessary |
| OIC | Oh, I See |
| OTOH | On The Other Hand |
| PTL | Praise The Lord |
| ROF | Rolling On the Floor |
| ROFL | Rolling On the Floor Laughing |
| ROTFL | Rolling On The Floor Laughing |
| ROFLMAO | Rolling On the Floor Laughing My Arse Off |
| RSN | Real Soon Now |
| RTFM | Read The F*** Manual |
| SITD | Still In The Dark |
| TTFN | Ta Ta For Now |
| YMMV | Your Mileage May Vary |
| TIA | Thanks In Advance |
| TIC | Tongue In Cheek |
| TTYL | Talk To You Later |
| TYVM | Thank You Very Much |
| WYSIWYG | What you See Is What You Get |
Maybe we should start including some of these abbreviations in our training materials to engage Gen Z or whatever we’re up to! Scarily I’ve noticed I use 2 and 4 instead of “to” and “for” in my flip charting!
I’m sure there are more abbreviations .. know any?
IAC, folks, HTH. BFN!
Technology … love it!
There are some exciting new web applications floating around cyberspace these days. Here are a few I’ve been exploring lately:
Dokeos.com- an e-learning tool that is open source (ie free and collaboratively built). It looks very comprehensive having used the online demo. At some point I may download it and see how it works under the hood. An easy solution to play with. I found Moodle complex to get going but that was when I looked at it in the early days so it may be more user-friendly now. I’ve also looked at LAMS and that seems great too but again not easy to use for the average-joey. Dokeo looks easy to use – I just haven’t spent enough time to work out how to put the content together yet!
dimdim.com – a cool web conferencing tool that does not require anyone anywhere to download anything. And it lets you schedule a meeting or do one instantly. It will also send reminders and notices. It even lets you embed the invite into your website. Looks really cool and I’m going to test it out with my AITD buddies to give it a live workout.
sugarcrm.com – an open source customer relationship manager (eg like Act! or Goldmine! or SalesForce etc). I tried the online demo and it is a very big program. Does lots but may be too comprehensive for this little black duck that just wants something relatively simple that will manage email campaigns and newsletter without all the sales management heavy tools. Still, it’s free and seems stable so may be great for some.
sliderocket.com – way cool. great website. am I finding a tool that I don’t really have a use for? Don’t know but I’m going to play ‘cos it looks so sexy!
blurb.com- this look a great tool to put together a book very easily and it provides a publishing option where you can order the book. I’ll let you know when I’ve written mine!
lectureshare.com- seems ok. Can make material public or private. Good to refer participants to after training, or to use as supplemental material after an event.
kineo.com – A funky UK e-learning company. I am looking at being their Aussie agent – contact me for details.
sproutinc.com – rich media campaigns and viral emails – cool site but has now changed from free to fee. Would have been good to try before giving over credit card details.
Here’s a great source of tools and all things e-learning – http://janeknight.typepad.com/pick/2007/01/elearning_for_f.html
and her directory is at http://www.c4lpt.co.uk/Directory/
Welcome!
