YourClassroom.Com

Yourclassroom.com is growing. Now we have the Northwest Education and Training Institute at nweti.com; we have the Home Builders University at www.homebuildersuniversity.com; there are the homeschools and independent learning groups at schoolenrichment.org; we have our inhouse special classes at campus.yourclassroom.com; and of course there  is businessnorthwest.org for conferences and seminars.   Several more schools will be opening at the first of the year. Businesses and life long learners are taking charge of their learning activities, and reaching out to the best instructors they can find. Our best teachers are those who know there stuff the best and are willing to share.

Wonderearth partners is working with a variety of experts to bring to small businesses a to the point conference on the new world of carbon credits. Don’t miss this, go to http://www.businessnorthwest.org to get in and be ready

Life long learning is a great thing, I still can’t get enough of it myself.

Now, elements of life long learning are established by legislation, called Continuing Education Hours for contractor licensing.  In order to renew a large menu of licenses, businesses need to document these life long learning experiences.  I hate it when someone tells me I have to do something when it just seems right to begin with.

Anyway, yourclassroom.com is coming to the rescue of those micro businesses who are struggling with the escalating prices of these requirements.  Loss time on the job, high cost at the local college, the burdensome grant requirements and then the record keeping and budgeting.

Businesses training businesses is a good way to go, now we need to put it all into a fully functional management system to reduce loss time and costs.

http://jermvest.com/blog/2009/02/7-sins-of-online-video-instructional-design/

registrations are starting to roll in…

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/Imagine-Your-Reality/2009/07/01/Interview-with-Tom-Cochrane-of-TKC-solutions

Host Name: Imagine Your Reality
Show Name:
Interview with Tom Cochrane of TKC solutions

Length: 1 hr
Description:
I will be interviewing Tom Cochrane of TKC solutions about the upcoming technology and business virtual conference his hosting as well as how businesses can continue to adapt to the changing economy

http://thejournal.com/articles/2009/03/04/the-k12-web-20-debate-learning-to-communicate.aspx

Sorry for being so quiet.  We’ve been putting a lot of efforts into a conference we are co-sponsoring.  Hopefully we are on the downhill sde of the work…here’s the info.  Hope you can attend! (all online)

July 9th – 11th for live Q&A with the speakers!

http://www.businessnorthwest.org/conference/

http://www.businessnorthwest.org/conference/summer_flyer.html

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A topic that has really come to light for us lately is the improved availability opportunity for an organization by adding eLearning to their portfolio of offerings.    It’s not a ground breaking thought, but I view it a little differently now because a new term (for me) is now attached:   “sales revenues”

“So what”, right?  For a business or organization which has not been providing online training to it’s customers, this becomes an incredibly potent new revenue stream.  You are now able to provide 80% of the value of your trainings at 20% of the cost to deliver. (no don’t quote me on those percentages since it’s topic dependent!)  Anyone with experience in providing training will agree that you can’t replace “live” and the value that comes with it.  Then again, for 80-90% of what you are doing…knowledge transfer… who cares?  Charge less since the customer isn’t getting the full experience.

How about an example?  I’ll use one of our classes:

Monitoring Networks and Systems with Open Source Tools
Length – 8 weeks (1 live 1 hr presentation per week)
Student Cost – $1000
Production Cost – $700 (paying the trainer for live time, plus class management, plus the tool)

Self-Directed Monitoring Networks and Systems with Open Source Tools
Length – 8 weeks (Instructor available for live Q&A for 30 mins every other week)
(Video recordings of the 8 live presentations available for viewing)
Student Cost – $700
Production Cost – $300 (paying for the live time, plus class management, plus the tool)

At a $300 difference in cost to the students, there is an entirely new audience that might purchase this class.  In addition, after initial setup, it’s much less expensive to run the class and has much higher profit margins.  Depending on ‘live time, plus class management’ means for your operations, those numbers can look even better for the business.  Yes, I’m completely ignoring the costs for initial setup, but the only real difference is recording the live video sessions from an existing class and manipulating them in to the correct form for the self-directed class. (4-8 hrs of work tops for most situations)

So, in summary, adding eLearning to your portfolio can potentially…..

• Create new revenue streams
• Improve availability to your customers
• Decrease production costs
• Deliver consistent trainings to a customer’s workforce (what about new hires AFTER you gave the training?)
• Create a sense of community around a topic, enabling your customers to support each other (chat, discussion boards, etc) where appropriate

Many businesses such as Landscapers and Nurserymen need to take Continuing Education Courses to keep theircertification current.  Soon, a number of long time landscape contractors and nursery owners will be posting classes that can be used for that purpose.

Anyone out there who has a need for this kind of service can now contact www.yourclassroom.com to request highly qualified instructors who can cover most anything from Accounting to ZooKeeper.

We will be calling it the School for Professional Development and Continuing Education.