On using an elearning platform
You may think that you don’t need a learning management system (LMS) if you are planning face-to-face training, or that you can get away with having just a content repository such as Box or Dropbox if you are planning a blended course. That’s simply not true! A Learning Management System nowadays serves as complex ecosystem of tools/features that helps the organization or single trainer to:
- organize training activities
- manage elearning courses
- organize classroom training sessions
- store and analyze all training data
While using an LMS, a HR or Training Department benefits from different tools and widgets that help to accomplish different tasks. An LMS is first of all a HR tool, that means that within an LMS you can manage employee data. If you already have a HR tool, you can imagine the two systems as a unique integrated environment. But an LMS is also a system to manage content, and not only “learning“ content, but also documentation. Within an LMS, you will find tools to upload content, classify it and share with different groups of users. But you will also be able to create catalogues of courses and learning plans.
One specific function of an LMS is the management of training activities using a set of features explicitly for that purpose. You can plan and schedule training sessions, assign a teacher or tutor to individual sessions, define the basic equipment/tools for each class (both face-to-face and virtual), and you can track participation for each activity.
Because data is important for companies, an LMS is a place where all data related to training and users is stored and made available for analysis. That means that by using an LMS you can also accomplish all compliance requirements.
Virtual vs live, face-to-face training sessions
Whatever learning plan you have designed, you know that you can manage it within an LMS. It doesn’t matter if the training activities are not all online, you can use the tools and features of an LMS to simplify and streamline the training process. First of all you can use the user database to create groups of learners and assign the teacher role to specific users, and you can use the notification tool to promote your courses, send invites, share logistics and relevant documents.
If you are planning a 100% face-to-face training activity, out of the tasks already listed, you will be able to: define and share a calendar of events, define a location for each session, assign specific equipment/tools to each class, check the presence of learners in the class, generate training certificates and most importantly, store all information in a database.
If your learning plan is “blended” (meaning you are going to organize both virtual and live classroom training) you will benefit from a single management tool to plan, organize, deliver and track all the training activities. It doesn’t matter if your online courses are synchronous or asynchronous, an LMS offers you the same set of features to manage the entire training process, from start to end.
Don’t forget that you can also use the e-commerce feature in your LMS to sell both virtual and live courses. These kinds of features will help your organization save in terms of training costs and allow you to define a new business model and potentially monetize on your content.
Blended learning
When your learning plan is blended you will enjoy the real power of a modern LMS which will revolutionize, from the core, your training strategy and methods. Imagine that you not only have a management tool or content repository, but also a virtual whiteboard to use in the classroom, a gamification tool to speed up training, an assessment tool to deliver high-level quizzes, and a set of social widgets to build and engage a real learning community.
You can set – and achieve – high learning goals when you design and implement a blended learning plan that incorporates all of the features listed above, and you will save time in accomplishing routine tasks using the LMS as a HR management tool.
Docebo for blended learning
Docebo provides a unique set of features to allow trainers to design and plan effective blended learning. All the functions available within Docebo are shared between online and classroom in order to have an integrated environment for users (whilst administrators have a unique dashboard to work from). If you want to know more, you can activate a trial, test all the apps you need (ILT, Catalogue and Power users apps for example) and create a powerful simulation of a blended training plan.
Test-drive Docebo for blended learning for 14-days free!