Content recycling at the click of a mouse – trainers working with blended learning can benefit from this advantage. With online courses, you can save a lot of time: Copy and recycle individual modules or even entire courses with just a few clicks. In this article, learn about our best practices for the reusability of online courses!
Save Time with Blended Learning
The challenge: You want to give a course that you designed in a similar way a few years ago. Now, you're looking for the materials from back then and trying to remember which building blocks you used in what way for the course. This costs time and nerves.
When using online courses, this work is eliminated. Here you can find and copy individual building blocks with just a few clicks using the right software – and the framework for the new training is ready! You might still need to make a few minor adjustments, depending on how much content is still current.
Find and duplicate files and content within seconds: This fundamental functionality of digital tools is a clear advantage over traditional face-to-face training. The analog world, unlike the digital one, is bound to time and place.
This doesn’t mean you should forgo classic live training. Face-to-face communication also has its own advantages that digital devices cannot fulfill. With the concept of blended learning, you combine both forms of learning and gain all the advantages for yourself.
Blended Learning = Presence + E-Learning
You can find quite a bit about the term blended learning in our blog. It is based on the idea that trainers and coaches support their participants through e-learning in addition to traditional live training (presence). This combination creates many advantages for everyone involved compared to using a single form of learning.
For example, we recently asked trainer Normen Ulbrich in the blog what excites him about the blended learning concept. His answer: At the beginning, you need a certain portfolio of online content – later, you can easily copy these and reassemble them. Even if a module was lacking during a face-to-face training, Normen can integrate this without much effort in his online academy.
All Advantages of Blended Learning for Trainers at a Glance:
You gain reusability
You gain media diversity
You gain a new source of income
You gain new customer groups
You gain measurability
You gain a unique selling point
You gain flexibility
Blended Learning is for Trainers Like a Spice Rack for Chefs
To create a new course for new customers, you can as a trainer copy and reuse any existing online content or even entire courses from your inventory. The entire training thus becomes a sort of spice rack that keeps filling up, allowing you to create new dishes all the time.
Blended learning is the spice rack for trainers: Through the digital storage of content, trainers have a whole series of building blocks after a while that they can reassemble.
Utilizing Recurring Patterns of Training
Getting to know – Introducing – Deepening – Transfer? You probably structure your training sessions according to similar patterns:
At the beginning, there is usually a personal welcome and a joint introduction.
Then comes a learning phase where you first cover introductory content until you can finally dive deeper into the topic.
And towards the end of the training, you probably want to summarize the content with your participants and ensure the transfer to practice. You might also implement some sort of final exam in your training.
However you design your training – some elements repeat themselves and give you, as a trainer, a personal touch and a recognizable feature.
Tip for Implementation: Create Course Templates
You can use these patterns with blended learning to save time: Create a template for your online accompaniment once and then use it again and again. For the template, you can leave out the content and instead write short placeholder texts about what you want to do at this point in the training.
Example of a course template for training with blink.it: This way, you can keep reusing the framework and save time for other things.
With your participants and your customers, you leave a professional, well-structured impression. And at the same time, you save a lot of time.
Tip for Implementation: Copy and Adjust Content
Trainers also know this situation: You have a new training session with new participants, but some content is so essential that you use it repeatedly. In the phase of e-learning, the digital storage and copy function helps you again.
If you always start with a personal welcome and introduction of yourself, you can film a video once and reuse it. If you want to additionally tailor the welcome to your new participants, you can save time here too and add a few lines above the video.
Example of an Individual Welcome Text Above the Reused Selfie Video:
Welcome to our online accompaniment to the training “Better Meetings”! Before our meeting on September 10, I would like to introduce myself briefly. Please watch the short video and then introduce yourself in the comments so that I can get to know you too. I look forward to our training!
Even when copying and reusing individual content, participants and customers will predominantly notice one thing: That you are using high-quality content at the right moment. Whether and when you have used this content before is only relevant for you.
This is How It Works with blink.it
Of course, reusing complete courses and individual content is also quite simple with blink.it. The online platform is designed so that you can work as efficiently as possible as a trainer.
Are you curious about how the copy function works with blink.it? Then request your personal demo course now and test the software yourself as an admin!
Are you already a customer and want to know specifically how to use the copy function? You can find the answer on our support pages.
Let's conclude with a little game: Take five minutes to think about which structural patterns you repeatedly use in your training or coaching sessions. Then draw a similar course template like the following in another five minutes, putting the individual blocks in the correct order:
Have fun saving time!
