Due to the Corona virus, presence appointments are still frequently canceled – now trainers need to act quickly! We show five quick and easy ways to create content for your online training without presence.

1. Digitalizing Workshops and Live Coaching

Let's start directly with the content that represents the biggest challenge for many trainers: How can you actually bring your "live" content live into an online training? Often, tools can only do one or the other: either create learning content or plan live sessions (for example, Go2Webinar). However, there is a simple trick that works very well with blink.it:

Use a provider for digital meetings, for example Zoom. In the free version of Zoom, you can manage up to 100 participants, conduct 40-minute group meetings, and record your meetings – which is very practical since you can also make the recordings available later in the course.

Simply integrate the link to the digital meeting room into a learning unit, so your participants can access it at the right moment. Of course, you could also send the link to the meeting via email. However, integrating it directly into the online training provides your participants with all the information at a glance, and nothing can get lost. This makes it clearer for your participants (and for you).

Example: This is how easy it is to create a digital meeting room in online training. // Source: blink.it

2. Materials that are (still) not digital:

You might be using classic manuals, information sheets, or sketches for your training. To offer these materials in online training, you can usually digitize them easily with your smartphone:

In the app store, there is a huge selection of scanner apps that allow you to turn all kinds of documents directly into images or PDFs using your smartphone. Some apps even have a special mode for whiteboards to securely digitize notes or diagrams.

You can find a selection of scanner apps here: The best scanner apps for Android and iOS – surely there’s one that suits you.

3. Materials in PDF or Word format

Do you already have your documents as PDFs or in Word document format? Wonderful, because these formats can be integrated directly into almost all modern LMS or learning platforms or attached as a download for your participants.

However, for Word materials (.doc/.docx), you should note that an Office program is necessary to open them. But almost every device, whether laptop or smartphone, has a PDF reader. Therefore, you should convert Word documents into PDFs.

Large PDFs, such as manuals with many pages and topics, should be divided into several learning units to avoid overwhelming your participants. For this, you can use Adobe Reader to split the PDF – or, if you need to do it quickly, simply take screenshots of the pages and use the images as individual learning units.

4. PowerPoint Presentations

Do you have a PowerPoint presentation that you hold "live" at the beginning of your training? Or does a presentation accompany your entire training? Then use this presentation for creating your online training as well:

In modern learning systems like blink.it, you can easily upload PowerPoint presentations as a learning unit. Again, if there are many slides with different topics, divide the content for your online training.

If explanations from you are also needed for the presentation, record your screen, for example with Camtasia or Screencastify, while playing the presentation. Talk through a headset or the microphone of your laptop to add suitable "live explanations". You then upload the finished recording with audio commentary to your course – ideally divided into several short videos, each 2-5 minutes long.

5. Impulses, Exercises, and Short Explanations

Small impulses for exercises or explanations for tasks can be recorded quickly and easily as short videos. You don't need a big studio for that: your smartphone is enough. If you want even better quality, we recommend the smallest studio in the world – made up of a tripod, smartphone holder, light, and microphone.

With the smallest studio in the world, you can easily create short videos for online training with your smartphone.

Tip: You can download the list of all parts for the smallest studio in the world here as a PDF: Purchase recommendation: The blink.it kit for videos on smartphones.

Record your impulses and explanations just as you would normally communicate them to your participants in person. The videos don't have to be perfect! According to a study by TechSmith, a good sound and informative content are crucial for explanatory videos. You can find more tips on how to create good explanatory videos for your online training in the article on the video study.

As you can see, digitizing learning content for online training is not difficult at all. With a scanner app, a meeting tool like Zoom, and blink.it as a platform, you can create and transform your learning content into online training in no time, even without any presence events!