To create effective training with online courses, you need not only time and suitable tools but also practice. Christine Eybe from the successful training institute “Team Lösungsmanagement” shares in the interview her experiences from creating 100 online courses with blink.it. Learn in the article how online courses have become a salvation during the Corona crisis, as well as three valuable tips for newcomers.

About the person: Christine Eybe has been the owner of Team Lösungsmanagement (TLM) since 1996 and, together with her team, offers training, coaching, and workshops for international corporations and German companies. Since 2003, she has been working online and is responsible for blended learning and the implementation of the TLM blink.it courses.

Ms. Eybe, the training institute Team Lösungsmanagement has existed for 20 years. Two years ago, you started to create your own online courses with blink.it in addition to face-to-face training. What did you hope to achieve with online courses?

We use online courses to enable modern, sustainable, and individually tailored learning to meet the needs of participants. We want to offer coaching components for self-reflection, implement individual learning with need-based content, and extend learning phases over pre- and post-work.

The goal is to improve the implementation and sustainability of our offerings through guided online impulses. And we want to enable self-directed, time- and location-independent learning.

To what extent have these hopes been fulfilled?

All my hopes have been fulfilled! Contacts and participants are thrilled. We received very good feedback from the first course. The only thing I still had to learn was that self-direction in group discussions does not happen automatically. It always requires targeted impulses from us – but then it works excellently!

Why did you specifically choose blink.it as a platform?

Thank you for blink.it! We had been waiting so long for this. Since 2003, I have repeatedly tried various tools and had become increasingly frustrated. A colleague then pointed me to blink.it in 2017, and I am thrilled. I find it visually appealing, and it is great how intuitive everything is. My life has been absolutely eased on the online front due to this.

I would also like to praise the blink.it team at this point. From the first sales conversation to prompt assistance with technical problems, everyone was quick, super nice, and absolutely competent.

What is the division of roles at TLM for the online courses? Who creates the courses, and to what extent are you personally involved?

You caught me – I should have long involved many more employees in the creation of the courses, but I enjoy it so much that I like to do it myself. I create the framework and quickly involve the trainer, whom I then also make the administrator. Together we share the support of the group and do our best to provide all participants with a successful and motivating learning experience.

100 courses in two years is incredibly many! How did the creation of the 99th course differ from that of the first and second courses?

I must honestly admit that it was not the smartest idea to start simultaneously with videoscribe, Powtoon, and several other tools in parallel to blink.it. In the first two courses, I was still struggling and had a slight nervous breakdown because there was so much to learn. But everything fell into place quite quickly, not least because blink.it is so user-friendly.

Which topics do you think are particularly well suited for online courses?

We mainly work in the area of blended learning, and blink.it is suitable for each of my topics. It enhances every training and offers absolute added value. It is particularly helpful for multi-year talent or trainee programs involving many trainers and internal and external contacts. In blink.it, all relevant information is clearly and at a glance accessible for all parties involved – it has become a proper knowledge management system for us.

In the preliminary talks, you mentioned that blink.it has helped you a lot during the time without face-to-face training. What were you able to achieve with TLM using blink.it in the crisis?

Blink.it saved me! Before the crisis, we used blink.it as a blended learning component in about 10% of our training. Now it is 90% of the training. We directly transformed a running executive program into a pure online course with blink.it in March. I created a trial course for our customers and also an exchange course for our trainers. This allowed us to share knowledge easily and learn together. It was particularly helpful that I could create content and courses without contamination even in total lockdown. This kept me busy, and I did not have to think about cancellations of face-to-face training...

Which aspects of blink.it have particularly helped you?

The user-friendly operation is very important. Furthermore, I am also excited about the statistical evaluations. This allows me to support participants individually and set the right impulse at the right place.

Not least due to the current crisis, many further educators are now relying on online offerings. What three tips would you like to give trainers from your experience with 100 courses starting with blink.it?

1. It makes sense to create a trial course on the requested topic for customers who are not yet familiar with blink.it during the acquisition process. Through this, I was able to convince many customers to enhance remote live training online with blink.it.

Reading tip: You can learn more about trial courses for customer acquisition in the article “How to sell more online courses with a demo course.”

2. My tip is blended learning: I find it most helpful to combine blink.it with face-to-face training and virtual training, for example, via MS Teams. This way, participants can work in blink.it whenever they want, wherever they want, and for as long as they want. In the moderated live sessions, we then discuss and deepen what we have learned. We apply it practically, moderate the exchange among the participants, and motivate for further work in blink.it.

Reading tip: You can learn more about the combination of online courses and virtual presence in the article “What is virtual blended learning?”.

3. I think it is important to make an effort: From details like beautiful and meaningful preview images to varied content, even created with Powtoon, for example. As a service, we also always provide participants with documents for download. It is also essential to respond immediately to participants' comments and personally support them with learning impulses.

Reading tip: You can learn more about the appealing design of online courses in the article “In 4 Steps from a Boring Online Course to a Successful Highlight.”