Category: Insights
Happy Thanksgiving!
Thanksgiving is upon us, and for those of us in the United States, that means it’s that time of the year for “holiday hours”. We wanted to update everyone on LearnKey’s hours for the week:
Thursday 11/28 – Friday 11/29
LearnKey offices are closed for the Thanksgiving holiday
After that, LearnKey offices return to normal business hours: offices are closed Saturday 11/30 and Sunday 12/1, and re-open on Monday 12/2 (Sales and Client Services: 8am – 5pm MT, Tech Support: 7am – 6pm MT)
We wish everyone celebrating a happy Thanksgiving, and hope everyone has plenty to be thankful for!
CEO Open Letter: “Vet to Tech” Program helping U.S. Veterans get Job Ready
Just over two years ago I took over the role as CEO of LearnKey, Inc, a trusted educator for over 26 years. Our educational courseware has helped over a million students to acquire professional development education, career ready skills, and industry recognized IT certifications for career development, new job preparation and or advancement.
Looking back, one of the greatest experiences and most exciting things to see has been the creation of our LearnKey Veteran Services team – a three year old dedicated group of support and career counselors within the company who currently support over 100 U.S. veterans transitioning from the military who are ready to work in entry and advanced IT Technical Support positions. Most of these veterans started gaining IT experience in the service, and are now completing six to eight months of online education and achieving globally recognized IT certifications from CompTIA, Cisco, Microsoft, ISC², Mile2, and more. Most of them will have at least one (if not multiple) certifications in the coming weeks and they will be looking for employment opportunities.
We are not a recruiting company, and want no fee – just the opportunity to help these great job candidates, who served our country and are job ready, find rewarding IT career pathways in U.S. companies.
Help us find our returning veterans career paths – If you own, lead, or work for a company interested in interviewing these veterans and quality tech support candidates, please contact Brian Tremelling, LearnKey Veteran Services Program Manager (btremelling@learnkey.com) directly. Additionally, hiring veterans can allow employers to take advantage of tax incentives (when applicable) and many of the veterans who go through our program qualify.
Again, please join us in supporting our transitioning troops by interviewing one of our job ready veteran candidates for your IT support needs. There is no cost to tap into this network of talented individuals, only opportunity.
Thank you and with kind regards,
Jeff Coruccini
CEO LearnKey, INC.
New Releases for the week of 11/4/2013
We at LearnKey have been busy preparing new courses and learning materials for you. In the past week, we released two items:
Routing and Switching Fundamentals 2013, Part 1
In the first of our Routing and Switching courses, LearnKey expert Tom Carpenter teaches learners how to plan, configure, and operate simple WAN and switched LAN networks using Cisco products. Users will gain skills such as implementing Cisco 2800 and 3800 routers, routing techniques, and tips and tricks for keeping routers in top running condition.
- Learn fundamentals to successfully build a simple network
- Understand and optimized best routing techniques
- Tips and tricks to keep your routers functioning at top performance
Visit our website for more information on this course and purchasing information.
Dreamweaver CS6 Workbook
This companion workbook to our Dreamweaver CS6 course includes over 90 pages of activities, questions, and projects to aid in bringing LearnKey courseware to the classroom environment. The workbook is included with all education license purchases of our Dreamweaver CS6 course.
View the Dreamweaver CS6 Workbook sample
Stay tuned for more releases coming soon!
Lights, Camera, and Action!
Have you ever wondered what it takes to produce and film a LearnKey course? If you have, today is your lucky day! We are going to share what our authors do while filming inside our production studio in Salt Lake City, Utah. We are going to be highlighting the work of Michael Meskers, the LearnKey expert behind our new Excel 2013 course, and freshly filmed Excel Formulas and Outlook 2013 courses.
Check out our course release schedule to find out when these courses will be available.
So what happens between deciding to produce a course and filming it? Well, it all starts with a good game plan, or officially called the course outline. Michael is a long-time LearnKey author and has filmed many courses with us, the most recent being Outlook 2013. Before arriving at the studio, Michael spent several months planning and preparing the look and feel of the course. One of his most important tasks during this time is to make sure all objectives are covered, allowing our students to prepare and pass industry certifications.
The next step is flying into the studio and getting to work early in the morning. When Michael walks into the studio first thing in the morning, there is a computer set up with the software he will need for the shoot that day. The studio crew then places a wireless microphone on him, which is followed by an audio check. Michael likes to warm up his voice with funny jokes and an occasional song, such as selections from Fiddler on the Roof. Once the audio check is good, we move on and make sure we are capturing the computer screen correctly.
Now it’s time for the fun part – we start filming. Michael is in the studio presenting the course information in front of our green screen with our camera man filming him. Back in the control room, the crew has the outline and the course objectives in hand. As he teaches, the crew is listening and checking off where each objective is covered. The crew is also watching sound levels and checking out the computer capture. If something goes wrong, we have to go back and do it all over again.
Once Michael has completed teaching the course, we go back and film the headshots. We place Michael in front of a green screen and then key out the headshots later with a cool background. Filming the headshots are usually the most entertaining time of the shoot. We love it when the author accidentally makes a mistake, which can give us the giggles. Michael is really good in front of the camera and rarely makes a mistake, but when he does make the occasional flub, it’s always funny, which is why shooting the headshots is the crew’s and author’s favorite part!
Now you know what goes into filming our courses. As you can tell, it’s a lot of work and a lot of fun.
Justin time LearnKey training
It was a great experience watching Justin Walker one of our LearnKey Courseware experts talk to a group of students from Fountain Hills High School in Fountain Hills Arizona.
These students are wanting to learn Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator, and earn their certifications. We had a simple message for them – Certifications can and will have a positive impact on your career and college ready preparation. Industry experts now state 89% of IT hiring managers use “Certifications” as a filter for prioritizing resumes. Once in, career professionals who keep their certification track up-to-date earn on average 26% more than their peers.
It was a fun day speaking with four classes as they were good listeners and truly wanted to learn. Another benefit we shared with them is they get a chance to learn “distance learning” by using LearnKey courseware. Also, lets not forget that the teachers we met were fantastic. Thanks again to Bonnie Perkins, Jennifer Ray (CTE Leader) and Karla Primosch for allowing us to come in and speak.
Its great to see BLS/LearnKey team members out talking with students and teachers getting their input so we can make better courses! Thanks again for the great work Justin!
Serving Those Who Serve
I have only been at LearnKey for a short time, but I am very excited to have the opportunity to be working with veterans on a daily basis as part of the LearnKey Veteran Services team. Being a veteran myself and attending school full-time, I know how important it is to get an education and further your career.
When I first started at LearnKey my responsibility was to contact veterans who use our courseware and check on the status of their education twice a month. It was very rewarding for me to see the awesome changes in these veterans’ lives because of what they were learning from our courses. The more time I spent talking to them, the more excited I was about sharing the education resources we provide to my fellow battle buddies and all veterans. Now I have the opportunity to travel throughout the country seeking out veterans and spending time with them individually, introducing them to our exceptional educational programs.
Bringing Learnkey to the Philippines
Over the last couple of months, we have been working with educators in the Philippines setting up a remote LearnKey enterprise. In a nutshell, the objective of this project was to create a standalone solution for our OnlineExpert.com website. This means a server was loaded with our code base, media content, and database information so that students could connect directly to the server to access our courseware instead of connecting over the Internet.
This project was successful due to the work of many people. I wanted to share my experience of working with this enormous project.
This project was a great experience for our IT department. Due to the 14-hour time difference, we all experienced many late night-work sessions. We had the challenge of helping obtain servers by working through vendors in the Philippines and also assisting our contact at LGSMI. Once we had the servers ordered, I helped our developers get the code ready to load onto the servers. The primary challenge was to take a website and the associated database and make it run off a local intranet environment from the two servers we secured in the Philippines. This also meant we had to load all of the media for our courses onto these two servers. Another challenge we faced was unreliable connections over the Internet, which prevented us from transferring the data over the Internet. We overcame this by loading everything that would be needed for the servers onto an external hard drive and sending it to Manila, Philippines. Our CEO, Jeff Coruccini, flew the external hard drive to Manila and transferred all of the data to our new servers.
So far, I have outlined a lot of the challenges we faced with this project. I don’t want you to get the idea that this project was only difficult. We have learned a great deal about our own website and database and how they talk to each other. Our developers, who were not involved in the original site design, were particularly helpful with working through the code changes and server/network setup. They assisted us in configuring the server to properly load balance the traffic so we could ensure the absolute best experience for the students who would be using this system. They also got into the switch and modem configuration so that we could allow students to log in via a wireless network and access our courses.
The most valuable lesson through all of this has been that we can take on a challenge of this magnitude and still provide our customers with the best learning experience out there. The dedication and skills of our production and software development teams were put to the test, and they passed with flying colors. We are excited for what the future holds in the fast-paced field of eLearning, and I look forward to the ways that LearnKey will be championing the innovations of that field.
Learning Photoshop CS6
Last month I was presented with what seemed like a daunting task. I was asked to learn Photoshop CS6 and take the ACA certification exam, so I could assist with Photoshop CS6 training for teachers in New York. I had never used Photoshop before so I was really nervous about having to learn this new skill and then assist in training others in this program. I am not ACA certified yet, but I have learned first hand how valuable our training is when learning Photoshop CS6.
As I prepare to take the ACA exam to become Photoshop CS6 Certified I want to share six things I have learned that will help anyone who is using LearnKey training to prepare for certification exams.
Scheduled site maintenance
We are undergoing some scheduled site maintenance this weekend, and as a result, many of our sites will not be functioning between Friday 5/31 5pm Pacific time and Saturday 6/1 10pm Pacific time.
The following sites will be affected:
LearnKey
LearnKey Blog
LearnKey Veteran Services
LearnKey Product Registration
Better Learning Systems
Know Your Talents
All sites should be functioning again on Saturday 6/1 at 10pm Pacific time.
Cool under pressure – That’s Tayce
Every month I get to brag about one of our team members at Better Learning Systems. Our newest employee of the month is known for leading multiple projects, always being clear and concise with his communications, and demonstrating the unique ability to maintain composure each and every day. That’s right, LearKey’s version of “cool hand Luke” goes to Tayce Robinson!
Not only has he demonstrated his core values, he has done it taking on a new lead role earlier this year as well. Here is what his Senior Lead Brittni Traynor had to say:
“I have been able to work closely with Tayce for over a year now and firmly believe he is the embodiment of the LearnKey core values- Ease, Trust, and Value. While working here, he has been perusing a master’s degree, and has had his share of communal and other professional obligations, but you would never know he is being pulled in so many different directions. He is always willing to take on new challenges and meet increasingly tighter deadlines. He is the Senior Writer of the Writing Team and he leads his team to success on a daily basis. He has the patience of a saint. It doesn’t matter the situation or the amount of pressure, he simply nods his head, shrugs his shoulders, and gets the project done. It is for these reasons, among a long list of others, that he exemplary team player in the Cedar City office. I am not sure what we would do without him”.