ACTE 2012 Recap

The ACTE conference in Atlanta was a huge hit For LearnKey. Jeff, Lori, Kim, Scott and I were able to re-solidify the fact that we are on the right track. The track of preparing teachers first for certifications and then taking that knowledge gained and marrying it with our award winning full motion video, hands on projects created by teachers that align directly to Adobe and Microsoft objectives, mobile technology alerts and the constant mentoring of teachers so that they are up on technology as well as behavioral assessments to best pinpoint career pathways for students. All these lessons learned over the past 27 years are now a road map for teachers to make sure that each student is successful in their life quest.

It was so good to see school district administrators and teachers embracing the fact that businesses and community partnerships are valuable in many different ways. The more involvement that you have with people from a broad spectrum of knowledge, the better the result is for the students. New and innovative ideas are what is going to drive success in the classroom and ultimately engage and empower the student to go on and do great things.

It was great to see how “Team LearnKey” interacted with partners and clients as well as with one another to bring digital literacy into the classroom.

Oh yeah, we ate a lot of great food and also went to an Atlanta hawks basketball game and had a good time. We were able to sit behind Danny ferry, the Duke “hall of famer” who won the Naismith College Player of the Year and Oscar Robinson Trophy award winner in 1989 and his #35 jersey was retired after his senior season in 1989.

“A” Players- They work at it all the time!

At Better Learning Systems we recently announced the formation of an “A” Team within our LearnKey company who will lead strategic sales in our K-12 vertical. While we are very excited about the group during one of our conversations with a LearnKey team member Justin Walker ( a new member all of 8 months) explaining the realignment details we asked him if he had any questions. He answered “Yes” How can I be a member of the “A” team? The best part of all was when Lori and I heard that response- we both looked at each other and said that is EXACTLY what we expected to hear from Justin. That’s because “A” players work at it all the time and Justin is quickly becoming an “A Player”. He is willing and able to do whatever it takes to be a good team player for the right cause and working his “tail off” (small inside joke).

It is with great pride we announce that Justin Walker is our most recent November/December employee of the month. Over the past eight months Justin has worked extremely hard to learn the elearning industry, the “ins and outs” of selling to the education market, and most importantly do whatever it takes to be a great team player. He has demonstrated our core values making it Easy for people to work with him because he is a good listener. Second, he is quickly learning the importance of understanding what Value he can bring to not only his external customers but internal team members as well. Third, understanding the importance of patience while he builds his pipeline knowing that it takes time to build Trust, which is the trigger to successful partnerships.

Here are some fun facts about Justin so all of you can get to know him a little better:

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LearnKey Hits the Road

Sleeping off a Thanksgiving food coma will definently be just a dream for many LK employees this week. We will be in three different states and at three different shows. Here is our schedule so you can stop by to see us, if we are visiting your city.

November 26-28, 2012
Louisiana Association of Computer Using Educators
New Orleans, LA

November 28-30, 2012
Illinois Education Technology Conference
Springfield, IL

November 29-30, 2012
ACTE: CareerTech Vision 2012
Atlanta, GA

If you’re attending any of these shows, stop by and see what we have to offer!

Giving Back to Those Who Gave So Much

eLearning company forms partnership with foundation that provides assistance for Veterans in need.

St. George, UT- November 16, 2012- LearnKey Inc, in partnership with Our Home Transitional, have recently begun working together to give assistance to female Veterans and their children. LearnKey has donated video based training through their learning management system OnlineExpert, to those in OHT as a way to help our Veterans to obtain the civilian credentials they need to re-enter the workforce.

Carrie Miller, Executive Director of OUR HOME TRANSITIONAL explains: “This is a place where our female veterans and their kids come to when they are facing challenge & are in need of a place to call home.”

Women Veterans in need of OHT services are not limited to the Flint, Michigan area. As long as there are rooms available any woman hero from anywhere in the US will be assisted, says Miller. “One of the most integral parts of this program for our female Veterans is the LearnKey training component. We are very excited to be working with LearnKey in our endeavor to help women heroes who are in need of help while transitioning successfully to civilian society and self-sufficiency,” explains Miller.

LearnKey’s extensive course library has courses that will help learners pass certification exams, build resumes, and prepare for a career. Some valuable LearnKey tools for Veterans are the recently released Career Readiness Bundle and Job Hunting in a Digital World course.

LearnKey regularly releases new courses. Follow this link to view the 2012-2013 course release schedule.

About LearnKey, Inc.
LearnKey is self-paced video courseware for corporate, education, government and personal users. Established in 1987, LearnKey offers decades of experience with engaging, interactive, and flexible training that is accessible anytime, anywhere.

Honoring our Veterans

One of my favorite days at LearnKey is Veteran’s Day. The parade route in St. George Ut goes directly past our corporate office, and those of us that can get away from the phones are able to show our support to the veteran’s in our community. I look forward to it every year and thouroughly enjoy the amazing photo opportunities that come by, flags and uniforms, marching bands, balloons and lots of old cars. It’s fun and beautiful, and always makes me proud and sad at the same time.

I love seeing the men and women in their uniforms, especially the old-times from the world wars. Today I learned that we have 4 remaining Pearl Harbor survivors in our community, and at least one of them was in the parade today. That’s pretty incredible. It is a sombering thought to see them replaced with much younger veteran’s, young men and women that have already faught to make the world a better place.

LearnKey has been developing programs to support our veteran’s for some time now. We are very proud to offer programs that will create better lives for the men and women that have given so much to protect and serve.

I want to send a special shout out to all of the veterans but especially to those that I work with on a daily basis here at LearnKey. Thank you for your service.

We have all been touched by war, and most of us know someone that has faught for our freedom. Many of us have loved ones that are serving this very day. I hope that I am always able to attend the Veteran’s Day Parade, to show my support and thankfulness for a job well done.

Lead by Example- LearnKey employee of the month’s recipe

Writing is an important part of our business. It can be objectives for an upcoming course, a workbook or projects used in the classroom environment, or even a MasterExam thats going to help a student/learner get college or career ready, all very important parts of the learning experience. At LearnKey we are fortunate to have Brittni Traynor who, as a lead agent for our Technical Writing team, makes sure all our writing activities get done on time.

Even better, is that her leadership team voted Brittni our October employee of the month for hard work and never ending commitment to lead by example. That’s right, she jumps in to help her team on a daily basis. Here is what her manager Brad Washburn had to say about her :

“As a team lead, she is very good at helping her team stay focused and motivated. She has forged a strong bond between the members of her team and turned them into a family”.

We are fortunate to have Brittni who truly does demonstrate our core values around Ease, Value and Trust. She makes it easy for her team members to work with her, shows them her support and how much she Values their work each and every day, in addition to building a level of trust that motivates them to work together and operating at a high performing capacity.

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Home Sweet Home

Atlanta, New Orleans, Indianapolis, and…St. George, Utah? You may be wondering what St. George could possibly have in common to be included in a list with these large cities. Well, before the end of the year LearnKey will be in each of these cities attending trade shows and sharing our training with local teachers and administrators.

Today and tomorrow we are in our hometown St. George, UT! We don’t often attend shows in Utah, let alone in St. George, and we have a new booth design and will be doing presentations today and tomorrow – so stop by Desert Hills High School and check us out.

Presentation Times

Saturday

9:00 am Mobi Mentoring in the Classroom
11:00 am Leveraging Classroom Behavior
1:00 pm Industry Certified or Career Ready? LearnKey Can Do Both
3:00 pm Mobi Mentoring in the Classroom

Course Release Celebration

What a crazy year it has been. Remeber back in May when I told everyone to be excited for the end of Summer? Well there is no place where that statement was more true than here at LearnKey. Don’t get me wrong we love the great summer weather here is Southern Utah, but over the past few months the LearnKey team has been busy creating and releasing our latest A+, Network+, and IC³ courses. These courses turned out totally awesome, and if you have not had a chance to look at them, follow the previous links to view their product overviews.

We also had the big release of our Career Readiness Bundle, which includes courses that offers valuable information to teens and those who are trying to enter the workforce. Take a look at the course overview.

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Network+ 2012 Certification released (with video)

Good news, everyone! We recently released the latest version of our Network+ certification courseware – Network+ 2012 Certification. Just like our A+ Certification 2012 course, it features course author Tom Carpenter covering CompTIA’s certification objectives, this time taking students beyond tech essentials and guiding them through the world of Networking.

This course covers the current CompTIA Network+ N10-005 exam. It includes 5 sessions and roughly 14 hours of training, tests, interactive labs, and projects.

If you want to see more, check out the promo at the beginning of the post, and after visit the product page for more info on the course including a full course outline and purchasing info.

Great People – Team Player stands out in Cedar City

There are a variety of different definitions around being a team player, but the one that stands out to me recently is the one demonstrated last month by Carole Heaton in our LearnKey video production office in Cedar City, UT. It is what made her our employee of the month for September 2012. Our team has just completed the roll out of: A+ 2012, IC³ GS4 and our Career Readiness bundle of courses (14 in total). At the last minute, we identified several ways to enhance the learning experience for A+ 2012 which meant we needed people to work overtime. When we needed help the most to meet our deadlines, it was Carole Heaton who stepped up big time.

Everyone in our Cedar office had been working overtime hours, everyone was tired. These projects needed to be delivered on time and Carole was willing to go the extra mile and work practically around the clock to help us meet our deadlines. Here is what her manager had to say when he nominated her for employee of the month:

“It seems like I can come into the office at just about any time, day or night, and find Carole either at her desk or online on my IM. She has put in more hours over the last month than any other member of her team. She is always willing to do whatever is asked of her as soon as it is asked, which has provided that level of Ease in getting fixes and files done on a tight deadline. I can always Trust that her files will look good and the fixes she is asked to do will be done correctly. She is always a positive force in the office, despite doing the lion’s share of work, and she can always be counted on to have a ready smile and a laugh available.”

Everyday in some way shape or form we communicate about our core values – Ease, Value and Trust. Carole clearly demonstrated all three of them by making it easier for us to meet our deadlines, valuing the importance of these courses and what it meant to get them out on time, and trusting the broader team that these improvements did merit being implemented for the benefit of our customers/learners. I thank you Carole for all your efforts.

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