2013

We’re keeping busy through the holidays here at LearnKey, and we have released a new course and a new student workbook.

Access 2013

What’s new in Access 2013? You will be introduced to the new web apps feature. Access 2013 gives you the ability to design your own apps or use a template to create an app that can be shared with your coworkers or friends. LearnKey expert jason Manibog will take you step-by-step through this course; starting with database management and navigation. Users will learn to use the tools provided in Access 2013 to design and maintain a basic database.

Learn to create, modify and personalize objects
Learn to work independently or in collaboration with others on database projects
Learn new web apps features
Create and/or modify a simple Access database

Visit our website for more information on this course and purchasing information.

Flash CS6 Student Workbook

The Flash CS6 Workbook is arranged in the exact order as our Flash CS6 course. The student workbook includes activities like fill-in-the-blanks and projects. The workbook is included with all education license purchases of our Flash CS6 course.

View Sample Workbook

Stay tuned for more releases in the future!

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!

LearnKey’s Newest EOM: Making a difference one Veteran at a time!

One of the greatest things our employees do everyday is focus on how they can make a positive difference in the learning experience. In our Salt Lake City office where we shoot the courses with our experts, our production crew is making sure the objectives are covered and we cover the right topics. In Cedar City where we produce the courses tying in video, technical writing and graphic design ,once again its about how can we drive the best learning experience making our courses easy to understand.

Then there is our LearnKey veteran services team that is working hard to help every veteran who goes through our program to counsel and support them making sure they stay on track and meet all their milestones.

This is where our newest Better Learning Systems/LearnKey employee of the month Corin Saunders works hard to “make a difference” – not only for our veteran students, but also working to improve our systems and processes we use each and every day.

Following her nomination, here is what here manager had to say:

“Corin joined the Veteran Services team in April of this year, and from day one she has had a huge impact on the team and the students that we support. She has truly immersed herself into the position and become an expert in all of the multi-platform education programs that we provide. In the interviewing process, Corin made it clear that she loves to help people and feel that she is making a difference. That is very apparent in her work with over 100 Veterans with whom she communicates on a regular basis. She dispenses just the right amount of compassion and tough love to help our students to make the most of their time with LearnKey and gain the certifications they need to advance their careers”.

We are so fortunate to have Corin as part of our team, and for fun, let us share a little bit of insight to her personally by way of these questions:

Continue reading “LearnKey’s Newest EOM: Making a difference one Veteran at a time!”

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!

When it comes to quality: In Ben we trust

Another exciting month for Better Learning Systems as we head into the 4th Quarter of 2013, and it has all to do with our great people. At LearnKey, we are celebrating another Employee of the Month, and this month our congratulations go to Ben Lee and all his hard efforts to go above and beyond in becoming one of our best quality control specialists in our Cedar City, UT office.

His efforts go far and beyond a quality control specialist – he is a true team player who has demonstrated his efforts through actions, not words.

Here’s what his leader had to say about him during his nomination:

“Ben is an energetic, optimistic, hard working, and friendly team player. He understands most of our LearnKey training & courseware very well, therefore increasing the accuracy of our training. He always gets his work done by the end of the day, and will rearrange his schedule to make sure it is done. He identified a problem with how we keep QC records, and implemented a new QC record keeping process. Ben has always been willing to take on work that isn’t necessarily QC related, and completes each task very well”.

One of his most recent accomplishments was when Ben learned we were wanting to improve our A+ course; he took the training, provided detailed notes on what part of our courseware was effective and what could be improved, then went and took the exam passing the first time! Every challenge we bring to Ben, he has overcome it both in doing the actual work and in dealing with the people involved. He goes above and beyond what is expected and required for a QC person in order to make sure he is doing his job correctly. He has done such a great job with his own work, resulting in less and/or easier work for his team and supervisor.

Enough about work, take a minute to learn more about Ben with our fun survey and who he would take to dinner if he could pick anyone:

Continue reading “When it comes to quality: In Ben we trust”

I ♥ NY

My trip started out with a long day of travel from Las Vegas to New York City. I love New York City and I am sure I will never in my lifetime see everything it has to offer. I am staying in an amazing hotel right next the World Trade Center. You must see this building in person to really appreciate it, my picture is great but does not do it justice. It is so humbling to see in person and to think of all the people we lost on 9/11.

I am here attending a CTE (Career & Technical Education) conference at the United Federation of Teachers. I have learned so much about New York schools and how they looking to helping students better prepare for college and for the workforce.

Tomorrow we are touring the schools who have successfully implemented student certification programs.

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.

Quick Learner, Efficient and most importantly Team Player!

Those are the words that describe our Better Learning Systems newest employee of the month: Mrs. Katie Kuether, someone who not only demonstrates our core values to her team, but other teams within the company. Katie has been working in our client services team for almost a year now and plays a key role in making sure all the school districts and student files are loaded and ready come the beginning of school season.

Katie has demonstrated her ability to be a quick learner and very efficient, as this is truly a role in which you “learn as you grow” into the position. As school starts, the most important part of the process is on boarding students and teachers. She fields all kinds of calls ranging from how to sign in, run a report, or save a file to our Learning Management System (OnlineExpert.com) and even troubleshooting.

During our monthly nomination, here’s what Katie’s leader had to say about her:

“Katie has been with the company almost a year and it has been my pleasure to have her as a part of the team. She has been so easy to work with, and has taken on a role that encompasses both a part of accounting and client services. She has excellent customer services skills and asks all of the right questions when given a task. Most of the work with Client Services cannot be trained and added to a manual and you learn on the job and as you go, Katie has done an excellent job of jumping in and going with whatever she has been given”.

Now for the best part – please take a moment to learn more about Katie and learn things like a peanut butter and jelly (add the Cheetos) sandwich…

1. How many siblings do you have?

I have 4 siblings, 2 brothers and 2 sisters

2. What is your favorite movie?

Steel Magnolias

3. What is your favorite band?

Of all time? Nsync

4. What is your favorite vacation spot?

California/Disneyland

5. What was your high school’s mascot?

Pirates

6. What is the weirdest combination of foods you have eaten?

Peanut butter and jelly with Cheetos.

7. What is/was the name of your favorite pet?

Bubbles

8. What was your first car?

I don’t even know what kind of car it was; I just know it was a very yellow station wagon.

9. If you could go anywhere in the world where would it be?

New York City

10. Would you rather sky dive, bungee jump, zip line, or parasail?

I would pick parasail, that seems the safest. J

11. What is the funniest saying you have heard working here?

My favorite is Kim’s phrases “OH BUDDY” and “Yeah weird”.

12. If you could eat dinner with anyone from the past, present, or future, who would it be and why?

My mom and grandma passed away when I was 21, so if I could I would love to have dinner with them again.

Congratulations to Katie for this accomplishment and we are so fortunate to have you as part of our team.

Warm Regards and ’til next month!

– Jeff Coruccini

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!