LearnKey Blog
LearnKey’s Summer Giveaway – Enter now!
We are launching an exciting new contest, and you are invited to participate.
To Enter:
Visit our Facebook page and "Like" us
Fill out the short form to enter the current contest.
Click on the "LK Giveaway" tab to access the contest, fill out the short entry form and you will be entered to win the current prize, as well as the Grand Prize. All month long we are giving away different prizes, such as:
- Amazon® gift cards
- Western Digital® 1TB External hard drive
- Microsoft® Office 2010 for Home and Student suite, with LearnKey's Office 2010 training
- WACOM® Bamboo Pen & Touch input tablet with LearnKey's Photoshop CS5 training
Be sure to check back often to see the current prizes. You can enter every day for more chances to win!
Each entry qualifies you for the Grand Prize: an Acer® Aspire 15.6" Laptop and your choice of LearnKey training bundles.
Each and every entry into our any of our contests during this promotion enters you into the Grand Prize drawing of an Acer® Laptop with LearnKey training.
Choose from:
- Office 2010 Training Bundle: Word 2010, Excel 2010, PowerPoint 2010
- Adobe CS5 Training Bundle: Photoshop CS5, Flash CS5, Dreamweaver CS5
- CompTIA A+ Training Bundle: A+ 2009 Certification Series
Individual contest dates will be announced on Facebook
Don't wait, "Like" us now to participate!
Blended Professional Development for Teachers
The summer break is a great time for educators to get away and take a break from all of the stresses that come with being a teacher, but some educators use this time for professional development. Fortunately for you, keeping up on professional development does not have to mean a ruined summer.
Professional development has taken on new meaning for teachers across the world. Advancements in technology are made every day, and many are adapting these new tools to improve the learning environment for everyone. These technological upgrades make it essential for educators to stay abreast on new tools for education, and now more than ever before, it is important for teachers to keep current through professional development that is both effective and convenient.
Some states have started to integrate new methods of professional development, blending face to face classes with online courses, follow up training, and video training. These blended methods can be helpful because they can fit into the busy schedules educators have, and they appeal to multiple learning styles.
What method of professional development works best for you? Do you think blended methods are the best option? Does your school currently use a variety of methods for your professional development?
Training After the Recession
Hopefully by now the recession is working its way behind us, and now many trainers have the task of piecing together training programs that have suffered cuts. Many companies cut training throughout the recession, and now the training department has to figure out what their programs will look like going forward. Now that budgets are bouncing back, it is important to remember the recession moving forward.
It might be an automatic reaction to want to simply move back into the old ways and old habits, but it is important to remember not to. If recessions teach us anything, it’s how to do more with less, so one idea moving forward with your new budgets is to keep costs down and increase your course offerings with video-based training, instead of going back to in-person delivery methods. Many companies made cuts to travel and moved toward video-based training when the recession was at it’s worst, but it is important to consider video-based training moving forward as a more permanent program rather than a temporary fix.
LearnKey’s End of Summer Event Schedule
It has been a busy summer here at LearnKey, and the next couple of weeks are going to be even busier. A while ago we posted a list of the events we would be attending this summer; 6 of those events have already passed, but we still have another 5 to go!
Here are the upcoming events and shows we will be attending:
2011 Missouri ACTE Summer Conference, booth #E72
July 25-28, Springfield, MO
FACTE 45th Annual Conference & Tradeshow,
July 25-28, Clearwater Beach, FL
2011 All-Ohio Conference, booth #10
July 26-28, Columbus, OH
Nevada ACTE Conference
July 27-29, Lake Tahoe, NV
44th Annual Oklahoma Career & Technology Education Summer Conference, booth #108
August 1, Tulsa, OK
Be sure to stop by and say hi to our reps if you’re attending these shows (and be sure to tell them you found out about it through our blog!) They love meeting you all and being able to show you all the cool stuff we’re doing, and they may even have some freebies available, depending on when you see them. From what I hear, sometimes the free stuff disappears so fast you would think we were attending a Ninja convention, so stop by early!
LearnKey’s Video Production Courses – What Are the Differences?
Are you looking for training to help you pass your Visual Communication using Premiere Pro CS5 ACA exam? Or maybe you aren’t looking to certify, but still want to learn the basics of video production? Either way, our new course releases have you covered.
We recently released 3 new courses: Video Production 101, Video Editing 101, and Premiere Pro CS5.
If you’re reading this post, you might be wondering which one is right for your needs. All three courses provide training on various aspects of video production, and all three are presented by expert Ryan James, but they are not meant to be purchased together. Video Production 101 takes you through the basics of video production, covering everything from storyboards to lighting and camera techniques. Video Editing 101 teaches you techniques used in the editing process, using programs like Adobe OnLocation, Premiere Pro CS5 and Adobe Media Encoder to create a finished product. Premiere Pro CS5 includes the topics in the previous two courses, but is geared to prepare you for the Visual Communication using Premiere Pro CS5 ACA exam.
So, depending on your goals, we suggest a couple different options.
Option 1: If you are looking for basic training for video production or video editing (one or the other, not both), you can purchase eitherVideo Production 101 or Video Editing 101 for $180.
Option 2: If you are looking for both of these training courses, or are looking to get your ACA certification, you can purchase Premiere Pro CS5, for $280. You get the same content used in the other two courses plus certification objectives for $80 less than if you bought them separately.
Basically, think of Video Production 101 and Video Editing 101 as the À la carte versions of the training, where Premiere Pro CS5 is the complete package.
Are Students Lacking in Tech Skills?
It sounds funny because most high school students these days could teach us all a lesson or two on how to Tweet, text, or use our iPads, but a recent survey says students are lacking tech skills to get them college and career ready. The survey found that 94% of students think technology skills will improve opportunities in their education and career, but only 39% think their high school is meeting technology expectations. The study also found that the majority, 86% of students, use technology more outside of school. A large percentage of students said that they used technology to complete assignments, although less than half of teachers said they regularly assign homework that requires technology.
This study shows that students see the need for technology education, and they use technology on their own. So what do you see as the biggest hurdle schools face with classroom technology? Is it the lack of budget? Schools lack technology to serve students? Schools lack technical support? Technology is only used as a teaching tool and is not for students to use? Check out the survey to find out what others said and then let us know what you think.
ISTE 2011
Last week LearnKey was exhibiting at ISTE 2011 in Philadelphia, PA. ISTE is an annual tradeshow for educators, and this year there were 18,000 attendees expected. The show was a lot of fun, and it was fun as the planner of these shows to finally be able to be a part of one. We had a steady stream of educators visit our booth over the course of three days. We met a lot of great teachers and administrators from all over the country and the world; I think the farthest visitor came from Taiwan.
The convention center was huge, although you would never have guessed that there were that many people there. There were so many different meeting rooms, and the exhibit hall was so large anyone could get lost in there. There were rows upon rows of vendors with all kinds of different ways to get attendees to stop and chat with them.
Web Browsing Tips – Tab Groups
Personally, I usually use Chrome for the majority of my web browsing. Being LearnKey’s webmaster though, I need to at least have a copy of the major browsers around to test things, and I recently installed an update to Firefox 5. Our graphic designer Kari pointed out a pretty cool and useful feature Firefox recently added to their updates – Tab Groups.
Say you’re working on a few different projects at once, and you don’t want to mix up the different tabs you have open between projects. You could open a new browser window and separate them that way, but Firefox’s Tab Groups feature lets you keep it all in one window, and switch between groups easily. It’s fairly similar to the Spaces feature in Mac OS X.
Premiere Pro CS5 with Ryan James
It’s time for another piece of the Adobe CS5 training puzzle – Premiere Pro CS5 featuring expert Ryan James. Not only is this course made to teach you how to use Premiere Pro CS5, but it walks you through the video creation method, from pre-production all the way to the final steps, all while preparing you to earn your ACA certification by passing the Visual Communication using Premiere Pro CS5 exam.
Find out more about our Premiere Pro CS5 course, or check out the video below for a preview.
Also, if you purchase this course on our website between now and June 30, you can receive 20% off by entering coupon code NEW20 at checkout. Coupon only applies to single-user web purchases.
Web Browsing Tips – Disable Compatibility View
When you work with websites for a living, you tend to pick up on the different quirks of all the web browsers. You know which ones have trouble with spacing, or which ones work better with certain Flash objects, and so on. For most people who don’t live their lives inside a web browser, it can be confusing – and that’s why we’re here to help!
Internet Explorer 8 and 9: “Compatibility View”
At first glance, you may see Compatibility View and feel the need to turn it on, or else your web experience might be glitchy and broken. That may have possibly been the case when IE8 was first released, but these days it does the exact opposite. To understand what I mean, there’s a few things about Internet Explorer you need to know.
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