In the early 2000s many NLP trainers began the shift to an intensive approach to certification courses, offering audio pre-work as individual preparation for a week long in-person training.
The shift was driven by increasing time constraints on participants, and by economics.
And of course at that time, if you were lucky enough to have a cell phone, it was just that – a phone.
But that phone was the advance guard of a technology evolution that heralded in platforms like Facebook (born 2004), YouTube (2005), Smartphone apps (2007), Dropbox (2008), or Zoom (2012) – to name a few you may well use today. We are now connected in ways we have never been before and we have adapted our lives around these things.
In among all this Friending and Sharing and Conferencing, another little revolution was also playing itself out. This one was in education. With the blossoming of remote learning, educational institutions faced an enormous challenge in moving to reduced campus attendance and start up online - all without sacrificing educational quality. And that was all before COVID-19 came along.
Central to this next step in education is what are collectively known as Learning Management Systems (LMS for short). If you search on the web you’ll find a myriad of different variations and flavours around this theme. Each offering is working to solve the big question: how can you realistically give your students the flexibility they increasingly need, and make the most of the technology to enhance the quality of the education? It’s not time to hold back the tide, it’s time to get a boat and explore.
So how do you choose your boat? Well here are the top 5 LMS capabilities that we at CR Squared think are essential to teaching NLP and NLP based courses online.
1. System friendliness
You’re an NLP Trainer, not a techno wizard. And the platform needs to be pretty intuitive for your students, too. Look for something flexible and powerful, but usable by real people. Sure there will be a learning curve, but let’s keep it shallow.
2. Accessible on all devices
The system needs to work seamlessly across smartphone, tablets, laptops and desktops. Give your students the choice to work on the device that suits them, where and when they want.
3. Ability to upload and organise your existing material.
If you already have training material that you’ve created or are licensed to use, having a system that can handle it easily will liberate you from a chunk of work. And if you find something on the web that you’d like to incorporate, then that needs to be easy too.
4. Integrated to build active student communities
Integrated facilities for discussion groups, webinars and conferencing are key to building practical relationships with your students. If you can do all these things on the same platform the technology is a real enabler and your admin is soooo much quicker.
5. Insights into your students’ progress
It’s hugely useful to know how far a student has got and the time they are putting in. You can focus your efforts if you can tell when a student is stuck or is skimming through your material way too fast for real engagement. You can choose to offer just-in-time coaching and support to keep them on track.