Corporate Training & Professional Development

Creating effective online learning courses and simulations can be a challenge. There are tools and techniques, as well as best practices, that can help those designing and creating online learning content for organizations and institutions of higher education.

This Certificate in Online Learning offered by the National Institute of Online Learning (NIOL) draws upon the lessons learned by the creative, editorial, and technical teams at MindEdge Learning.

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Learners who are engaging in online coursework have high expectations for their learning experience. And many institutions try to develop online coursework as a way to reduce cost and control the content of the training, but without regard for the complexities of the technology. This course introduces the major models, tools, and techniques for creating and delivering online learning. It reviews the fundamentals of general learning theory and how it can be applied in practice to online design and instruction.

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In developing any online learning material, federal regulations require adherence to specific accessibility standards. Students with disabilities must be given equal access to learn the content. This can be a major road block to an organization trying to develop online coursework. This course covers the basics of online learning accessibility standards and reviews best practices for accessibility.

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Storytelling and the use of narrative case studies can be a highly effective way to teach. Often, we learn best by doing, and in the context of online learning, "doing" often means utilizing case study and role-playing methods. This course introduces the major techniques and strategies for integrating narrative learning into an educational curriculum. It presents different types of narrative learning and identifies the best means to utilize each. Finally, it explores the efficacy of narrative learning and how it can be applied to online design and instruction.

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Even the most experienced teachers often need help transitioning into the world of teaching online. When you don't meet your students face-to-face teachers must adjust their tactics and strategies to help them identify struggling students and to ensure students are engaging and learning the material. This course offers a brief survey of the major models, tools, and techniques in teaching online.

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The technology of online learning is constantly evolving. Not only is the technology of content presentation becoming more complex, but the delivery, integration, grade syncing, and expanding learning management system markets all add to the puzzle. As a developer of online courses, this course seeks to give you the vocabulary and tools you need to ask the right questions and understand the fundamental concepts of technology in online learning. It reviews the key software and hardware options available, and it covers best practices in using technology. 

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This introductory-level course helps learners craft a resume that is targeted, elegant, and effective. It continues on to cover interviewing skills, focusing on the interview preparation and the five stages of the interview process. Finally, the course will help learners formulate winning answers to difficult interview questions.

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Whether you're just starting out in the workforce or changing careers, it is important to understand how the job you perform contributes to your sense of fulfillment in life. This course prompts you to examine various job settings and functions, comparing each against your own preferences, values, and expectations, in order to determine the best job fit for you.

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Networking has become a significant part of the professional process, altering the way both entrepreneurs and organizations do business. This course will help you to improve your personal and professional networking skills by providing best practices and effective tips and techniques.

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This course focuses on teaching you how to brand yourself professionally. What is brand? And how do you maintain your personal brand? The assignments in this course discuss the value of personal branding, the way to craft your personal brand statement, and finally, the best methods for communicating your personal brand to clients, employers, and other industry professionals.

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Perhaps you have been in charge of your finances since you started working an after school job in high school, or maybe you are suddenly feeling overwhelmed with allocating the salary from your first job out of college. No matter what your financial situation is, it is important to understand how to handle your money. This course will familiarize you with the basics of budgeting, credit, saving, and investing.

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So, you've just landed a new job. What happens now? The first 30 days provide you a unique opportunity to set yourself up for success in your new role. Lots of people, most significantly your boss, will form an impression of you from the beginning that will be hard to change later on. This course will help you prepare for your first thirty days on the job, laying the groundwork for a successful tenure in your new role and at the organization.

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A great editor is like a great mechanic. They look at a piece of writing the same way a mechanic looks at a car: they assess the current state, see if it has any issues, and tune it up so it's good to go. As you can imagine, there is no lack of metaphor to describe the task of editing. This course will help you discern between metaphor and fact to discover the truth of editing. You will learn the foundational principles of copyediting, the golden rules of proofreading, and what professional editors actually do and how you can do it, too.

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Communicating clearly and concisely in written and oral formats is critical to your professional success. From clarifying and structuring your ideas to designing the PowerPoint slides that will best complement them, the techniques, interactive exercises, and checklists in this certificate program will help you create presentations and workplace documents that inform and persuade.

This certificate offers instruction on crafting many of the most common business communication formats: memos, reports, brochures, proposals, presentations, catalogs, and websites. Topics include formal and informal outlining techniques, using email appropriately in an organizational setting, and revising for wordiness, unnecessary phrases, redundancy, and jargon.

Each of these self-paced courses offer an assortment of interactive exercises, selected readings, and self-assessments that will engage you and help you practice effective business communication.

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In most organizational settings, you'll be expected to work in teams. At times, your team members may not be physically in the same office with you. And yet, communicating effectively within these teams is critical to the success of the team, and critical to your personal success on any given project or task. This introductory-level course will help you improve your collaborative communication by providing best practices and effective tips and techniques.

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The ability to write clearly and directly is highly prized in most organizations. Well-written emails and documents can help you earn respect among your peers. And poorly written emails and documents can detract from success at all levels. The ideas, techniques, and checklists in this introductory-level course apply to all forms of business writing: memos, reports, brochures, proposals, presentations, catalogs, and websites. This course will also teach how to revise for wordiness, unnecessary phrases, redundancy, and jargon, and the appropriate use of email in an organizational setting.

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Communicating clearly and concisely in written formats like email, memos, and letters is very important in a workplace setting. Clearly communicating your thoughts, plans and proposals is a highly effective means to advance your ideas and earn the respect of your peers. This course will help you improve your use of these common business communication vehicles by providing best practices and effective tips and techniques.

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The ability to deliver an effective presentation is critical in most job functions. This introductory-level course helps learners organize, structure, and create effective presentations that feature slides as a visual aid. Because many organizations use PowerPoint as a way of communicating information, this course offers advice and guidance on the most effective and persuasive uses of PowerPoint, including best practices on word count, graphics, and structure.

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Confidence is a key to delivering an effective speech or presentation. And delivering an effective presentation can be critical to success at work. This introductory-level course helps you develop the skills you'll need to become an outstanding and confident public speaker. It reviews the seven stages of public speaking including defining the audience and crafting your central message, all the way to writing, practicing, and delivering your presentation or speech. This course is an essential part of honing the skill of presenting and setting the stage for the boost of confidence to help you succeed. 

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Public speaking is one of the most common anxiety-inducing experiences. Whether delivering a speech in front of a large audience or having a direct conversation with one or two other people, we often allow stress and nerves to impede our ability to deliver a clear message. This course is designed to help learners understand the causes and signs of speaking anxiety and learn practical ways to address their speaking fears.

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Writing is central to our personal and professional lives. Errors in writing can derail a job application, miscommunicate a plan, and confuse our audience in many ways. This course will guide you through the writing process, from brainstorming the content to polishing the final draft. Along the way, you'll be given tips for how to speed up the writing process and ensure that you send out error-free writing. Topics include time management, structure, crafting complex and clear sentences, and troubleshooting common grammar errors.

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Email is a mainstay of communication technologies, especially in the business world. Though new forms of communication are constantly being developed, email remains a popular platform with an ever-growing number of users each year. This course first delves into the basics of email and provides the skills to draft messages, follow up efficiently, and manage email inboxes. The course further provides tips and techniques for crafting effective and accessible email content to help your message stand out in a crowded inbox.

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Because organizations must innovate to stay alive in today's highly competitive marketplace, organizations need employees who can channel their creativity and innovation toward organizational challenges and goals. This certificate program will first help you become re-acquainted with your own stores of creativity and innovation. Next, you are given a set of tools that allow you to leverage your creativity to identify and solve organizational problems. One activity asks you how you might look at a problem from a different angle to produce a more creative result; others walk you through the process of using analogies or replacement techniques to invent creative solutions to problems.

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Spurring creativity in teams can be very challenging, but could also be the difference between a successful team and an unsuccessful one. This course looks at spurring creativity and innovation in teams and organizations. Drawing on the latest academic thinking, it outlines the key factors for creative teams. Further, the course focuses on tools and techniques designed to yield more productive thinking in collective settings. Participants learn about a number of targeted tools, including brainstorming, Discussion 66, Provocation, and others, to generate fresh thinking in smaller group settings and in their organizations.

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Innovation can make or break an organization in terms of its ability to win and keep customers. This course looks at innovation in corporations and the public sector. It reviews the latest academic thinking on innovation, including Clay Christensen's seminal thinking on disruptive technology and the proper response to the disruption. Further, it explores some of the internal responses to the need for creativity, including idea champions, idea incubators, new venture teams and skunk works, and the process of moving from innovation to commercialization. This course also covers some of the more successful corporate innovators as a way of illustrating the principles of effective innovation in large organizations.

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Critical thinking is an intellectual model for reasoning through issues to reach well-founded conclusions. It may be the single-most valuable skill that one can bring to any job, profession, or life challenge. Being able to ask the right questions, critique an argument, and logically dissect an issue occur constantly in the workplace and our lives. This introductory-level course is designed to help learners define and identify critical thinking and reasoning skills and develop those skills.

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This course examines how one can become a more creative person. By stimulating creativity through various techniques (mind-mapping, DO-IT, SCAMPER, right and left brain thinking) participants learn to tap into their personal creativity and apply it to organizational challenges.

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Do you love writing or children? Have you dreamed of having your own book published? This course will guide you through the process of identifying the format and audience for your book, brainstorming ideas, developing a plot and characters, writing effectively, seeking and benefiting from feedback, and finally perfecting your manuscript to send off to an agent or publisher. Whether you know exactly what you want to write or are still fishing around for ideas, this course will take you to the next level through exercises designed to further your particular project.

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Do you have a story to tell? Most of us do—correction, we all do. Every one of us, by virtue of being human, has experiences and insights that are worth retelling. But how can we tell those stories in a way that other people will want to read them and learn from them? Memoir is the art of taking scenes from our past and presenting them to an audience, not simply for the sake of telling a story but to inform, entertain, and establish an emotional bond with our readers. By exploring memories and examining our lives, we also learn a lot about ourselves.

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Poetry has existed across cultures for thousands of years. We consume poetry in music, in plays, and in numerous different forms and styles. Many people enjoy reading and writing poetry, but analyzing poetry and improving your poetic vocabulary will help you write more effectively and better engage with the poetry you read.

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When you're hoping to breathe new life into your yard, the idea of nurturing a flourishing garden sounds like a great new hobby. But, when you only have a small outdoor area to work with, it can be a high-stakes endeavor. This course will guide you through the basics of garden design, plant selection, planting, maintaining your garden, and troubleshooting so that you can experience success and enjoy the natural environment you have created. Whether you're hoping to eat out of your garden or just enjoy the view, this course can help you get the most out of your small space.

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