lynda.com Online training boosts learning for students in media technology classes at Pellissippi

Challenge: deliver software skills training to an online media technology class

When Pellissippi Community College began offering online classes in media technology, instructors struggled to find a way to teach software skills over the internet. Some made instructional movies and distributed them via CD, but most weren’t satisfied and wanted to find a better way to give the students the skills they needed.

Web Technology program coordinator Gay Bryant looked into a range of options and was impressed with lynda.com’s online training. She liked the range of titles, the quality of the content and movies, and the 24/7 access that was available as part of the Multi-User Subscription program.

“Many instructors had used lynda.com Hands-On Training™ books in their classes and found them to be excellent,” said Bryant.

“When I found out that lynda.com had started offering online video training, I informed the faculty and some of them tried it out and were very pleased. So we decided to move forward with a pilot program.”

Solution: give students access to the Online Training Library®

Through a special state grant, 75 students in the Web Technology concentration gained access to online tutorials at lynda.com. In the spring semester 100 students and five faculty members involved in online courses were given membership.

Web technology is one of four concentrations in Pellissippi’s Media Technologies program. Instructors teaching Introduction to Media Technologies, as well as several courses in the Certified Internet Webmaster program, integrated a wide range of lynda.com tutorials for subjects as diverse as Adobe Dreamweaver, Flash, Photoshop®, Illustrator®, and After Effects®; JavaScript; CSS; HTML; and PHP.

Results: students find lynda.com training essential

At the end of the spring semester, the students completed an evaluation to gauge the effectiveness of using tutorials from lynda.com. They reported finding the online training an invaluable and essential resource. Almost 80 percent said they would be willing to pay for the membership and up to 90 percent said they learned more in the course because of the videos.

“Using these movies truly enhanced our web-delivered courses,” said Bryant. “They provided up-to-date instruction with examples and show-and-tell that are difficult for online instructors to do. And since students could access the entire lynda.com Online Training Library®, they could dig deeper and explore topics of interest to them, even if they were not covered in the class.”

“The quality of the instruction is so good. For those teaching computer applications, lynda.com online training is a resource we can’t live without. It takes the burden off of the teachers.“

Instructors in all areas of the Media Technologies program have been using the training themselves for professional development. Those in computer science and video are looking into setting up gaming coursework, so they’ve requested licenses. “We’re continuing the pilot through the next school year and are working toward getting ongoing funding from the college,” said Bryant. “It’s worth every penny to have these professionally produced videos available for our classes.”