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With the UK and life as we know it currently put on pause due to the coronavirus outbreak, thinking about the future is difficult. But whether you’re an employer, an employee, or simply an individual who’s looking to build your skillset, Access Skills can provide you with a wealth of ways to ensure you’re improving yourself and getting equipped for a successful future.
In this article, we’ve outlined some of the options on offer to you, and the ways we’re supporting our learners in these most unusual times. Ensure you’re using your time in lockdown effectively.
E-Learning courses
Both businesses and individuals will find something useful and fulfilling in our extensive portfolio of online E-learning courses. As a business, if you’re suffering from the effects of lost staff members due to self-isolation, an E-learning course that can easily be completed by an employee from their own home offers you a way of building staff members’ skills and expertise for the future when they return to work, and is a great way of staying productive in these uncertain times.
Access Skills has a range of package deals on offer that you can mix and match, allowing you to tailor which courses you need for individual staff members. Similarly, for individuals who are stuck at home, single courses can be purchased, and are ideal for doing something useful with any excess time you might find you have.
Infection Control and COVID-19 Infection Control
Access Skills provides E-learning courses in both general infection control and infection control specific to the outbreak of COVID-19. These courses are obviously particularly useful at this moment in time, and can give front line care workers the skills and knowledge they need to deal with the circumstances at present.
Learners will be educated in proper hand hygiene, how to control infections, and in safe waste disposal. The courses, amongst other things, also cover how and when to use personal protective equipment (PPE), and how the chain of infection can be broken. Given how vulnerable many of the individuals that carers work with are to COVID-19, these E-learning courses can provide vital skills and expertise that can help a care organisation safely navigate the coronavirus outbreak.
Remote access for learners
Those looking to complete a diploma course with Access Skills should not be deterred by the coronavirus pandemic, as all courses are strongly supported by remote access – meaning learners can still complete their studies almost as normal during this difficult time. All activities are sent out by email, which a learner completes and sends back. These activities are then sent to an expert assessor, who returns the activity with feedback – either stating that the module has been successfully completed, or that more work needs to be done in order to complete the module.
Online portal for organisations and individual learners
The Access Skills online portal is a vital and useful way of ensuring learners undertaking diploma courses remain engaged in their studies at this time. Alongside the remote way activities are completed, the online portal acts as a hub for all of your learning needs. The portal’s homepage provides important information about your course, including your start and end dates, the percentage of the course you have completed so far, and how many outstanding tasks you still have to complete. It provides a handy overview for you to remotely keep up to date with your course progress.
There is a wealth of useful material available on the online portal, including a “Course Items” section where learners can oversee the modules they’ve completed and the ones they are yet to complete, and a “Resource Library”, full of information and data that will help learners complete their courses. Recorded webinars are also available for learners to watch back, which can provide a more personal, human side to learning – even now in times when traditional learning practices aren’t possible. Remote tutor help is also available for extra guidance on the course.
The online portal isn’t just for individual learners, either. Employers can log in to see how their employees are progressing in courses purchased by the employer. This gives organisations a quick and easy way of charting how their staff members are getting on, what modules they have completed, and can give clarity on individuals’ strengths and weaknesses within courses.
Flexible solutions for all situations
Access Skills courses are already geared for flexible, remote learning. While this is particularly relevant at this moment in time, the features and methods outlined above will all also be available when the coronavirus pandemic has passed. This means these courses are perfectly suited to those who need to learn in a flexible manner. For busy carers who sometimes can’t follow a regular learning pattern, these courses are ideal. Similarly, if individuals find they have to be away from work due to unforeseen circumstances, they can still keep up-to-date with their learning using the wealth of remote access features that Access Skills courses provide.
The extra measures Access Skills have put in place during COVID-19
While the remote and online features of courses outlined above are included as standard, Access Skills have also acted to ensure other facets of learning and assessment can still be maintained. One of the key stumbling blocks at present is how can assessors observe learners in the workplace in current conditions. To solve this, Access has introduced workplace assessments by Skype. This means those completing diplomas can still be assessed on their ability to do such things as leading team meetings, with an assessor present in the meeting via video call. Recorded discussions over the phone are also taking place to help learners complete modules. As a result, courses are staying on track and on-schedule as much as possible.
What do you need for remote learning?
Learning during lockdown remotely with Access Skills is straightforward. All laptops, including PC and Mac, are supported. Supported browsers include Internet Explorer 9, 10, and 11, Microsoft Edge, and the latest versions of Firefox and Google Chrome. A basic Flash plugin should be installed, and a good internet connection is required.
