Our organization has multiple divisions. We started with the iQ Retail division, which develops Retail ERP software solutions. Each division within our organization offers different software solutions. We train people on how to use our software through CYPHER Learning, which is available internally and externally.
CYPHER Learning is a SaaS solution.
We used to offer classroom-based courses only, but we found that travel costs and time restraints were becoming too much for our students. We were looking for a more affordable / accessible way to reach more students, and CYPHER Learning helped us do that.
CYPHER Learning's features effectively boosted our efficiency. We are now able to offer a wider range of services at a competitive cost. Being a Global company with 13 branches, being able to reach global initiatives, is a great advantage.
The timing for rolling out CYPHER Learning was very beneficial, as we relaunched one of our divisions with a new type of learning just before the COVID-19 pandemic hit. This allowed our instructors to train and teach remotely.
As a corporate university, we use CYPHER Learning to provide internal training for our employees and external training for our clients / partners. This hybrid training model is vital to our ever evolving organization.
The hybrid training platform helps us attract top talent by showcasing our capabilities and providing support and knowledge to our clients in an interactive and engaging experience.
The solution can be used to assist in pre-certifying resellers online before they enter the market.
CYPHER Learning helped us expand our training efforts. Before CYPHER Learning, we only offered classroom training, which required learners to travel to one of our training facilities. We can now offer online training, which eliminates the need for travel. This has substantially decreased the cost of training, making it more accessible to more learners.
CYPHER Learning saved us around 30 percent of our administrative work through the app that easily adapts to different markets.
CYPHER Learning is a user-friendly platform that makes it easy for me to manage my instructors and track my learners. My instructors can provide feedback to learners on the same day. We work with a variety of clients, and we can provide them with an analysis of how their learners are performing. As an administrator, I have an overview of what our clients think of our platform.
The reporting has room for improvement. I would like more reporting options.
Screen sorting can be improved by providing more filtering options.
I have been using CYPHER Learning for almost seven years.
CYPHER Learning is stable and we are notified well in advance of any planned downtime for upgrades or maintenance.
CYPHER Learning is scalable. We current have about 550 people signed up to use the solution.
The technical support is good and responds to our issues within two hours.
Positive
The setup is straightforward. The deployment took around two weeks and required me and two others to complete.
The implementation was completed in-house.
We have seen a return on investment through administrative time-saving and global reach.
CYPHER Learning's price is slightly higher than other solutions.
I give CYPHER Learning an eight out of ten.
We have multiple organizations. Our iQ Retail division uses CYPHER Learning extensively. A few other divisions use the solution on a much smaller scale. In total, five or six divisions use the solution.
For someone looking to grow in a growing environment, CYPHER Learning is worth checking out. CYPHER Learning provides the flexibility to grow with us, whether we have multiple platforms or need to migrate to a new system.
CYPHER Learning offers a variety of learning approaches.
It is the LMS that we use at our university. Personally, I am in the language department and am an English teacher. For the courses that I give, I use CYPHER Learning for practically everything. Everything is in it: the material, the tasks. It is a platform that helps us a lot in organizing our classes.
If I tell students that they have to do an essay, I create an evaluation rubric. They can see the rubric and understand exactly what they have to do in the essay. That makes it much clearer for students to see precisely what needs to be done. With rubrics, they can see progress transparently.
The system also helps when it comes to intervention strategies for students because, in the first weeks, you realize who is interacting in CYPHER Learning and who is not. You can see who is doing the units and who isn’t working and that gives you a chance to ask a student why they aren't doing their homework. In this way, you can develop strategies to help them. For example, you can try to change the content or advise the student to manage their time differently. These could be factors that influence how the student is interacting on the platform.
Compared to traditional ways of teaching, I would estimate CYPHER Learning saves 40 percent of my time.
The solution’s ability to bridge the learning gap for students is not bad, although each student is different so not everyone will go at the same pace. CYPHER Learning helps me in identifying each student’s mastery of the subject. I can deepen my work with students who are excelling as well as with students who are struggling. For those who are struggling, I can give them a little more time to complete the assignment. I don't think everyone progresses in the same way and CYPHER Learning gives me the tools to help students individually.
Another benefit is the time saved due to the reduction in administrative work. You can download marks to an Excel document and everything is already organized. In addition, I manage the language department and I can ask the teachers to send me Excels of their students' progress. That enables me to observe what the teachers are doing and see who has not worked much through CYPHER Learning. I can quickly talk to the teacher and solve any problems. The decrease in administration saves about 30 percent of my time.
It also helps save significant time at the end of the month. If a student has a complaint, we can see everything in the system. The evidence is always there.
And saving on paper is important to me, both as an individual and as a teacher. We are trying as a university not to use paper. Because all the tasks are in CYPHER Learning, everything is digital and online and I do not need to deliver so many paper reports.
Last year I participated in a contest in which we had to submit a video about something that I like a lot in CYPHER Learning. I sent in a video about the discussion board. I like it because you can upload any topic, video, reading, or quote, and the students can give their opinions and interact. That helps to deepen the discussion.
I also like the discussion board a lot because students can give their opinions there and interact with each other. For me, as an English teacher, it is also important because they practice writing in a real context. It helps them to have a voice and to know what they think about a certain topic.
Another valuable feature is that it makes it easy to see the progress of the students, and students themselves can follow their own progress.
In terms of automation, you can create your own units and place the necessary information in each unit. Although we in the language department use another platform where all our content is uploaded, with CYPHER Learning we can see if students are learning according to the tasks they are given. We can ask for videos and recordings and, in that way, it's automated. The process is more agile than the traditional process. The automation is good.
I also like the variety of options. An assignment can be just a simple essay, a paragraph, or the videos or recordings I mentioned. These options give students the opportunity to be creative.
Sometimes we do exercises that do not have a grade associated with them and that helps students to receive positive feedback without feeling evaluated. Students understand that it is not only about receiving a good grade but that it's also about self-improvement and they develop motivation as a result.
Also, the fact that they can see their grades through CYPHER Learning lets them know what they have to work on, according to their score. It is very organized.
And communicating with students is easy because we can send individual and group messages. This past semester, we sent several such messages. It's a feature that works very well. As an English teacher, I write everything in English and this provides my students with an additional way to learn the language. Sometimes, I ask them to send me an email in English in a more formal way, as well. For those reasons, communicating through the platform has helped me a lot.
Communication is very important, especially because of the pandemic. Sometimes, students have doubts, questions, or problems, but with the system’s communication tools, I can reply to them more easily. It saves us time and we can focus on more important things when we are in class.
Perhaps there is room for improvement in the gamification part. I have used it but it has not been very clear to me. It may be my responsibility for not asking about it in the training sessions, but the way you use it is not so clear. I know that there are tutorials, but I would like something more user-friendly that would explain how to use this feature.
They should also send out more questionnaires to receive feedback.
I have been using CYPHER Learning since the second semester of 2020.
It seems to me that there were some problems with the internet in 2020, but they were our problems. This year, I have not seen any problems.
The fact that our university decided to buy this LMS is very instructive because not many universities in La Paz have something like this. With each semester, every student and teacher becomes more and more familiar with CYPHER Learning. Most other universities use Google Classroom.
In the language department, we have 10 teachers and each semester we manage approximately 600 students.
The solution is being used throughout the entire university.
The university acquired CYPHER Learning due to the pandemic.
We have a platform that has English content specifically for our department. It is 70 percent similar to CYPHER Learning but we use it more for uploaded content than anything else. So for us, the changes and getting familiar with CYPHER Learning were not as strange and complex as they were for other departments. We continue to use other platforms, but everything is concentrated in CYPHER Learning.
The first part was a bit complex. We received training from the university. The systems center also had a person in charge of everything, but the beginning was complex because there were many settings. Once the systems center took charge of that, it was much easier to use. Like any tool, at first, it will be complex until you practice using it. It's normal to face some difficulties.
We started the CYPHER Learning training in June and by August we were done. We already have a department that is in charge of providing orientation, follow-up, and courses and, if a teacher does not understand something, they receive the necessary support. If I have a question, I can write to them and they answer me quickly. For example, if I want to understand more about gamification, I can talk to the department to receive help.
Our deployment strategy was that the university put a person in charge of each department and CYPHER Learning trained those people. In our department, a colleague took on that position for everything related to CYPHER Learning tutorials. We had information regarding the schedule of the training sessions and which tutorials we had to watch, and we were also able to consult with that colleague. In each department, the leader provided that information. There was also a support team for students from the computer department. Now, we have a support department that focuses on CYPHER Learning.
Our systems center supports login or connection problems for both students and teachers. We also have a pedagogical monitoring team. There are probably 10 people involved on our side, but only one or two work directly with CYPHER Learning. In each department there is a coordinator who helps new teachers with questions and training.
CYPHER Learning is a good option for a large organization because it makes it easier to organize massive amounts of content, including data, files, and exams, as well as assign and review tasks. It makes things clearer for students. You can create In general, it is a good product.
It has taught me about the importance of adaptation. At first, I was a little worried that the students might not be able to adapt, but in the end, all the teachers and the students handled it well. It has taught me to adapt and set an example as a role model by using the platform.
Es el LMS que usamos en nuestra universidad. Personalmente, estoy en el departamento de idiomas y soy profesora de inglés. Para los cursos que doy uso CYPHER Learning para prácticamente todo. Todo está en él: el material, las tareas. Es una plataforma que nos ayuda mucho a la hora de organizar nuestras clases.
Si les digo a los alumnos que tienen que hacer un ensayo, creo una rúbrica de evaluación. Pueden ver la rúbrica y entender exactamente lo que tienen que hacer en el ensayo. Eso hace que sea mucho más claro para los estudiantes ver con precisión lo que se debe hacer. Con las rúbricas, pueden ver el progreso de forma transparente.
El sistema también ayuda cuando se trata de estrategias de intervención para los estudiantes porque, en las primeras semanas, te das cuenta de quién está interactuando en CYPHER Learning y quién no. Puedes ver quién está haciendo las unidades y quién no está trabajando y eso te da la oportunidad de preguntarle a un estudiante por qué no está haciendo su tarea. De esta manera, puedes desarrollar estrategias para ayudarlos. Por ejemplo, puedes intentar cambiar el contenido o aconsejar al estudiante que administre su tiempo de manera diferente. Estos podrían ser factores que influyen en la forma en que el estudiante interactúa en la plataforma.
En comparación con las formas tradicionales de enseñanza, estimaría que CYPHER Learning LMS ahorra el 40 por ciento de mi tiempo.
La capacidad de la solución para cerrar las diferencias de conocimiento entre los estudiantes no es mala, aunque cada estudiante es diferente, por lo que no todos irán al mismo ritmo. CYPHER Learning me ayuda a identificar el dominio de la materia por parte de cada alumno. Puedo profundizar mi trabajo con estudiantes que sobresalen, así como con estudiantes que tienen dificultades. Para aquellos que tienen dificultades, puedo darles un poco más de tiempo para completar la tarea. No creo que todos progresen de la misma manera y CYPHER Learning me da las herramientas para ayudar a los alumnos individualmente.
Otro beneficio es el ahorro de tiempo debido a la reducción del trabajo administrativo. Puedes descargar todas las notas a un documento de Excel y todo ya está organizado. Además, gestiono el departamento de idiomas y puedo pedir a los profesores que me envíen Excels del progreso de sus alumnos. Eso me permite observar lo que están haciendo los profesores y ver quién no ha trabajado mucho a través de CYPHER Learning. Puedo hablar rápidamente con el maestro y resolver cualquier problema. La disminución en la administración ahorra alrededor del 30 por ciento de mi tiempo.
También ayuda a ahorrar mucho tiempo al final del mes. Si un estudiante tiene una queja, podemos ver todo en el sistema. La evidencia siempre está ahí.
Y ahorrar en papel es importante para mí, tanto como persona y como docente. Estamos tratando como universidad de no usar papel. Porque todas las tareas están en CYPHER Learning, todo es digital y online y no necesito entregar tantos informes en papel.
El año pasado participé en un concurso en el que teníamos que enviar un video sobre algo que me gusta mucho en CYPHER Learning. Envié un video sobre el foro de discusión. Me gusta porque puedes subir cualquier tema, video, lectura o cita, y los alumnos pueden opinar e interactuar. Eso ayuda a profundizar la discusión.
También me gusta mucho el foro de discusión porque los estudiantes pueden dar sus opiniones allí e interactuar entre ellos. Para mí, como profesora de inglés, también es importante porque practican la escritura en un contexto real. Les ayuda a tener voz y saber lo que piensan sobre un tema determinado.
Otra característica valiosa es que facilita ver el progreso de los estudiantes, y los propios estudiantes pueden seguir su propio progreso.
En términos de automatización, puede crear sus propias unidades y colocar la información necesaria en cada unidad. Aunque en el departamento de idiomas usamos otra plataforma donde se sube todo nuestro contenido, con CYPHER Learning podemos ver si los estudiantes están aprendiendo de acuerdo con las tareas que se les asignan. Podemos pedir videos y grabaciones y, de esa forma, está automatizado. El proceso es más ágil que el proceso tradicional. La automatización es buena.
También me gusta la variedad de opciones. Una tarea puede ser simplemente un ensayo simple, un párrafo o los videos o grabaciones que mencioné. Estas opciones dan a los estudiantes la oportunidad de ser creativos.
A veces hacemos ejercicios que no tienen asociada una nota y eso ayuda a que los alumnos reciban feedback positivo sin sentirse evaluados. Los estudiantes entienden que no se trata solo de obtener una buena calificación, sino que también se trata de superación personal y, como resultado, desarrollan motivación.
Además, el hecho de que puedan ver sus calificaciones a través de CYPHER Learning les permite saber en qué tienen que trabajar, según su puntaje. Es muy organizado.
Y comunicarse con los alumnos es fácil porque podemos enviar mensajes individuales y grupales. El semestre pasado, enviamos varios mensajes de este tipo. Es una característica que funciona muy bien. Como profesora de inglés, escribo todo en inglés y esto brinda a mis alumnos una forma adicional de aprender el idioma. A veces, también les pido que me envíen un correo electrónico en inglés de una manera más formal. Por eso me ha ayudado mucho comunicarme a través de la plataforma.
La comunicación es muy importante, sobre todo por la pandemia. A veces los alumnos tienen dudas, preguntas o problemas, pero con las herramientas de comunicación del sistema puedo responderles más fácilmente. Nos ahorra tiempo y podemos centrarnos en cosas más importantes cuando estamos en clase.
Quizás en la parte de la gamificación. Lo he usado pero no me ha quedado muy claro. Puede ser mi responsabilidad por no preguntarlo en las capacitaciones, pero la forma en que se usa no es tan clara. Sé que hay tutoriales, pero me gustaría algo más fácil que explicara cómo usar esta función.
También deberían enviar más cuestionarios para recibir comentarios.
He estado usando CYPHER Learning desde el segundo semestre de 2020.
Me parece que hubo algunos problemas con la conexión al internet en el 2020, pero fueron nuestros problemas. Este año no he visto ningún problema.
El hecho de que nuestra universidad decidiera comprar este LMS es muy instructivo porque no muchas universidades en La Paz tienen algo así. Con cada semestre, cada estudiante y maestro se familiariza cada vez más con CYPHER Learning. La mayoría de las otras universidades usan Google Classroom.
En el departamento de idiomas contamos con 10 profesores y cada semestre manejamos aproximadamente 600 alumnos.
La solución se está utilizando en toda la universidad.
La universidad adquirió a CYPHER Learning debido a la pandemia.
Contamos con una plataforma que tiene contenido en inglés específicamente para nuestro departamento. Es un 70 por ciento similar a CYPHER Learning, pero lo usamos más para cargar contenido que para cualquier otra cosa. Entonces, para nosotros, los cambios y familiarizarnos con CYPHER Learning no fueron tan extraños y complejos como lo fueron para otros departamentos. Seguimos usando otras plataformas, pero todo se concentra en CYPHER Learning.
La primera parte fue un poco compleja, recibimos capacitación de la universidad y el centro de sistemas también tenía una persona a cargo de todo, pero el comienzo fue complejo porque habían muchos ajustes. Una vez que el centro de sistemas se hizo cargo de eso, fue mucho más fácil de usar. Como cualquier herramienta, al principio será compleja hasta que practiques su uso. Es normal enfrentar algunas dificultades.
Comenzamos el entrenamiento CYPHER Learning en junio y en agosto habíamos terminado. Ya contamos con un departamento que se encarga de brindar orientación, seguimiento y cursos y, si un docente no entiende algo, recibe el apoyo necesario y si tengo alguna duda les puedo escribir y me contestan rápido. Por ejemplo, si quiero entender más sobre la gamificación, puedo hablar con el departamento para recibir ayuda.
Nuestra estrategia de despliegue fue que la universidad pusiera a una persona a cargo de cada departamento y CYPHER Learning capacitó a esas personas. En nuestro departamento un compañero asumió ese cargo para todo lo relacionado con los tutoriales de CYPHER Learning. Teníamos información sobre el horario de los entrenamientos y qué tutoriales teníamos que ver y también pudimos consultar con ese colega. En cada departamento, el encargado proporcionaba ese tipo de información. También se contó con un equipo de apoyo a los alumnos del departamento de informática. Hoy en día, tenemos un departamento de soporte que se enfoca en CYPHER Learning.
Nuestro centro de sistemas se encarga de solucionar problemas de inicio de sesión o conexión tanto para estudiantes como para profesores. También contamos con un equipo de seguimiento pedagógico. Probablemente hay 10 personas involucradas de nuestro lado, pero solo una o dos trabajan directamente con CYPHER Learning. En cada departamento hay un coordinador que ayuda a los nuevos maestros con preguntas y capacitación.
CYPHER Learning es una buena opción para una organización grande porque facilita la organización de grandes cantidades de contenido, incluidos datos, archivos y exámenes, así como tareas de asignación y revisión. Hace las cosas más claras para los estudiantes. En general, es un buen producto.
Me ha enseñado sobre la importancia de la adaptación. Al principio, estaba un poco preocupada de que los estudiantes no pudieran adaptarse, pero al final, todos los maestros y los estudiantes lo manejaron bien. Me ha enseñado a adaptarme y dar ejemplo como modelo a seguir usando la plataforma.
It is a tool that the university bought as the main platform to provide tools, call lists, upload content, and tasks as well as for synchronous and asynchronous teaching tools, e.g., forums and debates.
We created our own program to help us gather information based on skills and commitments. CYPHER Learning helps us to synchronize all the data.
We have had meetings in addition to our training. This way, the university knows if the purchase of the platform has been beneficial for teachers and students. The vast majority have evaluated the use of the platform as excellent and very positively. There were some older people who said that they had difficulty because of their low digital skills, which it forced them to update. In the graduate and postgraduate courses where there are older people, they are also forced to study and learn the platform.
CYPHER Learning has helped by providing a variety of activities to help students get engaged, developing their independence and higher-order thinking skills. The solution feeds these qualities. If students do not know how to upload a file, or they have doubts, then they can manage to learn on their own. This makes them continue being curious to discover the platform.
With CYPHER Learning, we have been able to save costs. Everything is digital so we have no need for printed materials. CYPHER Learning allows us to use links or codes where we can access PDF books, YouTube, or our own library, which makes it easier and saves a lot.
I find it very valuable. When a young person cannot participate in a postgraduate course because he needs to work in order to earn money and cannot go to face-to-face classes, they can instead upload their material which others did in person. A folder is opened for them where they can upload the presentation content. Not everyone can always be in face-to-face classes, so instead they have the opportunity to upload the materials to the platform.
During the pandemic, virtual learning was the only way. At the same time, it forced us to train ourselves in automation, which makes any tool simple, including CYPHER Learning. Now, there is a democratization of information and students have access to everything that a teacher can give them.
CYPHER Learning's adaptive learning is excellent for helping provide students personalized content based on their goals and performance. All the content that I offer as a teacher is available to students, e.g., welcome messages, units created, and different sections. Due to the university's requirements, it has to be attractive, creative, and original so a young student will have the opportunity to learn my subject in a pleasant, professional way. CYPHER Learning requires professionalism from a creator of creative, updated content. This way, young people can explore and enjoy a subject.
CYPHER Learning is the main way to communicate with students. In CYPHER Learning, everything is recorded, including messages about tasks. I like that the messages are registered in the system. This way, I can keep track of students' efforts. We have a WhatsApp group and students also have my email, but I ask them to communicate through CYPHER Learning. The university administrators review teachers' data through CYPHER Learning. So, in case of any complaints, everything is registered there.
There is a section where you can create games and tools. I don't know if it is because I didn't have the training, but I couldn't use the gamification tools. I would like them to create a link with a tutorial explaining how to do this from the platform.
It seems like there is now more personnel in charge of training teachers. There are now people who are playing the role of instructors, so there are even more personnel working on the platform than before.
I have been using it since 2020.
It is a very well-made, stable tool. It is constantly updated and allows you to follow your work.
We are using it for postgraduate studies about any subject. It is being used for practically everything. It is a tool for evaluations, content, and work.
We also have training days all the time. People constantly support us regarding the platform. We have phone numbers if we need to call support.
I have never used CYPHER Learning technical support. I always go to the university trainers who always seem to know how to help. I would rate the technical support as 8.5 out of 10.
Positive
Since the pandemic started, we have always used CYPHER Learning. Before acquiring it, we only used Zoom or Google Meeting. However, CYPHER Learning was very much needed for information and qualification purposes.
We received training. It was not difficult because they explained it to us step-by-step. They even told us to open CYPHER Learning and try everything to find out what we least understood. The trainers that the university hired have helped us a lot. We can always call them and ask for support.
It didn't take me long to order my material in the system.
The university hired trainers who taught us all the basics, then divided us into small groups. That is how they implemented the platform in our institution.
There is a main instructor and five other people who constantly send us messages asking us if we are having difficulties or notifying us about a training meeting in the pedagogical area.
This same instructor also made very good video tutorials.
CYPHER Learning has helped us save time on intervention strategies for students, especially those who need guidance. The way that the solution is programmed means that we have our own library with contents. This allows us to be sure that all the work is well-organized, which saves us a lot of time.
We have seen savings in that administrative work when preparing content, qualifications, and basically everything related to teaching. CYPHER Learning allows us to store all our content, helping us be able to grade tasks and assignments. Reaching out for assistance is also much easier.
I don't know any other platforms, so I can't compare them, but practically CYPHER Learning is a very good platform.
It is a good, clear platform that allows you to use teaching tools. In general, CYPHER Learning is an excellent tool for both teachers and students.
Digitally, CYPHER Learning offers you various ways of learning. I have used videos or movie links in a forum so students can debate or have a discussion including their opinions. They enjoy the idea of a debate. Sometimes, students find creative ways to communicate, e.g., uploading their homework with a video that they made on their own. However, I haven't managed to create a game on CYPHER Learning yet.
The most important thing that CYPHER Learning taught me was to be schematic and ordered, increasing my logic skills. It also taught me to be creative and that you never stop learning and exploring.
I would rate the solution as 10 out of 10.
Es una herramienta que la universidad compró como plataforma principal para proporcionar herramientas, listas de llamadas, cargar contenido y tareas, así como herramientas de enseñanza sincrónica y asincrónica, por ejemplo, foros y debates.
Creamos nuestro propio programa para ayudarnos a recopilar información basada en habilidades y compromisos. CYPHER Learning nos ayuda a sincronizar todos los datos.
Hemos tenido reuniones además de nuestra capacitación. De esta forma, la universidad sabe si la compra de la plataforma ha sido beneficiosa para profesores y alumnos. La gran mayoría ha valorado el uso de la plataforma como excelente y muy positivo. Hubo algunas personas mayores de edad que dijeron que tenían dificultad por su bajo nivel digital esto los obligó a actualizarse. En los cursos de grado y posgrado donde hay estudiantes mayores de edad también se ven obligados a estudiar y aprender la plataforma.
CYPHER Learning ha ayudado al proporcionar una variedad de actividades que ayudan a los estudiantes a participar, desarrollar su independencia y habilidades de pensamiento de orden superior, La solución alimenta estas cualidades. Si los estudiantes no saben cómo cargar un archivo, o tienen dudas, entonces pueden optar por intentar y aprender de manera independiente. Esto hace que sigan teniendo curiosidad por descubrir la plataforma.
Con CYPHER Learning hemos podido ahorrar costes. Todo es digital, por lo que no necesitamos materiales impresos. CYPHER Learning nos permite usar enlaces o códigos donde podemos acceder a libros en PDF, YouTube o nuestra propia biblioteca, lo que facilita y ahorra mucho.
En mi opinión la plataforma ayuda mucho a los alumnos de bajos recursos, Cuando un joven no puede participar en un posgrado porque necesita trabajar para ganar dinero y no puede ir a clases presenciales, puede subir su material que otros hicieron en persona. Simplemente se les abre una carpeta donde pueden cargar el contenido de la presentación. No todos pueden estar siempre en clases presenciales, por lo que tienen la oportunidad de subir los materiales a la plataforma, esto es muy valioso para mi.
Durante la pandemia, el aprendizaje virtual era la única forma. Al mismo tiempo, nos obligó a formarnos en la automatización, lo que hace que cualquier herramienta sea sencilla, incluida CYPHER Learning. Ahora, hay una democratización de la información y los estudiantes tienen acceso a todo lo que el docente les puede dar.
El aprendizaje adaptativo de CYPHER Learning es excelente para ayudar a proporcionar a los estudiantes contenido personalizado en función de sus objetivos y rendimiento. Todo el contenido que ofrezco como docente está disponible para los estudiantes, por ejemplo, mensajes de bienvenida, unidades creadas y diferentes secciones. Debido a los requisitos de la universidad el contenido tiene que ser atractivo, creativo y original para que el estudiante tenga la oportunidad de aprender mi materia de una manera amena y profesional. CYPHER Learning requiere profesionalidad de parte del docente, nos da la oportunidad de ser creadores de contenido creativo y actualizado. De esta manera, los estudiantes pueden explorar y disfrutar del tema en clase.
CYPHER Learning es la principal forma de comunicarse con los estudiantes. En CYPHER Learning, todo queda registrado, incluidos los mensajes sobre las tareas. Me gusta que los mensajes siempre están registrados en el sistema. De esta manera, puedo realizar un seguimiento de los rendimientos de los estudiantes. Tenemos un grupo de WhatsApp y los alumnos también tienen mi correo, pero les pido que se comuniquen por CYPHER Learning. Los administradores de la universidad revisan los datos de los profesores a través de CYPHER Learning. Entonces, en caso de cualquier queja, todo queda registrado allí.
Hay una sección donde puedes crear juegos y herramientas. No sé si es porque no tuve la formación, pero no pude usar las herramientas de gamificación. Me gustaría que crearan un enlace con un tutorial explicando cómo hacer esto desde la plataforma.
Parece que ahora hay más personal a cargo de capacitar a los maestros. Ahora hay personas que están desempeñando el papel de instructores, por lo que hay incluso más personal trabajando en la plataforma que antes.
Lo uso desde 2020.
Es una herramienta muy bien hecha y estable. Se actualiza constantemente y te permite seguir tu trabajo de manera profesional.
Lo estamos utilizando para estudios de posgrado sobre cualquier materia. Se está utilizando para prácticamente todo. Es una herramienta de evaluación, contenido y trabajo.
Tenemos días de capacitación constantemente. Nuestro equipo tecnico nos apoya seguidamente con respecto a la plataforma. Tenemos números de teléfono si necesitamos llamar al soporte.
Nunca he utilizado el soporte técnico de CYPHER Learning. Siempre acudo a los formadores universitarios que siempre parecen saber cómo ayudar. Calificaría el soporte técnico como 8.5 de 10.
Positivo
Desde que comenzó la pandemia, siempre hemos usado CYPHER Learning. Antes de adquirirlo, solo usábamos Zoom o Google Meeting. Sin embargo, CYPHER Learning era muy necesario para fines de información y calificación.
Recibimos capacitación. No fue difícil porque nos lo explicaron paso a paso. Incluso nos dijeron que abriéramos CYPHER Learning y que abrieramos todas las pestañas para descubrir qué era lo que menos entendíamos. Los formadores que contrató la universidad nos han ayudado mucho. Siempre podemos llamarlos y pedir apoyo.
No tardé mucho en ordenar mi material en el sistema.
La universidad contrató entrenadores que nos enseñaron todos los conceptos básicos y luego nos dividieron en pequeños grupos. Fue así como implementaron la plataforma en nuestra institución.
Hay un instructor principal y otras cinco personas que constantemente nos envían mensajes preguntándonos si tenemos dificultades o avisándonos de una reunión de capacitación en el área pedagógica.
Este mismo instructor también hizo muy buenos videos tutoriales.
CYPHER Learning nos ha ayudado a ahorrar tiempo en estrategias de intervención para estudiantes, especialmente para aquellos que necesitan orientación. La forma en que está programada la plataforma hace que tengamos nuestra propia biblioteca con contenidos. Esto nos permite estar seguros de que todo el trabajo está bien organizado, lo que nos ahorra mucho tiempo.
Hemos visto ahorros en el trabajo administrativo a la hora de preparar contenidos, titulaciones y básicamente todo lo relacionado con la docencia. CYPHER Learning nos permite almacenar todo nuestro contenido, ayudándonos a poder calificar tareas y asignaciones. Solicitar ayuda también es mucho más fácil.
No conozco ninguna otra plataforma, así que no puedo compararlas, pero prácticamente CYPHER Learning es una muy buena plataforma.
Es una plataforma buena y clara que te permite usar herramientas de enseñanza. En general, CYPHER Learning es una excelente herramienta tanto para profesores como para estudiantes.
Digitalmente, CYPHER Learning te ofrece diversas formas de aprender. He usado videos o enlaces de películas en un foro para que los estudiantes puedan debatir o tener una discusión incluyendo sus opiniones. Les gusta la idea de los debates. A veces, los estudiantes encuentran formas creativas de comunicarse, por ejemplo, cargando su tarea con un video que hicieron ellos mismos. Sin embargo, aún no he logrado crear un juego en CYPHER Learning.
Lo más importante que me enseñó CYPHER Learning fue a ser esquemática y ordenada, aumentando mis habilidades lógicas. También me enseñó a ser creativa ya que nunca dejas de aprender y explorar.
Calificaría la solución con un 10 sobre 10.
We offer transformative health programs. We offer self-paced and cohort-based learning experiences online for health and wellness.
We are using its latest version.
CYPHER Learning is extraordinarily intuitive. It allows us to customize the design and the look-and-feel of all of our pages inside of a course.
It also allows us to direct students automatically from one task to the next, including creating their own reflections and personal goals. So, it really does support student agency, as we call it, as well as student success in completing tasks on their own.
We are able to see who has not accessed the portal and follow up with those people. It is important for us because retention is one of the factors in evaluating the efficacy of a course.
It enables us to monitor and check student progress. We don't use the mastery tool so much, but we do use the gamification tool where they get a set of scores or points once they complete something, and that badging system helps us track the completion. We've steered away from the grading tool and stuck with more of what I always call the rewards.
We love a couple of things. We love the group feature allowing students to have peer-to-peer learning experiences. In our case, it is for students, but this feature could also be useful for a business to provide peer-to-peer learning experiences for employees. The group tool provides an opportunity for students to connect with their peers inside of their own digital space. One of the aspects that we love about the group tool is that it allows students to leave the course but engage in a digital space where they access materials that are personalized to their group.
We also like gamification. It allowed us to give our users scores and have a friendly competition to motivate their learning success.
Another great feature is that it allows you to change the naming conventions of the tools. I've never seen an LMS that allows you to do that. All organizations have their own vocabulary, and this is just an extraordinary feature that gives you so much freedom to customize the platform to align with your organization's look-and-feel and vocabulary.
Their Support Forum was exemplary. I got answers within 25 minutes of my questions, and they were personalized to me, which made the Support Forum highly valuable. I love the fact other people could see the question and the answer I got, and I could see theirs.
I'm an instructional designer, so from a designer standpoint, it is important to have a user-friendly resource folder that allows us to organize our artifacts for easy access to pull into multiple pages and modules. The second feature that I need is an easier capacity to edit pages with images and customizable headings.
I started in November of 2019.
It is highly stable.
It is absolutely scalable. Currently, we have 10 courses, and we could easily go way more.
In terms of its users, we have a curriculum director who oversees content quality, and then we have course builders. Sometimes, the curriculum director takes on the course builder role, which means aligning the content into a cohesive format in CYPHER Learning. We have an admissions director who looks at the analytics to help us look at retention and other continuity needs.
In terms of its usage, we're currently in a little bit of a holding pattern. We've done an initial launch, and we're now assessing and bringing on more content experts. So, we're back in what we call build mode with a plan to launch in the fall another set of courses.
Their Support Forum is fantastic. The initial onboarding was easy with great technical support and relationship building with Alexia. I got a chance to get to know her really well because she's a designer. If I didn't get what I needed at the Support Forum, I could reach out to her directly. I would rate their support a 10 out of 10.
Positive
I am an instructional designer. So, I work with lots of learning management systems, but in particular, for this project, I didn't work with any other solution.
It was straightforward. The company provided us with excellent onboarding training.
The build took a long time, but that was not because of CYPHER Learning. I could probably build a full course in a week if I had all the content with me.
We implemented it on our own. In terms of maintenance, the curriculum director and the course builder both tag team to support the technical ends. They also need to communicate with the content experts of the courses to manage student expectations and technical needs. We had to set up a Google email account to make sure students had a place to get help.
We absolutely will see an ROI when we launch.
Their plans are based on enrollment numbers. We're at the silver level with 100 active learners. So, you're really beholden to how many learners you're going to accommodate. There are no extra costs in addition to the standard licensing fees.
I evaluated Thinkific, but it was nowhere near the level of features and customization that we needed.
Maybe I'm being biased, but you definitely want to hire or have a course designer with the skills of course design and the understanding of how to leverage all the features that are available in an an LMS. The other piece of advice is to be very thoughtful and intentional about your initial setup by asking how it aligns with your goals and outcomes. For example, we needed to think about the naming conventions of each feature to match our organization. So, instead of calling them courses, we called them journeys. Instead of calling them groups, we called them communities.
The biggest lesson that I have learned from using this solution is to collaborate and work as a team to build the platform, and iterate, iterate, iterate.
We connect it to HubSpot, which is for our tracking of marketing, but in CYPHER Learning, we haven't done a lot of automation. We also haven't used the competency-based learning feature. We're very new, and we do intend to use it, but we aren't there yet. We do use gamification and badging.
I would rate CYPHER Learning a nine out of ten.
We operate an online education platform that sells courses to audiences all over the world. We have a global audience, and we use CYPHER Learning as our primary learning management system. CYPHER Learning is our only LMS.
CYPHER Learning is a web-based application, so there is no need to deploy it. However, there is also an app that can be used to access the portal.
CYPHER Learning has allowed us to spend less time administering content. We no longer have to worry about whether our website is functioning or whether the content is being delivered as intended. That's what CYPHER Learning is for. They streamline the delivery of content, so we know how to set up classes, courses, assessments, and diplomas. CYPHER Learning also takes on a lot of the administrative burden from our organization, including customer support.
We use the gamification feature in relation to certification, but we are not yet taking full advantage of it. We are definitely looking into it.
CYPHER Learning has helped us reduce our training costs by approximately $2,000 per person trained.
CYPHER Learning has helped to reduce costs related to printing our materials.
We wouldn't be able to do what we do without CYPHER Learning. It's hard to quantify how much CYPHER Learning has helped increase profits, but it's essential to our business. Without CYPHER Learning, we wouldn't have a school.
The entire system is incredibly valuable, but one of the reasons we chose CYPHER Learning was the social interaction features, such as forums, student groups, and messaging. We hadn't seen these features in other learning management systems. The assessment management is also amazing. Overall, the system is well-designed. However, the social features were the deciding factor.
CYPHER Learning should definitely offer live video conferencing integration. We currently need to outsource this service, which means we cannot run webinars from within CYPHER Learning. This is definitely on our wish list.
The initial setup process is a bit cumbersome, but it is not impossible to complete. The company's support is excellent, so we were able to get help with any questions we had.
The platform had a bit of a learning curve for our team, but our users, who tend to be older, were able to use it seamlessly. The average age of our users is over 50, so they are not always tech-savvy. We have had very few issues with our users being able to use the platform. Overall, the platform is user-friendly for our users, but it could be more user-friendly for administrators.
We learned some of the rules for assessments and completion the hard way. For example, if we change a role, it is not applied automatically. We have to manually update the role. We needed to verify that people had completed all the requirements to be issued a certificate. We changed the role halfway through the process because we found out that there was a gap and people were falling through the cracks. However, we had to manually correct the already-issued certificates. Therefore, the change of rules does not apply retroactively. We need to test anything that is conditional, especially completion rules.
I have been using CYPHER Learning for six years.
The solution is highly stable. In the six years we have been using CYPHER Learning, we have not experienced any downtime or crashing.
CYPHER Learning is very scalable. We are somewhere in the middle of its scalability range. This was one of the reasons we chose CYPHER Learning, as we were at the bottom of its scalability range at the time, and there is still room for us to grow comfortably without having to switch platforms.
The technical support is incredibly responsive, helpful, and respectful. They have their own support forum, where many questions have already been answered. However, if we need help, the support team has always been quick to respond and provide assistance.
Positive
The initial setup was a five out of ten. I had a general idea of the course structure, and I built it up one lesson at a time, exploring as I went. I didn't do a lot of forward planning, other than planning the course itself and then trying to use the platform to achieve that goal. I didn't start by looking at what the platform could do and then model the course on that.
The implementation was completed in-house with the help of technical support.
I give the solution a nine out of ten.
We are not yet ready to use CYPHER Learning's ability to recommend courses or assignments to learners based on their job titles or a set of competencies. This is because we sell the courses from our website. Instead, we are currently creating pathways for learners manually. This is something we want to explore further in the future, but we have not had the capacity to do so yet.
We have eight tutors that use CYPHER Learning within our organization.
There is maintenance required for the content, such as our courses. However, the platform itself does not require any maintenance, which is a great benefit of using CYPHER Learning. All of the platform's functionalities are provided by CYPHER Learning itself.
Users should know what they want to achieve with the platform, and they should also take the time to explore all of the platform's capabilities. Once users are set up, which is our current challenge, it can be difficult to add features like gamification or competency-based learning if they were not part of the original plan. Therefore, users should have a clear idea of their goals, but they should also be flexible and willing to adapt their strategy as they learn more about the platform.
We've been using it for the delivery of our learning materials as well as for assessments of our students. Similarly, if training has to be conducted for our employees, including faculty members and school staff, all the materials are readily available in our LMS.
We have saved a lot as far as courier services are concerned. In the past, before CYPHER Learning, we would burn our materials onto CDs and send them out across the country via courier. With the LMS, all our materials are uploaded and they are almost instantaneously available for access within our school.
Apart from those costs, it has saved us time. We had a procedure where our materials would be posted on OneDrive and then one person was responsible for accessing and distributing them in each of our schools. With CYPHER Learning, we have been able to cut out that step. Now, when we develop the materials in our headquarters, the faculty members are able to access them instantaneously. By removing that interim step, we have saved man-hours. Administratively, CYPHER Learning has helped us save time.
It has also definitely helped us to save costs related to the printing of materials because we no longer print our materials. Teachers and students get access to them through their devices.
We also make use of other solutions to help address higher-order thinking skills, and CYPHER Learning supports that. Activities that help our students achieve or acquire higher-order thinking are very important because that's how we make sure that we prepare our students. That's how we ascertain that we are delivering quality education to our students and that they are really achieving the intended learning outcomes of the particular program they are enrolled in.
There are several valuable features. One is the competency mapping. This helps us, as faculty members and developers of learning materials, track and monitor which competencies our students have acquired, based on the outcomes that we wanted them to have at the end of a particular module or term.
And tagging classes and assignments with competencies is user-friendly, from the feedback I get from my team. There are options for whether it is a required module or assignment. Is it something that they can do on their own? It can be tagged such that it will only be given on a particular day. All of these types of tagging features are available. You just upload your materials and tag them to be, for example, self-paced or on a particular schedule. Then you just leave it and it unhides a particular module when a student has to complete it.
The tagging and the achievement of competencies, together, are almost always seamless. When you tag a particular competency in the mapping in a module, the student really has to achieve it. The competency mapping will show if they have reached a particular level of competency, because the mapping of achievements is color-coded. Teachers know when a student is still in the red zone, orange zone, or has reached the green zone. The modules in CYPHER Learning are well thought out. This feature is user-friendly for the teacher, and the students, as the end-users of the materials, are also able to see their progress.
Also, there are different types of learning materials that we can put in the LMS. Some are web-based, meaning we can embed a URL in the system, and it automatically leads the student or the user to the online materials we're going to use.
And on the dashboards, we are able to see the progress of our students, such as whether they have been able to do their assignments or homework and submit everything that they have to submit.
In addition, the adaptive learning is a feature that I really appreciate. Especially when the pandemic happened and classes were mostly asynchronous, we populated our library of materials. If a student had not yet reached a particular grade or level to proceed to the next module, we gave them additional modules to watch, read, and practice on, to better understand things. They would not proceed to the next level or module until they were able to earn a particular score. That's how we apply adaptive learning. This feature was something that we always wanted CYPHER Learning to have, but they went full-scale with it only recently. It has really helped us make sure that everybody is on the right track in mastering, or at least acquiring, fundamental knowledge and skills before they proceed to the next module.
We also do make use of the solution's competency-based learning, which is another feature they just introduced recently. It will help bridge the gap between what industries need when our students graduate and they join the workforce, and what we teach them in the classroom. It's something that we are exploring at the moment, and it's something that we've always wanted to have. The goal is that the students, when they graduate, will be able to show a portfolio of the competencies that they needed to acquire during their time with STI.
Communication through CYPHER Learning is just like on any other multimedia platform. Anything that has to do with schoolwork or official communication has to go through the CYPHER Learning or Microsoft Office. CYPHER Learning is like their Facebook for school. This communication is very important because there are a lot of things that come from our headquarters that have to cascade to the schools. The LMS helps us eliminate the transfer of communication from one person to another. When there are announcements that have to be done network-wide, CYPHER Learning helps ease that communication between head office and the entire network. We don't have to worry about the possibility that something was never relayed to the students or faculty members.
Most of our wish list for CYPHER Learning has already been addressed. One that we are still asking them for is to include competencies from different industries, since they have industry partners. These would be the competencies that these industries need so that we can make sure that we are developing our students toward those competencies or skill sets.
Also, because the competency mapping feature is very well thought out, our wish list also includes that when our students graduate, they are able to print, download, or access the competencies that they have achieved in the four years that they studied with us at STI. That portfolio could then be shown when they apply for a job, and employers would see that it has been mapped out according to the industry's standards.
I have been using CYPHER LEARNING since 2016.
It's scalable because when we have requests they're able to find solutions or they tell us it's something they're considering. CYPHER LEARNING is able to address the needs of its clients.
We have 91,000 users of CYPHER Learning. There are 63 campuses of STI that are using it. You can just imagine how confident we are with CYPHER Learning because 91,000 of our students are using it every single day of their lives at school.
As far as our learning materials and assessments go, we really make use of the platform and, therefore, students have to use it. Everything is there. Teachers should be giving their assignments through CYPHER Learning, but of course, sometimes they don't. But the idea is they should be using it.
CYPHER LEARNING has very good customer support. Sometimes, because of their number of customers, it takes a little bit longer for them to reply to us. Sometimes, it takes them a week to reply to us, but those are rare cases. Most of the time, when our team chats with them, they are able to get back to us pretty quickly. Very seldom do they need to ask me to escalate an issue to one of their senior staff. They're able to address our concerns.
Positive
We didn't have a previous solution.
We have seen ROI because we have been able to cut down on time, courier services, freight, and the time it takes for things to travel from one campus to another. It is really the time savings that have been very good and important for us.
CYPHER LEARNING is very flexible when it comes to pricing. They hear out their customers and see where they can help them as far as cost is concerned. They look at long-term relationships and partnerships with their clients. It's very easy to talk to them regarding the cost and tell them why we can only afford a particular price bracket. When we explain that to them, they are able to adjust. At the end of the day, they are really looking to build and keep relationships and partnerships with their clients.
We evaluated two or three other solutions. And we are still evaluating different solutions when they approach us, but CYPHER Learning still stands when it comes to modules, features, benefits, and costs.
If you're looking into a product like this, you first have to understand what you want from an LMS. There is no one-size-fits-all for a particular institution. You have to list what your non-negotiables are, and then make sure that the provider is able to give you the things on that list.
It's also very important when you are deciding on an LMS that the team presenting it to you knows what they're talking about and that they'll take care of you. Some will present a solution to you, but when you ask a question they're not confident in their answers. That's a red light for me.
As for gamification, it is something that helps students learn, but we have discovered that it's not a silver bullet. You cannot gamify everything. It is something that helps engage students in their learning, however, it cannot be the only approach. You really have to know what your objectives and outcomes are and then include gamification. Otherwise, it will just be something that the students will take advantage of, and they will no longer learn. It becomes repetitive for them.
Gamification is nice because it drives and motivates students, but you have to vary gamification modules with other types of delivery. We tried dashboards and leaderboards, but sometimes students aren't motivated by those either. You have to strike a balance. It's nice to have, but are we able to achieve the intended learning outcome?
We have to keep on exploring things because CYPHER Learning has a lot of modules that we can utilize. And I really appreciate their management. They're so easy to talk to. When we need something, they're able to discuss it with us and help us find solutions. They're very easy to talk to, as long as they understand where you're coming from.
Overall, it's a very well-thought-out solution. I am thankful to Graham [the founder] and the team at CYPHER LEARNING. They're very dynamic. They keep their ears to the ground regarding what their clients need. It's a very stable company.
I run an e-learning business providing training to accounting firms, and I use it as a platform for managing the learner experience for all of the learning courses. They're all self-paced courses.
We've been doing training for about 15 years, and the transition to a self-paced platform has been fantastic. It's actually given us better results with our learners than the live sessions that we were previously running. It has also allowed us to leverage and scale our business effectively and has been critically important for the growth of our business.
There are so many valuable features: The
I use rules for a particular action when a particular task is completed. Gamification is a good example within that part of the platform. When learners reach a certain stage, or there's a certain outcome, they either get a certificate or a badge or the like. And when learners haven't accessed their course for a period of time, they get an automatic email asking them how things are going. Those are some basic actions or reactions around particular things that learners might do.
I am able to see who has not accessed the portal, using CYPHER Learning, and follow up with those people. This ability is very important and I have a person working full-time on it. It's our goal to make sure that learners complete their courses and we use the reporting and the platform to keep an eye on all of our learners. It doesn't lead directly to new registrations, but the learner experience is the most important thing for me. I'm keen to ensure that we give our learners all the support they can get to complete their courses.
Overall, for monitoring and checking student progress it's fantastic. It has everything that I need. I can print out reports showing me where learners are at, what their scores are, and how long it has been since they last accessed the platform. All that information is available.
The platform is fine. Most of the room for improvement is around my course design, the video content, and the structure of my courses so that they're more engaging and interactive. Whether the platform can help me deliver those outcomes, I'm not sure, but that will probably be my core focus over the next 12 months.
I have been using CYPHER Learning for three or four years.
There has been no problem with the stability. I have never had any issues.
The scalability is up to me. The intention of getting a platform like this was to scale up my business, and that's something I'm working on at the moment. I can keep doing that, it's highly leverageable.
I have 1,500 learners, of which 500 would be engaged over the course of a month. Sometimes people go off a course for a period of time and come back to it.
The responsiveness of their help desk is absolutely fantastic. If I have a question, I'll usually get a response within five minutes. That's very important to me because I've probably got over 500 learners at any one time and there are always little things that need to be addressed. They respond very quickly.
And I'm continually improving our system with feedback from the people at CYPHER LEARNING.
Positive
CYPHER Learning was my first experience with an online e-learning platform. I did spend six months starting to develop my own platform and then stopped very quickly when I realized that there were platforms available.
I can't tell you how I came across the solution, probably just through an online search. They were very easy to engage with and that's probably why I'm with them.
The implementation was very easy. It was easy to convert some of my live content into self-paced online courses. The initial deployment was done within a month, to have it set up properly, make sure it was all working, and understand how the platform worked.
My implementation strategy involved making sure that the live content I had was transferable to a self-paced learning environment, and getting some learner feedback on how the course was operating.
Deployment of a new course, getting it set up on CYPHER Learning, takes about a day. There is very little maintenance. Once it's set up, there are only little fine-tuning things to do. I've got about 25 to 30 courses online now and I know how to set up new courses. Most of the effort is the background work, creating the content.
I only used the CYPHER LEARNING people to help with the training. In the very early days, I even had the international CEO, Graham Glass, speak to me for an hour and give me some feedback. He went through it all with me. That was quite incredible actually.
The revenue that I generate is about 50 times the cost at the moment.
For each course, it has helped to significantly reduce administrative work, but now that we've been able to scale up, obviously, we spend more time on admin in general. But we don't spend so much time on the things that we were doing in the past to manage the learner experience. Our administrative time has gone into other things that add more value.
It has also absolutely saved us money on training facilities and travel, costs that used to be involved in training. It's all online now. We have learners throughout Australia, New Zealand, the US, Canada, and the UK. It's scalable and people can access content anywhere.
The pricing is good. It's scalable, meaning you can start off at a cost level that is easy for a startup and then build on it from there. I've built up from nothing to a Platinum subscription. You can scale up as you need. It's pretty flexible and it works well.
If consultants or training are required, in the contract they have the ability to charge for a scope of work, but they've never charged me for anything that they've done. And they have spent significant time on some of my stuff.
I had a quick look around, but back then there weren't too many options available.
Find out how other organizations are using it. Get as much feedback on best practices as you can. And that's not just for this platform, but for other e-learning platforms. Get feedback on how to get the most value from them. Training and understanding of e-learning platforms, and the psychology of e-learning, are particularly important so that the courses are set up correctly. Ask as many questions as you have. They're pretty responsive.
I'm just working at the moment on gamification and getting that up and running, so I can't give a lot of feedback about that, but that's developing. I'm also putting another key element of the platform into place, mastery, which is developing core competencies around course content. Similarly, I have been implementing competency-based learning over the last month or so. CYPHER Learning have given me a fair amount of detail, training, and follow-up on that. Again, I can't give a lot of feedback, but it all works fairly well.
We're also in the process of implementing two-factor authentication for security. That has been up and running over the last month and we are getting our learners through that process at the moment, so that data and information are secure. That is a key project that we're working on, apart from gamification and competencies.
I don't have any complaints about the platform. At this stage, it's meeting my needs. My challenge is more in making sure that I'm using it to its full capabilities. For that reason, I'm in pretty regular contact with the people at CYPHER Learning to review where I'm at and identify what I could be doing better. I'm focusing on continual improvement.
The biggest lesson I have learned from using the platform is the need to keep refining and developing. There are always things that you don't know. There are always features of a platform like this that you're not aware of. It's important to always be looking for ways to improve and asking whether the platform can deliver those outcomes. The platform has a pretty healthy pipeline, and they'll generally listen to any suggestions.
I use CYPHER Learning to upload school information, publish the annual program, and upload the sections of classes, divided weekly. We also use this platform in a didactic and playful way so that students have a more striking way of learning. We also do exams through CYPHER Learning.
CYPHER Learning has helped our institution a lot, especially in terms of evaluations. It provides substantial help for the teacher. For example, I can create an exam and CYPHER Learning already corrects it. That level of automation has helped me a lot. I'd rather spend an extra hour in CYPHER Learning creating one more test for another section than spend three hours grading tests.
CYPHER Learning helps me by giving me the results of exams. With the percentages that I receive from the platform I save a lot of time in the administrative sense.
I have 150 students in my charge. Whereas before, I had to correct the exam of each one of the 150 students, now I can simply access CYPHER Learning and see the results. The time that I used to correct exams I now use to create classes with more fun content or more games. I feel calmer in that sense. It has given me peace of mind.
It also helps in getting students to become more engaged and develop thinking skills. There is an option within the system that enables me to insert games from third-party platforms via links. The flexibility of being able to insert audio or links helps to challenge students to demonstrate their entrepreneurship and their level of thinking.
Our school is in a process of transformation where more emphasis is being given to inverted education. In that model, new content is initially introduced through online videos and readings before the class takes place. We have already achieved four stars in the EFQM model. Part of the process of reaching five stars is to be up to date with the new methodologies of education worldwide, such as the flipped classroom, where the focus of attention is inverted from the teacher to the students. In that model, students take more responsibility in the learning process. CYPHER Learning allows us to introduce subjects and inform students about the topics and give them a "warm-up" for what is going to happen in class.
Through the system, I also have an idea of how a student is doing since I can see the grades and scores they have received. That can help in part with intervention for students who need help. I can send them a link with content so they can practice the subject more, or I can talk to them through the chat to discuss what they need. In these ways, it helps me track students with difficulties and intervene.
Another benefit is that we no longer use so much paper or the school printing press, saving us a lot on costs. In addition, since there is not as much printing anymore, we no longer need as many staff in the printing part of the school.
I can use a template to replicate class content so that I can use the same content in the three sections where I teach. That way, I don't have to continuously edit my classes. It's very useful.
The platform helps me organize basic sections. I share videos, presentations, and games like Kahoot, and this helps me facilitate learning management. There are students who are interested in this, and there are others who are not part of these activities. For me, it is very useful to send links to students with informative content before class so that they are more prepared. That has been very beneficial for me.
The platform also gives you an idea of the percentages when it comes to students' performance.
And when it comes to exams, if I want to assign one exam to specific students, the platform makes it easy for me to share the exam in that way. The platform makes it easy for me to communicate with students. I simply use the inbox, select the classroom and the student, and then send the exam that I want that student to send him. That's it. For me, this is a very important feature.
CYPHER Learning is also quite user-friendly. It is not complicated to use. Students know how to manage it, upload their homework, and take exams. The students can see their results as well. The exam files can be changed and it has many settings that allow for flexibility in giving exams.
If there is something that the platform could improve on, it would be in showing the number of words in a document that a student uploads. When I have to review essays I cannot see the number of words in them. The platform should count the words.
Another issue is in the area of exams. They could be more personalized and specific. For example, if I want to create a text with several gaps where the students have to fill in the correct words, it is very difficult to do through CYPHER Learning.
We have not necessarily saved money on textbooks since English learners have a printed book that is not in CYPHER Learning. If CYPHER Learning had an English reading platform it would be fantastic. If they could add a platform like Black Cat to their services it would be beneficial. CYPHER Learning doesn't include games either. I usually have to go to third-party sites, like Kahoot and Bamboo. I think you can add games through SCORM but I don't think it's that good. Because it does not include fun games like the ones I use, I have to buy them, and they are not cheap.
I have been using CYPHER LEARNING for three to four years.
It is quite stable and also provides services during hours when we do not have classes.
CYPHER Learning is the backbone of the school. It is used continuously. It gives us structure for the functioning of our learning sessions, and enough functionality to work in those sessions and on everything else. It gives us structure and unity.
For example, if I have an exam that I create in English for high school and a colleague of mine from another grade wants to use that exam, he can use it. I have the ability to share materials such as exams with other teachers.
We have 250 to 300 users, teachers and administrators, not counting the students.
The solution’s technical support is good. I mostly turn to the systems administrator team at our school when I have problems with CYPHER Learning. I know that the vendor has support for the platform but I prefer to talk to a person by phone or in person. From what I understand about CYPHER LEARNING's support, it is a chat with a robot. In some cases it helps but in some cases it doesn't.
I don't have a phone number of a CYPHER Learning manager to turn to. If they had a helpline it might be better.
Neutral
I used Canvas LMS, although I couldn't create exams in it. It is a very good platform, but CYPHER Learning is better for creating exams for school.
In the beginning, it was complicated. We all did not understand what the system was. Some teachers were more skilled than others in finding the features. Some teachers, even to this day, don't know how to make an exam in CYPHER Learning. They haven't figured it out.
There was a training process but there was a lot of information so it took us time to decipher. Our deployment took two to three months. There was a lot of publicity and information about CYPHER Learning at our school, in meetings and through training. They gave us links to tutorials as well. It was a whole implementation process.
I would like us to receive more tutorials on the SCORM format. I found it very useful and that there are many things that can be done with it. We also learned that with the Lumen program you have a massive number of formats for games that can be inserted into CYPHER Learning via SCORM.
Our school has three different levels: initial, elementary, and high school. Our department of system administrators, consisting of three or four, is in charge of CYPHER Learning.
We have an intermediary between CYPHER LEARNING and our school, a company that helped our school with the implementation. They just gave a talk about the use of SCORM a few days ago which I wish had been a little longer.
The cost of CYPHER Learning was necessary to handle the situation that occurred during the pandemic. Since then, CYPHER Learning has continued to justify its cost since it makes it possible for a teacher to take charge of more sections. Teachers can handle more exams and more students because more things are automated. If a teacher used to handle four sections, he now has five because he does not have to correct so many exams. This has led to reducing staff.
This automation is priceless. Now, teachers can focus on other aspects with the additional time saved on reviewing exams.
In addition, I can share content with other people. All of this is a benefit for the school.
My advice is to make sure you have a lot of training. Your school should create many training sessions to help people know how to use it, with practical examples of how exams and sections are created. That way, teachers will become familiar with the platform. We had teachers who were very afraid to use the platform at first. With enjoyable training sessions, you can break the ice.
During the pandemic, we felt isolated since we did not have the ability to ask our colleagues for help.
In terms of face-to-face education, a suggestion for CYPHER LEARNING is that it give more presence to CYPHER Learning as an entity in the school by teaching more about how to exploit the tools: how to create games, and more about the use of SCORM. In our case, each teacher has discovered many things on their own. There is a need for more of a company presence.
Learn to trust yourself. Technology is your friend, so do not be afraid of it. It can help you in your processes. There is a saying that "employability is a journey, not a destination." Many things can be learned on this journey. Your job as a teacher does not have to be a final destination. We need to accept that we are on a journey in which everything can change and that we need to adapt. CYPHER Learning has taught me to adapt.
Uso CYPHER Learning para subir información de la escuela, publicar el programa anual y subir las secciones de clases, divididas semanalmente. También utilizamos esta plataforma de forma didáctica y lúdica para que los alumnos tengan una forma más llamativa de aprender. También hacemos exámenes a través de CYPHER Learning.
CYPHER Learning ha ayudado mucho a nuestra institución, especialmente en términos de evaluaciones. Proporciona una ayuda sustancial para el profesor. Por ejemplo, puedo crear un examen y CYPHER Learning ya lo corrige. Ese nivel de automatización me ha ayudado mucho. Prefiero pasar una hora extra en CYPHER Learning creando una prueba más para otra sección que pasar tres horas calificando pruebas.
CYPHER Learning me ayuda dándome los resultados de los exámenes. Con los porcentajes que recibo de la plataforma ahorro mucho tiempo en el sentido administrativo.
Tengo 150 estudiantes a mi cargo. Mientras que antes tenía que corregir el examen de cada uno de los 150 alumnos, ahora simplemente puedo acceder a CYPHER Learning y ver los resultados. El tiempo que solía corregir exámenes ahora lo uso para crear clases con contenido más divertido o más juegos. Me siento más tranquila en ese sentido. Me ha dado tranquilidad.
También ayuda a que los estudiantes se involucren más y desarrollen habilidades de pensamiento. Hay una opción dentro del sistema que me permite insertar juegos de plataformas de terceros a través de enlaces. La flexibilidad de poder insertar audio o enlaces ayuda a desafiar a los estudiantes a demostrar su emprendimiento y su nivel de pensamiento.
Nuestro colegio se encuentra en un proceso de transformación donde se le está dando más énfasis a la educación invertida. En ese modelo, el nuevo contenido se introduce inicialmente a través de videos y lecturas en línea antes de que se lleve a cabo la clase. Ya hemos conseguido cuatro estrellas en el modelo EFQM. Parte del proceso de llegar a cinco estrellas es estar al día con las nuevas metodologías de educación a nivel mundial, como el aula invertida, donde el foco de atención se invierte del docente a los alumnos. En ese modelo, los estudiantes asumen más responsabilidad en el proceso de aprendizaje. CYPHER Learning nos permite introducir temas e informar a los estudiantes sobre los temas y darles una pequeña "revelación" de lo que sucederá en clase.
A través del sistema, también tengo una idea de cómo le está yendo a un estudiante, ya que puedo ver las calificaciones y puntajes que ha recibido. Eso puede ayudar en parte con la intervención para los estudiantes que necesitan ayuda. Puedo enviarles un enlace con contenido para que practiquen más el tema, o puedo hablar con ellos a través del chat para discutir lo que necesitan. De esta manera, me ayuda a rastrear a los estudiantes con dificultades e intervenir.
Otro beneficio es que ya no usamos tanto papel ni la imprenta escolar, ahorrándonos mucho en costos. Además, dado que ya no hay tanta impresión, ya no necesitamos tanto personal en la parte de impresión de la escuela.
Puedo usar una plantilla para replicar el contenido de la clase para poder usar el mismo contenido en las tres secciones donde enseño. De esa manera, no tengo que editar continuamente mis clases. Es muy útil.
La plataforma me ayuda a organizar secciones básicas. Comparto videos, presentaciones y juegos como Kahoot, y esto me ayuda a facilitar la gestión del aprendizaje. Hay estudiantes que están interesados en esto, y hay otros que no son parte de estas actividades. Para mí es muy útil enviar enlaces a los alumnos con contenido informativo antes de la clase para que estén más preparados. Eso ha sido muy beneficioso para mí.
La plataforma también te da una idea de los porcentajes en lo que respecta al rendimiento de los estudiantes.
Y cuando se trata de exámenes, si quiero asignar un examen a estudiantes específicos, la plataforma me facilita compartir el examen de esa manera. La plataforma me facilita la comunicación con los estudiantes. Simplemente uso la bandeja de entrada, selecciono el aula y el alumno, y luego envío el examen que quiero que ese alumno haga. Para mí, esta es una característica muy importante.
CYPHER Learning también es bastante fácil de usar. Los estudiantes saben cómo administrarlo, subir sus tareas y realizar exámenes. Los estudiantes también pueden ver sus resultados. Los archivos de examen se pueden cambiar y tiene muchas configuraciones que permiten flexibilidad al realizar exámenes.
Si hay algo en lo que podría mejorar la plataforma sería en mostrar la cantidad de palabras en un documento que sube un estudiante. Cuando tengo que revisar ensayos no puedo ver el número de palabras en ellos. La plataforma debe contar las palabras.
Otro tema es en el área de los exámenes. Podrían ser más personalizados y específicos. Por ejemplo, si quiero crear un texto con varios espacios en blanco donde los alumnos deben completar las palabras correctas, es muy difícil hacerlo a través de CYPHER Learning.
No necesariamente hemos ahorrado dinero en libros de texto ya que los estudiantes de inglés tienen un libro impreso que no está en CYPHER Learning. Si CYPHER Learning tuviera una plataforma de lectura en inglés sería fantástico. Si pudieran agregar una plataforma como Black Cat a sus servicios, sería beneficioso. CYPHER Learningtampoco incluye juegos. Por lo general, tengo que ir a sitios de terceros, como Kahoot y Bamboo. Creo que puedes agregar juegos a través de SCORM, pero no creo que sea tan bueno. Como no incluye juegos divertidos como los que yo uso, los tengo que comprar, y no son baratos.
He estado usando CYPHER LEARNING durante tres o cuatro años.
Es bastante estable y también brinda servicios en horas en las que no tenemos clases.
CYPHER Learning es la columna vertebral de la escuela. Se usa continuamente. Nos da estructura para el funcionamiento de nuestras sesiones de aprendizaje y suficiente funcionalidad para trabajar en esas sesiones y en todo lo demás. Nos da estructura y unidad.
Por ejemplo, si tengo un examen que creo en inglés para la escuela secundaria y un colega mío de otro grado quiere usar ese examen, puede usarlo. Tengo la capacidad de compartir materiales como exámenes con otros profesores.
Tenemos de 250 a 300 usuarios, profesores y administradores, sin contar los alumnos.
El soporte técnico de la solución es bueno. Principalmente recurro al equipo de administración de sistemas de nuestra escuela cuando tengo problemas con CYPHER Learning. Sé que el proveedor tiene soporte para la plataforma pero prefiero hablar con una persona por teléfono o en persona. Por lo que entiendo sobre el soporte de CYPHER LEARNING, es un chat con un robot. En algunos casos ayuda, pero en otros no.
No tengo un número de teléfono de un administrador de CYPHER Learning al que acudir. Si tuvieran una línea de ayuda sería mejor.
Neutral
Usé Canvas LMS, aunque no pude crear exámenes en él. Es una plataforma muy buena, pero CYPHER Learning es mejor para crear exámenes para la escuela.
Al principio fue complicado. Todos no entendíamos lo que era el sistema. Algunos maestros eran más hábiles que otros para encontrar las características. Algunos profesores, hasta el día de hoy, no saben cómo hacer un examen en CYPHER Learning.
Hubo un proceso de entrenamiento pero había mucha información por lo que nos tomó tiempo descifrar. Nuestro despliegue tomó de dos a tres meses. Hubo mucha publicidad e información sobre CYPHER Learning en nuestra escuela, en reuniones y en capacitaciones. También nos dieron enlaces a tutoriales. Fue todo un proceso de implementación.
Me gustaría que recibiéramos más tutoriales sobre el formato SCORM. Me pareció muy útil y que hay muchas cosas que se pueden hacer con él. También aprendimos que con el programa Lumen tienes una gran cantidad de formatos para juegos que se pueden insertar en CYPHER Learning a través de SCORM.
Nuestra escuela tiene tres niveles diferentes: inicial, primaria y secundaria. Nuestro departamento de administradores de sistemas, formado por tres o cuatro miembros, está a cargo de CYPHER Learning.
Tenemos un intermediario entre CYPHER LEARNING y nuestra escuela, una empresa que ayudó a nuestra escuela con la implementación. Hace unos días dieron una charla sobre el uso de SCORM que me hubiera gustado que fuera un poco más larga.
El costo de CYPHER Learning fue necesario para manejar la situación que se presentó durante la pandemia. Desde entonces, CYPHER Learning ha seguido justificando su coste ya que permite que un profesor se haga cargo de más secciones. Los maestros pueden manejar más exámenes y más estudiantes porque más cosas están automatizadas. Si antes un profesor manejaba cuatro secciones, ahora tiene cinco porque no tiene que corregir tantos exámenes. Esto ha llevado a la reducción de personal necesario.
Esta automatización no tiene precio. Ahora, los profesores pueden concentrarse en otros aspectos con el tiempo adicional ahorrado en la revisión de exámenes.
Además, puedo compartir contenido con otras personas. Todo esto es un beneficio para la escuela.
Mi consejo es que te asegures de tener mucho entrenamiento. Tu escuela debería crear muchas sesiones de capacitación para ayudar a las personas a saber cómo usarlo, con ejemplos prácticos de cómo se crean los exámenes y las secciones. De esa manera, los profesores se familiarizarán con la plataforma. Tuvimos profesores que al principio tenían mucho miedo de usar la plataforma. Con sesiones de entrenamiento agradables, puedes romper el hielo.
Durante la pandemia nos sentimos aislados ya que no teníamos la capacidad de pedir ayuda a nuestros compañeros.
En cuanto a la educación presencial, una sugerencia para CYPHER LEARNING es que le dé más presencia a CYPHER Learning como entidad en la escuela enseñando más sobre cómo explotar las herramientas: cómo crear juegos y más sobre el uso de SCORM. En nuestro caso, cada profesor ha descubierto muchas cosas por su cuenta. Hay una necesidad de una mayor presencia de la empresa.
Aprende a confiar en ti mismo. La tecnología es tu amiga, así que no le tengas miedo. Te puede ayudar en tus procesos. Hay un dicho que dice que "la empleabilidad es un viaje, no un destino". Muchas cosas se pueden aprender en este viaje. Tu trabajo como docente no tiene por qué ser un destino final. Necesitamos aceptar que estamos en un viaje en el que todo puede cambiar y que debemos adaptarnos. CYPHER Learning me ha enseñado a adaptarme.
