Origination News Feature Story

For Lenders Needing Education, Technology Helps

By Anthony Garritano

EAGAN, MN-As new regulation continues, lenders need help. They are looking at how they can comply and also want best practices. A combination of technology, multimedia and a human touch is the best medicine according to AllRegs here.

AllRegs Academy provides online mortgage regulation analyses and commentary. The goal is to offer industry professionals convenient, relevant and affordable mortgage training.

"AllRegs Online is one of our main product lines," said Brook Ostrander, director of education at AllRegs. "It makes our job easier to use technology that's already there because it's updated so frequently. We will actually go into AllRegs Online to get the most current regulatory information. By the time we print our booklet it's out of date these days.

"So, we link to [the] site. We teach a concept and go straight to the regulation. It's been helpful because it ties everything together. Students can also take a library of courses as self-study. That has been a great tool because using our Learning Management Self Study Courses allows people to move at their own pace. We have over 40 online courses right now."

And there are a variety of delivery methods used to reach learners of all types. For example, AllRegs offers audio courses delivered monthly by industry experts on the latest mortgage lending topics, such as regulatory issues, mortgage fraud and loan products. The program format is a 90-minute conference call with a question/answer session.

There are also classroom programs facilitated by AllRegs staff and conducted by industry experts. Through expert instruction, peer interaction and utilization of AllRegs regulatory analyses, students will learn skills and knowledge that can be immediately applied.

"We have html and flash files to help us articulate the self-study courses," explained Ms. Ostrander. "With self-study it's easy to click through classes and not pay attention. So, we include activities that the student actually has to click through. We have word puzzle exercises and assessments. You can go in take the course, do your assessment and download the certificate of completion.

"Our instructor-led online courses are similar. Before each course the student goes in and downloads the PowerPoint. Students call in using WebEx and we do a number of interactive things. We allow them to put a check near their name if they agree or disagree with a statement. We have live chat.

"The objective is to reach all the learning styles. WebEx is mainly auditory, so we want to reach other learners. We also have homework assignments and case studies. Our audio programs are also blended learning. Again, the student downloads the PowerPoint beforehand."

Articulate technology has helped to improve the presentations that AllRegs offers. For example, Articulate Presenter '09 makes it easy for anyone to add interactivity and narration to PowerPoint slides.

"We just revamped the layout and the way homework assignments are administered and received back," said Ms. Ostrander. "We've been using WebEx since I started here at AllRegs. We also use the latest update and make sure we're using every feature. There are a lot of tools available that people may not know about. For example, Articulate is a PowerPoint-based technology. We can give people alternate ways to access the information for people that have varying levels of technology.

"There are so many opportunities for online learning," she concluded. "We're just tapping into it now. There's so much information that people need to know and it's changing so fast. With self-study you can roll things out quickly and train large groups quickly. It helps lenders confused by new regulation or loan products."