I recently had the opportunity to meet Noelle O Connell of the Trainers Learning Skillnet who shared with me the details of some workshops taking place in October to equip trainers to deliver programmes through elearning.

I've created and delivered programmes through elearning platforms for over 15 years but today the tools are so much more accessible and lower in cost.

In addition, many businesses are much more open to elearning as a way of delivering training and continuous development for their organisation where people are located across the globe and to manage training overheads which are always under pressure especially in times of economic challenge.

Places now available on the Trainers Learning Skillnets programmes in Dublin and Limerick called Web 2.0 E-learning for Trainers.

The programmes are for trainers who wish to use new technology platforms and E-learning tools in their training design, delivery, evaluation and promotion.

This 4 day course has been specifically developed and tailored to the needs of those involved in the design, delivery, evaluation and for the promotion of training courses/materials/content.

The programme will be practical so that you work on their own content as part of the course so that you immediately commence work on converting some of your course material to the online environment during the course time.

Overview of Modules

Module 1 - An overview of Pedagogical Approaches and E-learning Perspectives

Module 2 - Web 2.0 features of the Moodle VLE platform

Module 3 - Authoring Tools

Module 4 - Adapting existing content to Web 2.0

Module 5 - Facilitating communication and e-assessment

Module 6 - Using Social Media Tools for Promotion.

Course Location: Limerick City

Dates: Tuesday 7th, 14th, 21st and 28th September 2010

Course Location: Dublin

Dates: Tuesday 5th, 12th, 19th and 26th October 2010

Course Fees: Trainers' Learning Skillnet member companies: EUR750 per partipants/Non member companies: EUR1000 per participant

Find more details and register your place online.

Are you planning a capital investment in your business this year?

Then you might want to check out the Accelerated Capital Allowance scheme, administered by the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland (SEAI) which enables companies to buy energy efficient equipment and write off its full cost against corporation tax in the year of purchase.

One company who recently benefited from it the scheme is keepITsafe who purchased €80,000 of energy efficient servers, reducing their annual data centre running costs by 30%.

Pictured above is Eamon Ryan TD, Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources Eoin Blacklock, Managing Director, keepITsafe.

Find out more about the Accelerated Capital Allowance scheme online here.

If you are in the hospitality sector you will no doubt be checking out the recommendations about your business on TripAdvisor.com.

This week TripAdvisor integrated Facebook even deeper into their site functionality with a new feature called 'Ask Friends'.

TripAdvisor members who log onto the site using Facebook Connect to research hotels, destinations, attractions or restaurants can also see and message a list of their Facebook friends who've visited or lived in that location.

Travel.usatoday.com comment

The information comes from publicly available Facebook profiles and from TripAdvisor's "Cities I've Visited" application on Facebook, a pushpin map that's one of the social media site's most popular travel applications with 16 million downloads and 5.5 million active monthly users.

TripAdvisor estimates that 5%-10% of members' Facebook friends will have downloaded the "Cities I've Visited" feature, with the average user "pinning" 70 locations.

TripAdvisor/Facebook launched "Cities I've Visited" in 2007 and earlier this year it integrated the Facebook "Like" button that shows how many friends have given a thumbs up to a specific destination or property.

TripAdvisor has been established 10 years and has 34 million unique visitors a month - it is the world's most popular travel site.

Forrester Research estimates that 58% of travellers are Facebook members and 72% have participated in some form of social media (which includes user review sites).

It's a natural progression for TripAdvisor - what other sites have you seen that have integrated such features?

Thanks to Chris McCabe (@maxer08 on Twitter) for highlighting this article to me.

Have you noticed that when you log into iTunes this week and look at your apps for your iPhone that you can also which of the apps are available for the iPad?

What will all the conversation on Twitter, Facebook, the media and with colleagues about the iPad I feel myself caving in....

Talking today with one of my clients who is considering purchasing an iPad in Ireland I mentioned to them the article I had read in Pocket-Lint.com where they had covered a story that the UK app store for the iPad was not available.

Apparently Apple requireds you to have a US iTunes account, a US credit card and a US address to buy apps.

Thank goodness for social networking - which of your Facebbok Friends might you be able to get to help you out purchase your iPad apps?