Most
people think of eLearning, or Computer-Based Training
(CBT), as any instruction that’s provided
on a computer, and technically that’s true.
If students read a training document on a computer
screen, that’s considered eLearning. If
someone takes that same content and reads it to
them in a recorded slideshow with bullet points
and narration, that’s eLearning as well.
But it’s not good eLearning, because the
students could have learned much more if the training
had been engaging and tailored to their needs.
At The eLearning Way, we don’t just provide
a textbook or a recorded PowerPoint slideshow;
we provide a rewarding educational experience.
Physical
Requirements for eLearning
Unlike
instructor-led training, eLearning requires
very little in terms of physical equipment.
The main requirement is a computer for the student
to run and view the eLearning. You can store
the eLearning files on a server and have students
access them through a customized web page. If
they need to run the eLearning offline, we can
provide the materials on a CD.
And if you already have a learning-management
system in place, we can provide you with eLearning
content configured to work with your system.
Misconceptions about eLearning
The
following are common misconceptions that many
people and companies have about eLearning:
“eLearning
can never be as good as instructor-led training.”
That’s
not true; in fact, it can be even better. How
many times have you “zoned out” listening
to a teacher in a classroom? Even with very good
instructors who intersperse their content with
activities and provide frequent breaks, classroom
training can become tedious and tiring.
eLearning
enables students to set their own pace: they
can stop and restart the content when they want,
go back to anything they missed or did not understand,
and even skip content that’s irrelevant
to them.
What
about being able to raise your hand and ask the
teacher a question? Most questions can be determined
beforehand, and the eLearning can include these
questions with answers and appropriate feedback
for any wrong answers. For situations in which
additional feedback from a live instructor would
be a good idea, we can set up systems in which
the teacher can give the class live and online,
or we can configure the learning so that experts
can respond to questions by students.
“We
can get rid of all of our instructors and just
replace them with eLearning.”
That’s
going the other extreme. There’s at least
one situation in which a live instructor is necessary,
and that is when students are required to learn
something that involves considerable manual dexterity.
For example, you need to have an instructor to
show you how to drive a car or fly a plane.
However,
even in these circumstances, eLearning can be
brought in to make the entire learning process
more efficient and effective. eLearning can
teach the concepts and methods, allowing the teacher
to focus on having the learners practice with
their hands what they have already learned in
their heads. This reduces the time that the teacher
needs to spend with the student.
“eLearning
is cheaper than instructor-led training.”
This
is both true and false, depending on the time
frame you are referring to.
It’s
true that at the conclusion of the training process,
eLearning is cheaper. Instructors and classrooms
not only have to be paid for, but they have to
be continually maintained even when they’re
not giving the training. eLearning doesn’t
have this kind of overhead; you don’t have
to hire an instructor to teach it, or maintain
a classroom with equipment to deliver it.
However,
in the development stage of the process, eLearning
initially costs more than instructor-led training,
because eLearning is the training content plus
the teacher itself. eLearning has to include all
the things that a good instructor would normally
provide: feedback, encouragement, tests for understanding,
guidance, and most of all, the delivery of the
content in a way that students will truly learn.
When
you compare the costs of the entire learning
process, from start to finish, eLearning will
cost less than an instructor-led class.
“We
don’t have much time to make this training!
Quick, let’s make an eLearning instead of
an instructor-led course!”
Developing
an eLearning course will normally take more time
than developing instructor-led training, not less.
With instructor-led material, you basically create
the content, publish the content in instructor/student
guides and give some teaching tips to the instructor.
With eLearning, you have to create something that
takes a life of its own as both teacher and content.
This involves extensive use of visual imagery,
automated feedback, animations and other multimedia,
all of which take more time than providing text
content with some graphics. Therefore, you normally
need to schedule more time for eLearning development
than for developing instructor-led materials.
The
exception to this is self-study guides. It is
possible to develop a course consisting of printed
self-study guides (supplemented by interactive
eLearning labs) that takes the same amount of
time to develop as an instructor-led class, or
perhaps even faster. Whether this would actually
be the case, and whether self-study guides would
be the best choice, depends on the training needs.
“We
already have an instructor-led course with its
PowerPoint presentation. Let’s just give
it to somebody to jazz it up a little, add narration
and then make a recording out of it.”
Many
people think that all it takes to turn instructor-led
materials into eLearning is to use the materials
as they are, with some minor tweaking, and just
record somebody reading the guide text and showing
the corresponding PowerPoint slides. The final
result is a very boring and tedious recorded PowerPoint
presentation, something that replicates all the
possible negatives of an instructor-led experience.
Some
companies perform a variation of this idea. They
have a practice of “one size fits all, with
a few minor adjustments” when it comes to
training. For example, they create a basic PowerPoint
presentation with the course guide. Then they
tweak it one way to make an instructor-led course,
adding instructor notes and labs. And they tweak
it another way to create eLearning, narrating
the text and adding a few more graphics. The final
results here are hybrids that do not take full
advantage of either format, with the eLearning
version becoming a stale version of the instructor-led
training.
The
results of these scenarios are eLearning in name
only. They might as well take the “learning”
part out of “eLearning” and just call
it “e.” It’s quick to take instructor-led
material and record somebody just going through
the slides and reading it, but this certainly
isn’t learning. It is information transfer,
in which you send out a mass of information with
the hope that the recipient can absorb it.
eLearning
is much more than just taking instructor-led training
material and reading it aloud with pictures; it
is an entirely different way of approaching the
student’s brain, interacting with the student
in such a way that true learning results. eLearning
actively trains the student, instead of just passing
along the content.
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