July 10, 4:19 am
E learning, web-based training, — whatever you call it, it’s evolving.
When E-learning began making a dent in the workplace during the last decade, it was a novelty. In fact, I recall one of my professors telling me that the entire Internet was a fad, predicting that it would slip out of use before too long.
Obviously, he was wrong (oooh, I would just love to publish his name). In fact, he was very wrong. The Internet’s “2.0” phase has web-based applications replacing standard software packages, and so much business occurs with some form of online effort that it’s rare to find a business that doesn’t have a web presence.
And with the increased dependency on the web comes more familiarity with E-learning.
In addition to the benefits of “learn anywhere, at anytime,” web-based E-learning has the distinct advantage of update-ability. One person makes the update, and wham! Everyone logging in from that point forward sees the updated version automatically.
Did you change procedures on a certain system? Log in, update the learning module, and you’re done.
That’s something traditional software learning packages just can’t do.
In fact, E-learning is going through a rather rapid evolution. Writing at workforce.com, Karen Frankola says E-learners are now able to mix and match what they want to learn and, in essence, create their own course to learn a particular skill. She says “What used to be just-in-case learning has become just in time, and in the future we can expect learning that is ‘just-for-me.’”
I’d love to contact my old professor and make a prediction of my own:
As E-learning becomes more interactive and
more customizable by the learner,
it will become a preferred method of learning.
The question, I suppose, is will the number of hours spent in E-learning eventually surpass the number of hours we spend in a traditional classroom?
What are YOUR thoughts?
Filed in Technology, Business, Training, Internet, Workplace, Train the Trainer, Corporate Culture
I agree with your prediction. I myself saw this coming years ago. To answer your question, Dan, I’m pretty sure the hours spent in e-learning for an employee will not be continuous like in a traditional classroom. Instead, the 2 hours for example that may be spent on e-learning, it will actually be broken up throughout the day or week.
E-learning will become (if it hasn’t already) an electronic performance support system (epss). Essentially, employees will access it as they work when they hit decision points and areas of uncertainty or ambiguity, they’ll access the appropriate learning module or piece, internalize it and move on.
Hey Justin — all one can say is, “isn’t it great?” So glad to see customizable learning becoming the norm.
It’s one of the features I’m building into the online Train-the-Trainer modules. A person can enroll for the entire certified trainer course, or just take specific modules to either acquire new knowledge in that area or just brush up on a specific topic.
It only makes sense that things should be flexible.
This is not to argue with the main point that just-in-time learning is becoming more widespread (and potentially more valuable than other forms), — I think there’s a distinction between elearning and performance support.
Any ESPP is really a job aid with chips — it guides you through some process or decision, reducing the need to memorize (learn).
I see two kinds of performance supports: training wheels, and guard rails. In training wheels mode, you use the support until you’ve done it often enough that you’ve internalized the steps.
A simple example: making an international phone call. At first, for a North American, the notion of country code and city code is strange, to say nothing of phone numbers that don’t follow our xxx-xxxx pattern. After following a guide for a while, though, you get the concept. You can take the training wheels off because you no longer need a guide to dial 011 + country code + possible city code + number.
In guard rail mode, though, you don’t WANT someone to internalize the steps. Maybe they change too often; maybe the consequences for error are too high. So you build a structure that reinforces using the performance support rather than relying on memory.
Example: aircraft pre-flight checklist. The cockpit crew SHOULDN’T memorize the items in the checklist. Other examples might be software wizards and online tools to guide a worker or customer — like questions or calculations in TurboTax based on tax regulations or financial formulas.