Bringing eLearning into your training

Cost has been a prohibiting factor when businesses consider the possibility of adding or shifting training into the realm of eLearning. Creating the content, images, written maaterial, videos, audios - it just seems all too much. Then, of course there is adding the cost of the Learning Management System (LMS) to record the student/learner results and the horrendous cost of the software to bring it all together.

However, the news is not all bad. There are many tools today that have been designed to be low cost, or existing tools that have been adapted by clever people to create eLearning design opportunities. Besides, the users and creators of eLearning have realised that the delivery has to change to meet the emerging needs of the new learner. No longer are learners happy with information delivered to them as if they were empty vessels ready to be filled with all they need to know. It doesn't matter how whizz-bang the delivery, they want the chance to contribute/participate in the learning. In other words they want to feed back information.

It's all this social media they've been involved with since teenage years!

That new socialisation is forcing some changes in the way eLearning is created. First: it needs to include some measure of social media (wikis, facebook pages for comments, forums or chatrooms) where the learning is critiqued; second: it needs to be cheap and adaptable for the changes that will inevitably happen in such a dynamic environment.

In the past the reaction has been for software to integrate refinements into a larger and larger and more expensive package. And many of the refinements were not required by most of the users. So it was refreshing when I uncovered the following blog site:

More Information


It's full of ideas and options for creating cost-effective eLearning and learning games - the software, how to adapt existing commonly-used software, where to get royalty-free images, how to create storyboards and access templates. As you are already reading a blog, you probably understand the power of social media, so your next step is to start thinking outside the box and making a plan to integrate it into your training.

I will certainly be sharing the Free-eLearning link above with the course creators on our community of eLearning site eBrainz.net.

A couple of interesting books I have been reading that might give you counter-arguments for detractors from online learning are:
1. Social Media for Trainers by Jane Bozarth - Techniques for Enhancing and Extending Learning. Jane focusses on training for soft-skills and business skills, but mentions many that could be transferred to more practical learning.
2. The New Social Learning by Tony Bingham and Marcia Conner - A Guide to Transforming Organisations Through Social Media. This book includes actual answers for the objections that might be raised to reject eLearning and including social media in online courses.

So now you have all the tools to make a change in your delivery of learning. I'd love to hear how you succeed!