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!

Audio is a powerful tool

Training resources are moving into sophisticated, intuitive virtual worlds that cost more and more to produce. The 'reality' of these worlds is said to simulate real life and provide real life opportunities to learn.

I believe what these virtual world creators ignore is that power of the mind to create its own 'virtual world', and that sometimes putting too much reality in front of the eye shuts down that powerful mind tool. I had this brought home to me when we were developing resources for a New Zealand level 2 national qualification - that's the training aimed at people who have just left school and are moving into a technical trade at minimal skill level.

The industry we were working with also identified literacy as a problem for some workers, and there were 'work cultures' that glorified the macho male, heavy drinker or soft drug-taker as heroes. Our brief was to try and make a change in that culture - lol!

To make things even more challenging, the budget was tiny compared to that required for a virtual world project. The best we could do was to adapt existing video and use voice-over and supplementary group activities directed by a worksite trainer to get across these concepts.

I even wrote a 'soap opera' following a team of workers through some real life issues. This was recorded by students at a local radio training centre. So you can see how budget the project was!

Anyway, I was invited to see the material piloted with a group of workers drawn from several worksites and the 'soap opera' was duly played, while I cringed in a back seat, dreading what their reaction would be. And that's when I learned the value of the individual's imagination to personalise training.

The story was about Gary whose personal circumstances had gone down hill dramatically. His behaviour at work and towards his team mates had deteriorated, but one team member bucked the trend (which would have been to retaliate and further alienate Gary) and enrolled the team in trying to find out what was going on. The result was a positive team solution, naturally.

It was the reaction and discussion that this generated among the team of men in the training room that astounded me. One guy in particular had linked parts of the story to his own circumstances and opened up frankly to the others. It was a truly memorable moment.

Pondering it later, I realised that NOT using video, so that the story was 'out there happening to someone else' had enable this guy to internalise the story and put his own cast of characters into what he was hearing and 'seeing'. The lessen for me was that pictures may sometimes get in the way of the message. - Heather Sylvawood - EdutechKM Ltd