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!

Training Budgets Have a Big Impact

Just recently I have met several trainers who are struggling to cope with a shrinking training budget. Fair enough, you might think. Everyone is having to trim the budget across all areas of any company. But have senior managers thought through the consequences of reducing the training budget?

As a training resources developer, I have to admit to some self-interest in this, because when budgets shrink we aren't called in to help. There are, however, more critical issues to the slash and burn across the board when it reaches the training budget. Short term consequences from chopping a training budget:

• The trainer has more training to do with fewer tools
• Trainers become stretched, stressed and perform less efficiently
  
• Fewer qualified trainers are brought in to raise the skill base of employees
• Normal regular training is done less often
• The trainer is left making value-decisions between competing, equally-valuable training needs

The long term consequences have a greater impact:

• Their commitment to training wanes and the malaise spreads to other staff
• The general skill level of employees starts to sink
• Employees begin making errors of judgment because they don't remember 'how'
• When work picks up there is a huge and expensive backlog to catch-up and become competitive
  

By comparison to the rest of a company's budget training is a small percentage, yet in times of retrenchment the value of training increases the likelihood of survival for the company (and sometimes the employees). The brave and future-focused company seizes the downturn to train, train train.

Edutech KM was recently involved in developing a new training program to increase productivity on manufacturing sites. The project aimed to give supervisory employees an increased understanding of what makes a company profitable, and of course, to apply that understanding at work. It was a radical departure from the usual training undertaken in the industry. Part of the course required trainees to address a production issue on their work site. The potential savings estimated from solving these issues was staggering.

Naturally the ITO that sponsored the program wanted to find out if the training program worked. The ITO undertook to investigate some of the results from solving the issues. It was an easy demonstration of ROI for training investment. You can read a three-screen summary of the course design and link to the three case studies where a definite ROI was established.

I'm probably preaching to the converted if you're a trainer, but these case studies, courtesy of FITEC, could give power to your arm if you're trying to make a case to restore your training budget. We can certainly talk to you about ways to maximise what you do have.