Is now the time for e-learning?
// December 16th, 2009 // No Comments » // e-learning, rambling, strategy
We know the answer all too well: Frozen budgets, limited spare time and a desire for better balance between your personal and professional life make keeping your skills current a real challenge. The evolution from classroom instruction to self-paced e-learning in the late 90ies never quite delivered on the promise that people just learn by themselves without an instructor or coach to help them along the way. E-learning never became the “one size fits all” learning method we may have hoped for. Rather, it became only one of many learning options that are available for an efficient knowledge transfer. In the past few years learning specialists like me tried to overcome the separation of e-learning and physical classroom training by the creation of the “blended” learning concept. For those that don’t know, blended learning is basically an integrated learning approach blending different learning methods such as instructor-led and self-paced learning to create a holistic and role-based learning experience.
From my research, the latest addition to the blended learning family that has proven quite popular with many training providers is virtual live classroom training. This learning method adds an important new element, the live instructor, to the virtual learning options. In a typical virtual classroom training, the instructor uses web based connectivity to deliver the same or slightly adapted content as a student would receive in a physical classroom. The goal is to create the same learning dynamic of the bricks and mortar experience in a virtual environment. Many training organizations have migrated part or all of their physical classroom training to online instruction.
The typical virtual learning day is a continuous change from presentation to exercises to questions and answers to maximize learner’s attention.Capturing the learner’s attention seems to be the critical success factor of any efficient virtual learning experience. Besides the everyday challenges of our multi-tasking work lives, the question of how much online training we are able to digest remains open.There are many so-called virtual classroom training courses that actually are only just another type of webinar, i.e. with little or no participant interactivity at all. The differences and commonalities between webinars and virtual classroom training slightly blur the virtual learning method overall. Whereas both formats use the same technology there are some distinct differences between the two. The primary goal of a webinar is to share information to a large audience in a single direction (instructor to learner). On the other hand, virtual training is usually delivered in smaller learning groups with the purpose of achieving a tangible learning objective and has a more collaborative nature often with hands-on practice. Nevertheless, a learner may not always be sure what they get from a virtual training course and whether this is the best choice for a an efficient knowledge transfer.
