Are you ready for e-Learning?

e-Learning can help people learn better, faster and cheaper, and can provide a real return on investment when used properly and developed effectively. In general, it seems to work rather well to increase the learner's ability to retain and use information, to save money, and time and to have an impact on an organization's effectiveness. Organizations are often faced with a situation where they have to make a decision regarding whether to develop e-Learning solutions or to continue to utilize traditional classroom training.
Many organizations are turning to e-Learning to train their ever-growing sales forces on variety of topics that may include: selling strategy, product attributes, customer management, communication skill, etc. While making a decision regarding the development of e-Learning courseware, practical matters such as time, talent, technology, and budget play a major role. Before you go ahead and start developing your next e-Learning courseware asks yourself the following questions:

• How many people need training and when?
• What specific skills, knowledge, and attitudes they must learn?
• How much impact could the training have on the company's performance?
• Who would have to travel where, when and how often?
• What facilities and materials are needed?

The answers to these questions should be evaluated in light of questions related to the e-Learning experience:

• Does the subject lend itself to e-Learning training?
• Would retention be higher?
• Would travel time and costs decrease?
• Would the new courseware have any other uses?
• Would account managers use the new courseware as a just-in-time reference source?

Answers to these questions would point out differences between the types of training options that are available. You would also be able to see where costs would differ and could approximate a return-on-investment from different types of training.

Organizational Approach

Training managers often use a broader, overall system approach in which they look over the entire curriculum and ask themselves the following: “if we invest in e-Learning in one area, where else will it match? Where else can it significantly improve my results?” In most cases, more than one audience and subject matter area can use the e-Learning platform, thus leveraging cost and impact over a wider spectrum. Some key questions you need to ask yourself at this point are:

• Which of all my current and future subjects matter areas lend themselves more readily to e-Learning?
• Where do I have more than 100 people who need to learn or perform in the same general area?
• Where is learning retention and transfer extremely critical?
• Where is there a need for a constant refresher or update training?
• Where do I need to improve training consistency across wide geographic area and/or large audience?
• Where am I spending large amounts on travel and/or opportunity costs?

Answering these questions can enable you to focus on several key areas across the curricula where e-Learning may help. By taking this broader view, it may be easier to obtain the up-front financing required to begin an effective e-Learning strategy.

Meaningful goals

Traditional instructional objectives remain important. All training must have specific and measurable statements of desired learning outcomes. These training outcomes must be attainable and meaningful to the learner.

· Learning by doing (the power of simulation): Learning often requires more direct immersion in a problem or situation. Building hands-on experience by putting learners into situational involvement makes the online learning real from the start.

· Learning from Mistakes: Challenging learners through simulated events and allowing them to make mistakes is an important component of learning. Within the confines of an educational game we can allow learners to experience all types of challenges. In such scenarios, failures are often beneficial because they occur within the safe confines of simulated educational event.
· Robust Coaching and Feedback: Online training programs run the gamut in the quality of the coaching and feedback they provide. It is amazing how many fail to let the learner know if they made the decision and why. This feedback is very important in enforcing the educational message.
· Expert Modeling and Stories: Every field has its sets of experts. Experts are often charismatic and speak with authority that has a lasting impact on the audience. By bringing experts and peers (or customers into an online program to model a behavior or tell of their own experiences, we reinforce learning bin ways that are both powerful and long lasting.
· Authenticity: Online courseware must be up-to-date and relevant to current practices. It would be disastrous for a training program to be based on outdated situations.
· Reuse After Learning: A successful online courseware is one that allows users to easily refer back to it because it was designed to support the trainee on the job. Search engines and logical organization of the content can facilitate ongoing use of the courseware.

Building great online courseware that encompasses these key features is certainly more complex, challenging and often expensive. That's why it is important to have a training strategy that looks at the options of build-or-buy in the context of potential return on investment.

Benefits of e-Learning

Why are so many companies including e-Learning in their learning solution? e-Learning has a number of unique characteristics that make it a superior choice to meet certain training objectives:

• Consistent – Unlike instructor-led training (ILT), the content and delivery of e-Learning does not vary by trainer or event. This is important for both skills training and proprietary training when the uniformity of message and delivery is critical to keep everyone on the same page.
• Flexible – e-Learning may be rolled-out to people in multiple geographies simultaneously. There is less concern about tying training schedules to employee schedules because courses are available 24x7. And courses remain available after they are rolled-out, to be used for reference and reinforcement.
• Cost Effective – e-Learning reduces the total cost of training – including travel cost and the financial impact from lost productivity during training events. There will always be costs associated with the development of training materials regardless of modality, but the costs to deliver training to large numbers of people are diminished by e-Learning and its enabling technologies.

e-Learning is not a panacea for all training challenges. There are times when face-to-face instruction is the only logical conclusion. But as technology becomes more pervasive and the quality of online instruction becomes better and better, e-Learning is increasingly viewed as a key element of the learning solutions mix.

When to Use e-Learning

There are several special situations where e-Learning is particularly effective. Consider online training when you want to:

• Enhance classroom learning
• Reinforce classroom training after the event through online courses, reference materials, and "practice” labs
• Launch a new product or service - train sales reps, tech support, and even customers quickly and easily
• Bring new employees up to speed on software - immediately! through simulation
• Ensure that everyone receives consistent information and training
• Access assessment tools that tell you where students need to sharpen their skills
• Produce thorough reports on who is taking a particular course and how well they're doing -- including meeting regulatory reporting requirements
• Spend training dollars on actual training - not on airfare and hotels
• Induction programme
• Convert monotonus subject such as rules regulations, manuals into highly interactive tool

TYPES OF e-Learning

We are at a critical moment in the evolution of e-Learning. After many years of development, e- learning has become an important business process for corporations. Companies around the world are now exploring how to better educate and manage their employees who rely on fresh knowledge to perform.

How e-Learning Can Increase Retention Rates

Learning requires attention. In order to be effective, training has to grab and retain attention. This requires interweaving different types of information and using different areas of the brain in order to create a true learning experience. Training should also incorporate other elements such as interaction, imagery, and feedback. e-Learning can incorporate many elements that make learning new material, a new process, or a new program more fun. Making learning more fun -- or interesting -- is what makes it more effective. If you aren't pulled into the material, you really aren't learning as well as you could be. This is what makes e-Learning so great for so many types of learning. Obviously, every type of training can't be turned into e-training, but many can with excellent results. The keys to successful e-Learning include:

• Varying the types of content - Images, sounds, and text work together to build memory in several areas of the brain and result in better retention of the material.
• Creating interaction that engages the attention - Games, quizzes and even just required manipulation of something on the screen creates more interest, which in turn builds better retention.
• Providing immediate feedback - e-Learning courses can build in immediate feedback to correct misunderstood material. The more immediate the feedback, the better because each step of learning builds upon the previous step. If no feedback is given, then the next step may be building upon an incorrect interpretation.
• Encouraging interaction with other e- learners and an e-instructor - Chat rooms, discussion boards, instant messaging and e-mail all offer effective interaction for e-learners and do a good job of taking the place of classroom discussion. Building an online community significantly influences the success of online programs.

Types of e-Learning

e-Learning falls into four categories, from the very basic to the very advanced.

• Knowledge databases - While not necessarily seen as actual training, these databases are the most basic form of e- learning. You've probably seen knowledge databases on software sites offering indexed explanations and guidance for software questions, along with step-by-step instructions for performing specific tasks. These are usually moderately interactive-meaning that you can either type in a key word or phrase to search the database, or make a selection from an alphabetical list.
• Online support - Online support is also a form of e-Learning and functions in a similar manner to knowledge databases. Online support comes in the form of forums, chat rooms, online bulletin boards, e-mail, or live instant-messaging support. Slightly more interactive than knowledge databases, online support offers the opportunity for more specific questions and answers, as well as more immediate answers.
• Asynchronous training - This is e-Learning in the more traditional sense of the word. It involves self-paced learning, CD-ROM-based, Network-based, Intranet-based or Internet-based. It may include access to instructors through online bulletin boards, online discussion groups, and e- mail. It may also be totally self- contained with links to reference materials in place of a live instructor.
• Synchronous training - Synchronous training is done in real-time with a live instructor facilitating the training. Everyone logs in at a set time and can communicate directly with the instructor and with each other. You can raise your cyber hand and even view the cyber whiteboard. It lasts for a set amount of time -- from a single session to several weeks, months, or even years. This type of training usually takes place via Internet Web sites, audio- or video- conferencing, Internet telephony, or even two-way live broadcasts to students in a classroom.

Implementing e-Learning can be challenging. You could experience setbacks, even failure. To succeed you need to think critically about the ability of your organization to implement e- learning successfully. You need to make sure that your e-Learning initiatives achieve the intended learning objectives. This often requires an on-going evaluation process that enables you to continuously identify existing learning gaps.