Back to basics - e-learning in 2003

by Clive Shepherd


Observers may be forgiven for thinking that the e-learning industry is in turmoil, with too many of its leading firms failing to make a profit, while their smaller colleagues struggle to stay alive at all. There have even been some cheeky comments about the quality of the e-learning that has been delivered to date. Should we be surprised? Clive Shepherd says no, given the economic climate, ridiculously over-hyped expectations and a general lack of skills in the design and delivery of e-learning. In this article, Clive argues that we have only just started to see the true potential for information and communication technology in education and training but that, by getting back to basics and doing the simple things well, we can still expect to see powerful results in the short term.

Contents
First the bad news
Apples and apples
Quality targets
Quick wins

First the bad news

Readers in the UK will be aware that there are dangers in flying the ‘back to basics’ banner, as a certain ex-Prime Minister found to his cost when he realised that how hard it is to get rid of the taste of Currie. Nevertheless, working on the basis that lightening never strikes twice, the banner is about to be raised once again, this time as a rallying call to the increasingly depressed workers of the so-called e-learning industry and as an encouragement to those trainers for whom the term e-learning has become synonymous will the word ‘headache’.

In this review of the-learning market as it stands at the end of 2002, it’s probably a good idea to get the bad news out of the way first. Let’s start with those market projections. Finally, IDC and others have had to admit that their forecasts for the e-learning market were unrealistic – the growth of the use of information and communication technology in education and training will come but nowhere near as fast as they thought. Now there’s a surprise. Did anyone – even those companies that floated in the dotcom boom on the back of these figures – ever really believe them? Did they conveniently forget that learning – e or otherwise – is not about systems but about people, and that people only change their behaviour when it suits them?

We have also seen some rather surprising declines in the fortunes of some of the ‘big names’ in the industry: take SmartForce, who posted such poor results earlier in the year, not to mention Docent and Click2Learn, who are struggling to maintain their full Nasdaq listings. At the lower end of the market, listings are the least of the problem as many firms go out of business altogether. So why is this happening when e-learning is supposed to be on the up and up? Well, on the one hand, you have got tough economic conditions, where cash is tight and sales cycles lengthen. On the other, you have a natural shake-out as many new entrants to the market fail to find their place, whether that’s because they are not strong enough to be competitive or because their offerings simply fail to meet a real market need. We should remember that shake-outs are not uncommon, even in the most promising new industries. In the early 1900s there were hundreds of automobile manufacturers in the USA alone and now there is barely a handful. Clearly this is not a sign of a declining market, just a general sorting out. Consumers, of cars or learning management systems do need choice, but not from hundreds of alternatives. Before we leave the car analogy, e-learning enthusiasts should be encouraged to recall how commentators of the time warned us that ‘the motor car is a good idea, but it will never replace the horse’.

Further bad news has come in the shape of some rather unflattering comments about the quality of e-learning from the training profession, as reported in the survey conducted this summer by the European Training Village. Some 61% of respondents rated e-learning as only fair or poor on their not-so-happy sheet. Yes, a disappointing result and one that shows how lacking we still are in e-learning design and delivery skills. On the other hand, the training profession is not as well-positioned to judge as you might think – my own survey of 200 trainers this year shows that only a quarter have ever taken an e-learning course and most of those were on CD-ROM.

Apples and apples

One of the problems with any discussion of e-learning is that it’s very rare for the participants to be talking about the same thing. For a start, there are at least three completely different e-learning paradigms. First there’s the idea that e-learning is simply CBT delivered on the web – the same interactive, self-study materials we once had on CD-ROM but now delivered through a browser. What’s changed is that going online provides improved accessibility to materials and easier record-keeping, at the expense, at least for now, of reduced bandwidth.

Then, there’s the model that predominates in higher education: that e-learning provides, through the Internet, a new channel for communication between distance learners and their tutors, and a new, more economical way of getting materials to people. There’s rarely much in the way of interacting with the computer, but when it’s done well, there’s an awful lot of interacting with other people.

Finally, we have the model that e-learning is a way of delivering classroom instruction online. Instead of bricks and mortar classrooms we have virtual ones. No-one’s saying a virtual classroom is better than a real one (except perhaps in that the sessions can be recorded and archived), but they’re certainly much easier to access at a distance, particularly when what’s required is just a short session.

So, here are three completely different ways of looking at e-learning. One is asynchronous (CBT on the web), one synchronous (virtual classrooms) and the other a mix (distance learning on the Internet). They have almost nothing in common except for the fact that they employ computers and networks to aid the process of learning, which is all that e-learning really is – a channel, a way of reaching learners; not face-to-face, not through books or video, but online. The progress of e-learning depends on educators and trainers appreciating just what a broad discipline it is, with so many possibilities, but at heart really simple.

Quality targets

Improving the quality of e-learning depends to an extent on your favoured paradigm. It also depends on the extent to which you are prepared to dispense with the past and mix and match freely, not just between the various computer-assisted methods, but with traditional methods as well. But before we worry about the blends, let’s look at the ingredients in turn, starting with interactive self-study, what we used to call CBT.

Interactive self-study has taken some knocks, primarily when it is derided as merely ‘page-turning’. Now there’s nothing wrong with page-turning as such; after all we don’t complain about having to turn the pages of a favourite novel. No the problem is not with the turning, but with the pages. So much web-based training is based on tired old behaviourist models of tell and test, and simply doesn’t take advantage of what computers do well. Learning requires interactivity, and if you can’t interact directly with the subject of your learning, then you sure need to interact with the computer, something that computers do rather well, as any gamer will attest. The best web-based training has yet to come. It will engage you in a stimulating dialogue, it will bring the subject to life using rich media, it will challenge you with games and simulations, and it will respond to you as an individual. What’s stopping this happening now? Easy-to-use authoring tools, perhaps, but principally design skills, or rather the lack of.

The distance learning model of e-learning depends upon regular, meaningful online communication between learners and their colleagues and between learners and tutors. With email, instant messaging, discussion forums and chat rooms, we have most of the tools we need to accomplish this now. Where there’s room for improvement is in the way in which these tools are used by e-tutors to bring online communities to life, and to stimulate and support learners. Where this is being done well already, the results are outstanding and the happy sheets back this up.

Perhaps the greatest wasted potential is in the use of virtual classrooms. Believe it or not, death by PowerPoint is as painful online as it is in the classroom (except you can read your emails or play Solitaire while you’re listening) and there’s really no excuse. All virtual classroom packages provide enough facilities (text-chat, audio conferencing, shared whiteboards, quizzes and polls) to satisfy any learner’s lust for interaction – all we need is for e-trainers to use them. As those delegates who have tuned in to one of the better monthly seminars run by Learning Technologies will tell you, a well-run virtual classroom can be a lot of fun and doesn’t require a train ride to London and back.

If there’s one area where trainers most need to develop their skills, it is in bringing all these ideas together, combining them with all those well-trusted methods we know and love, and doing this at the right time, for the right audience. Some cynics will tell you that ‘blended learning’ was just a sop thrown to training traditionalists and there may be some truth in this. A typical blend is no more than a standard classroom course, topped and tailed with online pre- and post-work, where, with a little imagination and some careful analysis, it is possible to win on all counts – more learning, better learning, faster learning and cheaper learning. Just see.

Quick wins

According to the CIPD’s Martyn Sloman, ‘We are no more than a few years in to what is effectively a 25 year process of change in our thinking of how we can use technology for learning.’ True, but many trainers are far too impatient to wait that long – they want to see some quick wins. Contrary to popular belief, some things in e-learning can be accomplished quickly and cheaply as well.

Quick wins are important to trainers because an increasing amount of the training that’s needed in organisations is for relatively small, specialised audiences, has a short shelf-life and is required next week. Trainers are accustomed to working with longer timeframes and the economies of scale derived from larger, homogeneous audiences and unchanging needs. In these circumstances, they know they’ve got the time and the money to design and run a first-rate face-to-face event or to bring in a highly-professional team of e-learning developers. But what about all those other needs? Surely they cannot simply be ignored.
Here’s just some of the things you could do by harnessing the power of the information and communications technology. Firstly, please give everybody Internet access. The web is the world’s greatest learning resource and it’s free. Web surfers are not time wasters, they are web learners. In the words of Epic CEO, Donald Clark, ‘most trainers would rather spend £1000 going to a 2-day conference on e-learning than type the word ‘e-learning’ into Google’ – it’s a mindset that simply has to be overcome.

Then, using the most basic virtual classroom technology, you can deliver short, interactive, online presentations, with audio narration, to just about every employee in the organisation, wherever they are in the world. This is the most popular form of e-learning in Cisco and you can see why – the preparation takes no more than a few hours, the cost is minimal and the reach global. And if you’ve got a little spare bandwidth in your organisation, use video streaming to enrich the content further. Where rich media aren’t required, but interactivity is, why not produce simple tutorials using the new generation of enterprise-wide authoring tools?

Still too difficult or too demanding to set up? OK, here are some more ideas. Install discussion forums and chat rooms to bring together learners with common interests. Get subject experts to share all those Word documents and PowerPoint presentations through a simple portal. Make yourself available to help using instant messaging. Enough?
The good news is that you don’t need to take giant steps to make effective use of e-learning. You don’t have to have the technical skills; you just need to know what computers can do. You don’t need to be a highly-talented graphic designer, although you do need to understand adult learning. You don’t need to have installed a giant learning management system, just make a start by getting everyone connected. The use of computers to help people learn is not such a big deal, yet at the same time could be the biggest deal you ever make as a trainer. As US e-learning commentator Clark Aldrich points out ‘e-learning has been over-hyped in the short term and under-hyped in the long term’. Only time will tell.

What we can look forward to in 2003

An acknowledgement that e-learning is not so different to other training methods. It just provides additional ways to bring learners into contact with useful materials and people.

A realisation that all trainers can harness the power of e-learning; not just the techies and the under-30s.

An acknowledgement that to use e-learning well, trainers need to add some new skills and refine some existing ones.

An acknowledgement that e-learning can help you to implement quick and dirty solutions to training problems and that quick and dirty solutions are often enough.

An acknowledgement that computers are powerful interactive devices, so why not use them to deliver powerful, interactive learning experiences?

An acknowledgement that, amid the general market gloom, many e-learning vendors are still doing really well and that many e-learning projects are hitting the mark.

An acknowledgement that there is a natural resistance to change which extends to the adoption of e-learning. For perhaps the first time ever, trainers are having to manage significant change in the way they deliver their service.