Web-based training

	Web-based training
		Training the e-trainer Perhaps not surprisingly, the virtual classroom appears tantalisingly similar to its bricks and mortar equivalent and trainers can justifiably expect to make use of many of their existing skills. However, there is a difference in working with an audience that could be thousands of miles away and which, to all intents and purposes, is invisible. In this article, Clive Shepherd explores what it is that the e-trainer needs to do differently to make a success of virtual classroom training and realise the benefits that synchronous online communication can bring to just about any organisation with a distributed workforce. Read this article. In search of the perfect e-learning buyer For most training managers, the buying of goods and services is relatively routine: purchases are made on a drip-feed basis throughout the year to many suppliers and in relatively small amounts. However large the overall budget, most of the transactions are small and for short periods. E-learning has changed all that. Whether you are purchasing a learning management system, buying licenses to off-the-shelf content or commissioning bespoke development, the contracts into which you will be entering will be for large amounts and will have an impact over long periods. Buying e-learning is a skill that all training managers will need. In this article, Clive Shepherd talks to buyers and sellers to find out what it is that makes the perfect e-learning buyer. Read this article. Endgame - encouraging completion in e-learning E-learning – at least to the extent that it is delivered in self-study format – suffers in the same way as all of its distance learning predecessors: from high drop-out rates. Although most learners start with good intentions of completing, far too high a proportion never achieve the benefits they were seeking when they were enrolled. In this article, Clive Shepherd explores whether drop-out rates are any real indicator of the success of e-learning and, to the extent that they are, what can be done to reduce them to manageable levels. Read this article. The quest for quality In the rush to become players in the e-learning industry, many content providers have been guilty of focusing on quantity rather than quality. A large library of e-learning content is not much of an asset if in practice it is found to be bug-ridden, inaccurate, unusable and impossible to learn from. Trainers and learners are telling us that e-learning content is not always living up to the exaggerated claims that are made for it. While you would not expect to see great products so early in the lifetime of a new medium, you do expect to see good ones that perform reliably and achieve their objectives. In this article, Clive Shepherd explores the many dimensions of e-learning quality and assesses what developers can do to ensure their products are fit for purpose. Read this article. Somewhere a place to learn The promise of e-learning to provide anytime, anyplace learning leaves us with an awful lot of options. But trainers and learners alike have to make a choice – what is the ideal environment in which to be an e-learner? In this article, Clive Shepherd explores the advantages and disadvantages associated with learning at the desktop, at home or in the learning centre, and comes to see how all options can work given the right conditions. Read this article. Open access - your flexible friend How would your manager (or your accountant) react if you told them that, because of the way you’d designed your e-learning system or your e-learning content, as many as 20% of your potential learners (aka customers) were unable to gain access or make any sense of what you provided? And how do you think the learners felt? In this article, Clive Shepherd examines just what’s required to make e-learning accessible for all and explores the implications (legal and otherwise) of sticking your head in the sand and ignoring the issue. Read this article. Back to basics - e-learning in 2003 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. Read this article. In search of the perfect e-tutor Research is constantly reinforcing just how important the e-tutor is to the success of an online course. The courses that provide the best support also have the highest completion rates and the most satisfied students. But what makes an effective e-tutor? How would you know one if you saw one? Clive Shepherd goes in search of the perfect e-tutor and reflects on just what the job has to offer in return. Read this article. The great experiment Training network specialists is an expensive business, whether you use a classroom (expensive to equip), simulations (expensive to build) or on-job learning (potential expense of errors off-the-scale). Until now. Remote, online labs allow learners to experiment to their hearts’ content with real hardware and software, solving real networking problems. Someone else buys the kit, someone else worries about what happens when it’s broken. Too good to be true? In this article, Clive Shepherd talks to the men in white coats to see just how close e-labs get to replicating the real-world experience, without the headaches. Read this article. Hosting the e-learning party With the economic downturn hitting IT particularly hard, it has become increasingly difficult to get enterprise-wide software strategies off the ground. When learning needs won’t wait, more and more companies are looking to quick-start ASP (application service provider) solutions, where e-learning content, services and management systems are externally hosted, easing the pressure on internal resources and capital budgets. In this article, Clive Shepherd looks at the potential of hosted solutions for training departments who want to get going with e-learning but don’t want to hold back on the risks and the headaches. Read this article. Speaking in tongues The Internet may be helping us to become one great big, global family, but we’re a family that still has trouble communicating (don’t they all?). As members of this family we want to be able to communicate in our own language and in terms that we can relate to. While it may be efficient for us to share the same, vanilla e-learning content, the fact is that it simply doesn’t work. If e-learning is to reach its full potential, it cannot remain the exclusive property of the English-speaking world. In this article, Clive Shepherd examines the increasing importance of localisation for e-learning and looks at what’s involved if this is to succeed in bringing new audiences for our content. Read this article. Becoming an online media mogul The Internet makes learning more accessible and it connects learners together around the world, but it does so at a price. Limited bandwidth has severely restricted the media mix for e-learning and, as a result, limited what we can realistically achieve. Now, alongside ever-improving bandwidth availability, new streaming media technologies are making rich media a reality for more and more organisations. In this article, Clive Shepherd dips a toe into the media stream to check how well it works and what it has to offer the e-learning community. Read this article. The end of the course as we know it The days may well be numbered for the course as the essential ‘unit of learning’. The typical course is a shrink-wrapped offering where every learner receives the same training, regardless of the job that they do or the skills they already possess. As Clive Shepherd demonstrates is this article, what’s needed is a more targeted approach in which training is precisely tailored to job and individual needs. To make this possible we require a new paradigm for training delivery, one that is based on the intelligent deployment of learning objects. Read this article. Skilling up - training the e-trainer E-learning provides some exciting new possibilities for the training department, but to really take advantage of these will, in most cases, require a radical review of available competencies and an up-skilling programme aimed at the principle job roles of e-learning manager, developer and e-tutor. In this article, Clive Shepherd looks at the skills needed to make e-learning a success, at the issues involved in bringing these skills in-house, and at the opportunities currently available in the UK for training in e-learning skills. Read this article. Making the case for content Can one product really combine the benefits of e-learning and knowledge management in one integrated system? Well, maybe. In this article, Clive Shepherd examines the claims for learning content management systems and helps you to determine whether the LCMS is an acronym that you need to add to your working dictionary. Read this article. In search of the perfect e-learner It’s becoming common knowledge that e-learning is achieving inconsistent results. Some e-learners thrive on the increased flexibility and control that the medium provides; others wallow in isolation, struggling to make a start. In this article, Clive Shepherd examines the notion that some people are more suited to e-learning than others, while not discarding the idea that e-learning could be developed to become a medium for the masses. Read this article. Talking turkey This time last year we made some predictions for e-learning, We said that learning portals would be in a panic; that learning objects would be ubiquitous; that e-learners would require human support and that the demand for bespoke content would leave you struggling to find a developer with capacity. As you would expect, these suggestions were made without foreknowledge of economic downturns or terrorist attacks - otherwise they would surely have been right on target! Nevertheless, Clive Shepherd sticks his neck out again, with his review of the e-learning world in the closing months of 2001 and his fashion statements for 2002. Read this article. Ten quick wins in e-learning When the going gets tough, training departments don't always get the time or the money they need to make long-term investments in order to obtain long-term returns. With competition for funding and senior management attention, trainers will often do better by focusing on those areas of the business where results will not only be visible but quick. In this article, Clive Shepherd captures the suggestions of a panel of leading UK e-learning vendors and users, for quick wins in e-learning. Read this article. Checking out One thing that computers do really well - and with much less effort than human beings - is to run a test; a certain type of test that is, using highly-structured question formats for which answer judging, scoring and feedback can be readily automated. Because tests are not difficult to put together and deploy online - at least not at a superficial level - practically everyone does it. But what purpose do these tests really serve and do they provide us with the information we need about what students have learned? In this article, Clive Shepherd explores the opportunities provided by online assessment and, just as importantly, examines the limitations. Read this article. Learning swap shop Peer-to-peer technology, in the form of systems such as Napster, created a popular revolution that just for while threatened the smug complacency of the media industry and spawned talk of the next 'Internet revolution'. With Napster on the retreat in the face of a barrage of lawsuits, the P2P bandwagon may be grinding to a halt, but the potential for positive application of the power of peer-to-peer communication over networks is still alluring, not least to the e-learning industry. In this article, Clive Shepherd looks beneath the P2P hype to see just what can be achieved by removing the chains and allowing learners to 'do it for themselves'. Read this article. Seeing it through You may think you've done enough by the time you've installed the latest learning management system and populated it with shiny new content. You've even launched the system in a blaze of marketing, with the vocal support of your chief exec. Unfortunately you must think again, because seeing it through means much, much more. The dream that organizational learning could be left entirely to the employees, under the control of technology and with never a manager or trainer to be seen, was nice while it lasted, but it's time to wake up. High drop-out rates tell us that learners need more and that e-learning needs careful managing. In this article Clive Shepherd looks at the causes for e-learning drop-outs and takes some advice on how to get completion rates going through the roof. Read this article. M is for Maybe More than half of the knowledge workforce is on the move, their only connection to the electronic universe through small, portable, wireless devices. The race is on to use these devices - with all their not inconsiderable constraints -- to provide mobile workers with the knowledge and skills they require to operate at the coal face. And reluctant to saddle themselves with that somewhat tarnished 'e' prefix, they gave birth to a new buzzword - m-learning. In this article, Clive Shepherd assesses the arguments for mobile learning whilst trying to stay grounded in reality. Read this article. Content builders - tools for e-learning authors Design may be the most important element in the development of e-learning content, but it's not always the most difficult. There's a lot of work to be done in transferring your ideas from the script to the browser and plenty of scope for disaster. In this article, Clive Shepherd takes a look at the tools that are currently on the market to help you 'author' your e-learning content and tries to work out whether you're better off with or without them. Read this article. Games e-learners play Perhaps the single, biggest obstacle to the future success of e-learning is just plain boredom. Too many courses deal with abstract concepts rather than real-world practice; they're passive, when learners want to be doing things; they're sterile, when what's required is a little excitement. In other words, they're just plain dull. In this article, Clive Shepherd argues the case for simulations and games as engaging, life-like and highly-interactive learning activities, capable of providing the foundation for second generation e-learning products that really deliver on the hype. Read this article. Engineering e-learning Like it or not, the USA has a major lead over the UK in e-learning. To an extent this can be attributed to a greater willingness to invest and innovate and a history of leadership in technology, but that's not the whole story. For many years now, America has taken the subject of instructional design more seriously than the Brits, and the universities turn out a ready supply of new designers, all looking to make their mark in learning technology. In this article, Clive Shepherd explains what instructional design is all about, why it matters and what needs to be done to get things moving on this side of the Atlantic. Read this article. When training doesn't work Could it be that the world's moving too fast for training? Your job, perhaps even your career, changes every year or so. The products and services that your organization delivers change monthly. The whole basis of the industry in which you work may be challenged every few years. There's so much to know and so little time to learn it. Maybe the answer is not training, certainly as we know it, but top quality information and performance support materials, accessible on demand, when required, electronically. In this article, Clive Shepherd argues the case for EPSS (Electronic Performance Support Systems) as an important ingredient in a training and knowledge management strategy, but warns that getting it right is not as easy as it may seem. Read this article. Objects of interest Learning objects promise a brave new world of easily accessible and individualised learning, made possible by the flexible deployment over networks of small, reusable components from multiple sources. "Wow," you say, "if only we knew what on earth these learning objects were and how we're supposed to make use of them, we may even have ourselves a few." In the hope that you will, indeed, have a few and that this brave new world does not disappear in a haze of confusion and hyperbole, Clive Shepherd sets about here to provide a workable definition of learning objects and to explain how they just might make a difference to real-world training. You could call this an object lesson. Read this article. One year older and deeper in debt Sensible fortune-tellers don't indulge in retrospectives. Good ones might do, but have you ever met one of them? Hindsight offers 20:20 vision, whereas the future is dim and deceiving. Well, dim and deceiving Clive Shepherd may be, but in looking ahead to the e-learning world of 2001, he thought it only fair to admit to one or two minor inaccuracies in last year's forecast. Read Clive's forecast. Making e-learning work It is a sad reality that we generally only get one chance at making an impression on an organisation, and so that's a chance we've got to take. For many trainers, e-learning is the biggest chance we'll experience in a lifetime; a chance to transform the way an organisation learns, with - because of the priority being attached to e-business initiatives - the budget to match. So, what do we have to do to make the best of this opportunity? How can we make sure that we don't waste this chance? Well, the best way is to copy those who've already made e-learning a success and to avoid the mistakes made by those who've lost out. That's what we'll attempt to do here. Read this article. A day in the life of a learning management system Every training manager thinks they know what a learning management system is. The problem is that they're all thinking different things. Is it a learning portal? A training records system? An authoring tool? A competency management system? A virtual classroom? The answer is that it could be all of these things, but rarely is. The term 'learning management system' (LMS) embraces just about any use of web technology to plan, organise, implement and control aspects of the learning process. This article looks at the ways in which an LMS can support the full range of everyday functions of the training department - a metaphorical day in the life of a learning management system. You'll be able to see whether the support that is available at each hour of the day - or stage in the learning process - is important to you, or even necessary given the systems and processes that you already have in place. Read this article. The classroom trainer in the online world The forecasts for the growth of e-learning are becoming more extravagant by the month. If these forecasts are even half right, the effect on the IT training industry will be enormous and even the most skeptical classroom trainer must now be looking anxiously over their shoulder. In this article, Clive Shepherd examines the implications of the e-learning revolution for those who have made their living delivering learning face-to-face, and looks at ways for trainers to make a contribution in an increasingly online world. Read this article. All the online content - where does it all come from? You may have the world's most sophisticated learning management system and enough bandwidth to run a cable TV network, but without content that will satisfy the learning needs of your organisation, on time and to budget, you've got yourself a pretty embarrassing white elephant. In this article, Clive Shepherd explains how to fill the content void, making an informed selection between in-house development, having the work done for you outside or buying off-the-shelf. Read this article. A question of standards It's all too easy to set yourself up as an e-learning developer, provider or tutor and, let's face it, the temptations are huge. E-learning provides the best hope yet for trainers to have a real influence on their organisation and opportunities abound for exciting new careers and businesses.. But some order needs to be established in the goldrush territories, to protect e-learning consumers from the cowboys and to provide some guidance to practitioners and purveyors. In this article, Clive Shepherd explains why e-learning standards provide us, not with a stick with which to beat transgressors, but with a carrot that can encourage excellence. Read this article. Adding the human touch to online learning At least from the perspective of the training manager, it would be perfect if all online training could be delivered without human support - just provide the learning materials and let the trainees get on with it. However, as we all too often discover with new methodologies, things are never that simple. Clive Shepherd has woken up from the dream to rediscover just how important other people are to human learning. He analyses just why online tutors are so important and how they are already being used by major online training providers. Read this article. The real-time online tutor Sometimes, life's simply too short to be asynchronous. The offending 'a' has to be removed to allow us to get on with things more quickly. In this article, we take a look at the various ways in which a more natural communication interface can be established between learners and tutors, by going real-time, or 'synchronous'. Read this article. The asynchronous online tutor You realise you should be doing it. It sounds really technical and it's certainly going to impress your friends. As as the sort of person who becomes an online tutor, you'd like to be doing it before everyone else. But hang on, maybe you're already doing it, without even knowing. But are you doing it when you should be? And are you doing it right? These are the questions you're probably asking yourself. And these are the questions we'll be answering right here. So here we have it, an online tutor's guide to asynchronicity - time-delayed communication between a tutor and their learners, for all those times when real-time communication is just too fast. Read this article. Perspectives on cost and effectiveness in online training Managing a training department can be a difficult balancing act. You are expected to provide the volume of services required by the organisation to meet identified learning needs, to deliver those services effectively and to deliver them at an appropriate cost. All at the same time. In this article, Clive Shepherd shows how, by employing online learning appropriately, you can maintain this balance while forging ahead and providing a better service - delivering more learning, better learning and cheaper learning. Read this article. Just another critical year for online learning Assuming the bug doesn't strike us all down, the year 2000 should be just another critical year in the short history of online learning. So far, an awful lot is being done by so many to so few, but more than one or two share prices depend on the market conforming to the expectations of the visionaries and the finance directors and coming to the learning table in the year 2000. Things have moved so fast - even the companies who's names you recognised (Asymetrix, CBT Systems et al) have been magically rebranded in the past few months - that it might be a good time to reflect on the major trends and pause for breath before the onslaught. Here Clive Shepherd gets into the spirit of things and contributes his very own millennial musings. Read this article. When needs must In the stampede to introduce the magical 'e' element into organisational learning, most eyes are firmly fixed on the online delivery of learning materials. This is hardly surprising, because the focus of most training effort is on the provision of learning solutions, rather than the identification of situations where learning may actually be of benefit to the organisation. To avoid the danger of online learning becoming yet another solution looking for a problem, it might be wise to devote a little more attention to the identification of needs and the ways that technology may be able to make this process easier. In this article, Clive Shepherd takes a look at the possibilities for advances in the state of the art of training needs analysis afforded by online technology. Read this article. Evaluating online learning At times as trainers we behave like ostriches. We'd rather not know how effective our efforts have been, so we bury our heads in the sand. We know that the evaluation of training, like motherhood and apple pie, is inherently a good thing. But, because short-term priorities tend to crowd out their longer-term competitors, it's typically something we plan to do better next year - after all, we've got away with it so far, so another year won't hurt! In this article, we examine just why it doesn't pay to be an ostrich. Why, if online learning is going to make a real impact in your organisation, you'd better have better reasons to justify the investment than "well, everyone else is doing it". Evaluation takes a bit of work, but then nothing was every achieved without a little effort. Here's how it's done. Read this article. The Online Trainer In conjunction with the Institute of IT Training (IITT), Fastrak is providing a major new learning opportunity for those interested in taking advantage of the benefits of online learning. The Online Trainer, which is delivered exclusively online, commences in August 1999. To find out more about The Online Trainer, including a full breakdown of objectives, methods and content, visit the IITT site. You may also be able to take advantage of the special introductory price of only £500 ($775) - available only to the first 20 takers. Online tutoring skills The tutor is the primary customer-facing representative of the online learning provider and the main point of contact for learners. The tutor casts a much-needed 'human' eye over the online learning process, filling in the gaps that are left by self-study alone. But what exactly are the responsibilities of the tutor? Is tutor even the right term? This article explores three potential roles for the tutor - as subject expert, coach and assessor - and at the skills the tutor will need to display to function effectively online. Read this article. UK survey predicts strong growth in online learning A survey conducted by Fastrak Consulting with Epic Group plc on behalf of the Department for Education and Employment, has provided conclusive evidence of the intentions of UK organisations to take maximum advantage of new online learning technologies. Detailed questionnaires were completed by over 70 organisations of all sizes and from the public and private sectors. Amongst many notable findings, the survey shows just how much the usage of online learning will grow in relation to other training methods. See the survey report. A matter of style When we sit down to design an online learning programme, there are three key factors that influence our design decisions: (1) the nature of the learning to be achieved, (2) our own beliefs and values in terms of how people learn and (3) the preferences of the learners themselves. It is this last and often neglected factor that is addressed by Clive Shepherd in this article. Individuals differ in how they like to learn, and as designers of online learning materials, we ignore these differences at our peril. Read this article. Managing the TBT project The development of a technology-based training (TBT) programme is, to all intents and purposes, a software project and, as such, is a risky venture. In fact, between one third and two thirds of software projects exceed their schedule and budget targets before they are delivered. So, if we’re responsible for a TBT project, what do we do - resign ourselves to the inevitable or do our best to break the trend? This article outlines a systematic approach to the management of TBT projects that could help you to do just that. Read this article. Assessing the ROI of training If people really are your greatest asset, isn't it time to look at your training programmes as investments in your organisation's human capital and not just as an expense? This article argues the case for return on investment (ROI) as a primary tool for forecasting and evaluating the benefits of training and explains the steps involved in conducting an ROI analysis. Read this article. The power of questions It's hard to bring about learning without a degree of interactivity, whether this is between people or built into the training materials. And most meaningful forms of interaction are stimulated by questions. If you’re creating online, self-study materials, questions are your most powerful tool. This article introduces the wide range of question types available and explains how you can build these into your web-based training programmes. Read this article. Taking stock and moving online We're full of optimism for the online world in 1999 and keen to share with you our predictions. How can intranets evolve to play a more central role in our working lives? And will online learning match up to the hype and start to deliver in 1999? Take a look at the TACTIX predictions for 1999. WBT: doing it for yourself This article examines the differences between CBT and its web-based equivalent. It compares the tools provided by CBT authoring system vendors with those available for web designers. It concludes by explaining just what you can do for yourself, at negligible expense, using straightforward and commonly-available web development tools. Read this article. Web pages that Work This comprehensive web-based training course has been designed to help web authors to create quality intranet content. It contains eleven one hour modules that take you though every aspect of web page design for intranets, complementing the Fastrak workshop on the same subject. Now the whole of Web pages that Work is available for evaluation on the TACTIX site. See Web pages that Work. Online trainers toolkit The Online Trainers' Toolkit provides you with a wide range of templates (now including drag and drop!) to help you put together your own web-based training courses. It has already proved its worth in the development of more than 11 hours of highly-interactive and feature-rich online learning material for the course Web pages that Work. Now you can do the same and at absolutely no cost. Find out more about the online trainers toolkit now. TACTIX Also in TACTIX: calculating intranet cost-benefits, selecting training methods, why training needs the intranet, selecting communication media and much more.