Tag Archives: training and development

The King of eLearning: Blended

Gracious, that's outrageously expensive!

Have you heard the talk when it comes to eLearning that says:  “It rarely lives up to its expectations“?

In the mid-90’s and early 2000’s the talk was clear: eLearning would take over the world!  Then came the fact that it was self-paced e-learning that was going to give corporations an effective, efficient and economical way of distributing knowledge across the corporation. Then reality struck.  Completion rates of self-paced eLearning when not mandatory were below 5% in most organizations and people were complaining left and right when told to take any eLearning course.

It appears that most people forgot that not all eLearning is created equal.  There were many electronic page turners (EPT) that were given the name of “eLearning” and since many corporate learning and development departments who purchase and develop eLearning don’t actually consume it (or take it),  these EPTs would make it past them.   (We jokingly call this “the dog food syndrome” because the owner of the dog – who buys the dog food – doesn’t actually consume it).  These EPTs reinforced the perception that eLearning was just not living up to anybody’s expectations evidenced by dismal completion rates and low satisfaction scores.

The bright stars in all of this were the organizations that invested in the right instructional design resources and built real online self-paced interactive learning experiences.  This weeded out the organizations that were serious about leveraging the eLearning medium from the ones that didn’t.  However, there is a way to ensure that eLearning lives up to its expectations even if we dare call EPTs eLearning, and that is to make eLearning or EPTs part of a blended approach.  Obviously, a well developed, instructionally sound course will be able to support a blended approach better than an EPT but both can be designed into a blended approach that doesn’t rely exclusively on the eLearning or the EPT to be effective but on a blended strategy that leverages other mediums like face-to-face instruction, live virtual classrooms, and experiential learning opportunities to achieve tangible results.  The concept is that in order for simple eLearning to be king and live up to its expectations, it has to be part of a more robust blended approach.

Young happy couple or business people fighting in arm-wrestling

Custom eLearning Wars: Great Learning Experience vs. Application of the Training

How often do we design learning experiences thinking about how the learners will use the knowledge when they are back on the job?

Many custom eLearning companies will emphasize the need to create great learning experiences. Elearning consultants may emphasize that multimedia, animations and other wow factors will lead individuals to have a meaningful experience. However, in a corporate training and development department or workplace learning setting, the objective is to impact performance in a way that advances the organization’s objectives. Therefore, should we as instructional designers concern ourselves more with creating a great learning experience or do we focus more on enabling the performance that needs to happen after the learning experience? In our experience working with leading organizations that range from multinationals to progressive startups, we have seen that ensuring the success of the learners when the time comes to act is the most important function of the custom eLearning or custom training and development solution. The fact that the learning experience was great will be meaningless if it does not equip the learner to succeed when they are back on the job.

Anticipating how learners will use the knowledge when they are confronted with the realities and pressures of the job, can guide the instructional designer to incorporate specific strategies to leverage this context and to incorporate informational, procedural or decision-making job-aids at the point of need. The instructional designer’s input can and should go beyond the learning experience.