eLearning mosaic

What are the learning challenges and opportunities that organisations face as they depend, more than ever, on the talent and expertise of their people to win in the marketplace? What is the information technology role in the business world of such demands? How can we transfer learning from the classroom and books to electronic content and online guidance? What is the new role of a trainer and a mentor?

In the time of recession every organization seeks for efficient and favourable way of employees’ education with the goal to keep or increase knowledge and skills of its employees and at the same time to save money. When organisations are following the traditional line of reducing training spending, it’s important to gain competitive advantage by maintaining investment in people and performance. This can now be done at a significantly lower cost. The solution is certainly eLearning. This statement is proved by results of Brightwave survey which shows that half of UK businesses will increase their e-learning budgets in 2009, whilst traditional training is axed and eighty per cent of total training budgets are likely to be cut or stay the same. (source: www.checkpoint-elearning.com).

Commenting on the results, Brightwave's Director of Learning Services, Lars Hyland, said, "The training world has to get real and acknowledge the elephant in the room - most training activities are hopelessly inefficient with little proof of their effectiveness. However, we have found that investing in engaging, integrated, and goal-driven eLearning that supports employees whenever and wherever they need it does prove effective and delivers results".

"As organisations change to survive the current climate, people also need to change. Looking ahead, eLearning will be critical to the way we support employees in the workplace. It's no longer a novelty. Instead, it needs to drive people strategy and performance towards a more agile model", Lars concludes.

Let’s start from more pragmatic reasons and advantages why a company can get benefit by implementing eLearning in its everyday business and employees training and education. Finally, we will finish with the vision how eLearning will develop in corporate environment and will connect different business practices, technologies and information systems.

There are many advantages of implementing eLearning in the company both from employer and employee point of view. Traditional classroom-based training alone is both expensive and time consuming. Also, classroom-based training imply many organisational limits, such as limited number of participants in the classroom and per trainer, limited number of classrooms and trainers. With the use of eLearning all restrictions could be overcome. In online environment we can organise as many virtual classrooms as we want. One trainer can train many groups at the same time. If there is a need, we can train unlimited number of employees at the same time. The role of trainers in online environment is no longer to transfer knowledge and skills; the new role is more supportive and guiding. The learner is now in the centre of the education process.

There is also possibility of saving time and money by downsizing absence from the work. Participants can acquire new knowledge and skills during several weeks through eLearning without absence from work instead participating in classroom-based course which can take three to five working days. Employees can learn on everyday basis combining learning at work and learning from home. He/she will invest one hour daily for learning at work. In this line, neither job nor participant’s private time is endangered. The company doesn’t have fixed costs of absence from the work and at the same time doesn’t lose revenue and profit during employee’s non-working days.

Advantages for employees are also numerous. A wide range of interactive multimedia elements, such as audio, video, graphics, short movies and different devices can be incorporated into learning materials, together with self-assessment to reinforce study and provide evidence of understanding and progress. Learning and repetition is accessible at any time and almost any place. Original knowledge is always accessible in contrast to classroom-based education. After he/she used and received knowledge from the course, there are permanent quality materials in participant’s computer and private library, which he/she can also use after course. After classroom-based courses, participant usually gets only summary of presentations in which they can hardly manage.

What else we can do in order to improve learning experiences and performance using eLearning?
A survey from the US-based eLearning Guild reveals that the hottest trends in eLearning today are the use of social networks and other collaborative tools, along with the growth of immersive learning simulations and serious games. These technologies, says the Guild, can achieve new levels of learner engagement, collaboration and performance improvement.
In line with the survey results, the ideal form of eLearning is blended learning or mixed-mode of learning. According to Wikipedia definition Blended Learning is the process of incorporating many different learning styles that can be accomplished through the use of 'blended' virtual and physical resources. Learning styles refer to the many ways in which people learn, through blended learning this can be accomplished by creating a variety of learning assignments and activities with the use of technology and instructor and peer interaction.

What could this mean in the practice? eLearning can be combined with the face-to-face introductory or closing of the course. Learning technologies provide possibility of communication among peers and educators or experts, as well as integration with social networks etc.

At the end, blended learning is not only combination of different range of techniques and tools; it is the new learning approach. It takes the best from the two extremes: face-to-face and fully online education. We can conclude that there are no limits for the company who wants to introduce eLearning in their everyday life and business. There is possibility to adapt learning process, materials and tools according to participants’ needs and specific topics. Only our imagination sets the limits.

Learning managers in companies are often asked to measure benefits of education, and of course, eLearning. There is always a gap between learning and performance. There is also a way in this area to enrich the impact of eLearning in the organization and to improve performance. The vision of organizational development of learning and performance is beyond eLearning.

So, companies should develop their eLearning systems as a mosaic in a way to integrate content, experts, communication, social networks, knowledge management and performance support to help bring successful and sustainable organizational learning and performance improvement.

Contact details:
Sonja Priscan, Managing Director
T: +385 1 2303 282
E: info@incremedia.com
www.incremedia.com