Last Friday I was delivering a workshop for trainers. While we were chatting before the event got started, one of the participants told me that her organisation, a large government department, had initiated a major e-learning programme, but the response had been disappointing. "I bet I can guess why," I said. "Really?" she said, "Do tell me." This was my guess:
- the e-learning was entirely self-study;
- the e-learning was unsupported;
- the content was largely textual and uninspiring.
"How did you guess?" she said. "Easy," I said, "that's always the problem."
I must admit that it makes me mad when I hear about the mess organisations make of e-learning. Do organisations ever learn from the mistakes made by others? Does every organisation have to find out for themselves?
When e-learning goes wrong, you can be sure that the only reason it was introduced was to save money. There's also a strong chance that the project was put in the hands of a small group of specialists working with outside contractors and that the rest of the training department was alienated as a result.
From a pedagogical perspective, the organisation almost definitely didn't realise that by switching from classroom to online, they were not just changing the medium (from face-to-face to online), but also the method (from small group to self-study). The change in medium may make the training more efficient, i.e. cheaper, but the change in method may be completely inappropriate for the subject in question. That's why I always encourage designers to start by selecting the methods likely to be most appropriate for meeting the learning objective, and only then move on to determine the medium or, in many cases, the range of media.
Only the most motivated and independent learners can sustain prolonged periods of self-study, however good the materials; and only a minority of topics can be handled by self-study alone. All of which brings us back, of course, to blended learning, which is where I'd recommend any organisation to start their journey of transformation.
Kia ora Clive!
ReplyDelete"Only the most motivated and independent learners can sustain prolonged periods of self-study, however good the materials; and only a minority of topics can be handled by self-study alone."
So true, and not just for elearning!
Thank you for the insightful advice on blended learning.
Ka kite
from Middle-earth
Spot on. A nice distinction between method and medium. But organisations make this mistake over face to face training as well.
ReplyDeleteFace to face training is also likely to fail if:
* the learning was unsupported
* the content was textual and uninspiring
And some face to face training is effectively self-study. If there is no opportunity for interaction and the participants don't talk to each other then you may as well watch a video. And, of course, just as some self-study works if the content and context are right, so sometimes the one way lecture works if the content and context are right.
Clive,
ReplyDeleteI totally sympathise with the weary tone of your post. There is still far too many e-learning initiatives which flounder because of a simplistic view that transferring learning content from one medium to another is sufficient.
Of course it needs support (so does classroom), of course it needs to be engagingly designed and instructionally sound (so does classroom) and of course it needs to be multimodal (that means sensibly deploy a range of media, online, offline, interactive, human) to generate a learning experience that effectively segues into the desired performance in the workplace.
A lot of e-learning projects brutally expose the lack of fundamental design thinking. In many respects this at least is a positive step forward as it is harder for organisations to continue hiding behind a thin veil of training activity that is clearly ineffective, costly, variable in its presentational quality and unsupported once back in the job.
A more holistic approach to design (that includes communication, performance support as well as the learning experience itself) and collaborative partnership with e-learning expertise would pay dividends. As does a focus on learning as an ongoing process rather than a defined event (with an arbitrary deadline).
My experience with on line staff development is that it is mind numbing even when video/sound is offered.
ReplyDeleteWe are currently doing a course that makes me want to throw my laptop across the courtyard. It has video/sound but it is like a bad a really bad 1950's film strip.
Should organizations let the users choose the medium?
ReplyDeleteMany of the eLearning failures I have seen arose out of a hesitation (or outright refusal) on the instructor's part to spend the time and effort necessary to learn a new way to deliver their content. That always strikes me as ironic, since changing behavior through increased knowledge is the very core of our business.
ReplyDeleteA strong second-place issue involves taking on a tool-centric, reactive (consciously or otherwise), rather than a learner-centric, proactive approach. So many cool tools and toys, so little time...
Thanks a ton for the sound advice.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the info. Couldn't agree more with your argument. We check in on your blog frequently to get perspective on mobile and eLearning in the UK.
ReplyDeleteKnowledgeShift is a flexible provider of all services related to mobile learning and eLearning. If you are interested in learning more please check out our blog: http://knowledgeshiftinc.blogspot.com/. If you want a humorous, slightly off-kilter take on current issues in the mobile industry, look at our Mobi-Dicted blog: http://mobi-dicted.blogspot.com. Thanks and good luck!
I don't know whether organizations should "let the learners choose the medium." Experience tells me, though, that learners certainly opt out of various media when they're poorly chosen (inappropriate for the learning), poorly implemented (talking down, lecturing, fatuous), or poorly administered (mindless administrivia, useless recordkeeping, or mandatory sheep-dip).
ReplyDeleteI managed online learning for Amtrak's reservation system training as far back as 1980. I learned very quickly that there's a Gresham's Law in corporate learning: bad training drives out good.
It was true for mainframe CBT, it was true for interactive videodisk, it was true for web-base learning, and it will be true for learning 2.0, 3.0, and all the numbered friends and relations.
True so long as the situation gets fit to a vehicle, rather than the vehicle to a genuine need.
Hi Clive,
ReplyDeleteI couldn't agree more with the need to consider method first and then media. Although I tend to categorise it as activities first and then resources (things to consider when designing learning programmes
Of course, there are times when you have to consider both together, or at least be aware of what resources you might have available as you develop your activities.
But, as you so clearly show, there are still too many learning interventions commissioned where the medium has been defined in the project requirements, often before the objectives, the audience and the method.