Taking the “e” out of eLearning (Temporarily)

By Chris Wain

eLearning has been one of the Internet’s success stories. But it’s easy to get caught up in the technology and focus on the "e" and not on the learning. The challenge is focusing on the learner or user when both the technology and best practices are evolving rapidly.

“Ultimately, it’s about changing behavior or changing some business outcome,” said Ben Carmel of Planet Productions. The key is focusing on the learner. Instructors in a training room can tell who’s going to sleep, but eLearning has to engage the learner. “Hit the WIFM [what’s in it for me]”, he said, “at the beginning, end, and all points in between.” Make it interactive and entertaining: “people learn with smiles on their faces.”

Powell’s Books: training over 500 individualists
Making employees chuckle helped Powell’s meet a critical business need for training its employees on harassment. eLearning was a perfect medium for a diverse group of employees who valued free expression, but had to be instructed on when not to make jokes or comments on the content of some of the books that Powell’s sells. Or, as Robin Fruitticher, Powell’s training and eLearning development manager said, “Not everything that crosses their minds is appropriate in the workplace.”

Powells and Planet Productions created an eLearning course with a humorous—and very clever—avatar (named Logophilix) who helped guide learners through situations they might encounter at work. Employees responded well to the training and were relieved at not having to attend in-class training. “Managers appreciated that we weren’t pulling their people out of the stores and into a corporate office for training,” Robin related.

Rapid eLearning: harnessing the subject matter expert
Powell’s solution took months to develop—and drew upon an attorney’s expertise to be sure the course covered all the right topics. But what if there’s a more pressing need to disseminate expert information?

Rapid eLearning is an emerging sub-type of eLearning that allows a subject matter expert (SME) to develop course content. At Kaiser Permanente, SMEs were able to quickly create an eLearning course to help improve the accuracy of blood pressure testing. The tools are straightforward: PowerPoint slides originated by the SMEs were converted to eLearning using Articulate Presenter and QuizMaker, according to Katherine Stevens, instructional design lead at Kaiser. There’s less user interaction using Rapid eLearning, but courses can be available in just a few weeks.

Social Learning: harnessing the group’s knowledge
Take the idea of capturing one SME’s knowledge a step further, and you have Social Learning. It’s new enough that “It doesn’t have a full name,” said Kevin Jones, training manager at GTS Services. There’s no courseware to develop. Instead Social Learning (also called Learning 2.0 and Collaborative Learning) collects the combined knowledge of many SMEs. Much of this knowledge would not get captured in an eLearning course.

For example, Intel used social media to help determine how to train a group on some new software tools. And Kevin used it to get help on repairing his washing machine. Essentially, Social Learning provides a vehicle for capturing information that might otherwise be shared at the water cooler, on email, or in text messages. None of these provide a repository of knowledge.

For more information
Click here to view the eLearning presentations from last month’s Internet Professionals SIG meeting. There also are links to additional resources on eLearning.

About the presenters

• Ben Carmel is director of instructional design at Planet Productions, a firm that was among the first to combine education and learning theory with emerging interactive technology.
  
• Robin Fruitticher is training and eLearning development manager for Powell’s Books, Inc. A 12-year veteran at Powell’s, Robin’s focus there is on the development and implementation of in-house and vendor supplied eLearning, including the administration of a custom learning management system. 
  
• Katherine Stevens is instructional design lead at Kaiser Permanente. During the last two years, Katherine has been involved in a project at Kaiser to evaluate rapid development tools and document best practices for designing and developing e Learning. Katherine founded and co-leads the eLearning Special Interest Group (SIG) for the local chapter of the American Society of Training and Development (ASTD). 
  
• Kevin Jones is training manager for GTS Services . Even though his title has 'training' in it, Kevin’s work has less to do with training and more to do with learning overall. He focuses on effective ways of learning outside of training and how to facilitate the learning between employees. As the leader of the 'Social Learning SIG' for the Portland chapter of ASTD, he helps others to explore the usefulness of collaborative technologies in learning.

About the author
Chris Wain, a local marketing consultant and writer, is a 10-year veteran of eBusiness and Internet marketing. His eBusiness and Internet experience encompasses web site management, communications, training, managing a user experience team, and transition and change management. He can be reached at chris.wain@comcast.net