e-Learning for Beginners - PART 1: What is e-Learning?
I thought I would focus on e-learning for the next little while since I have been "researching e-learning to death". I am "e-learning" so much and there is so much good information out there. It's good to see that most of my resources seem to agree on most of the issues and concepts related to e-learning.
In Part 1 of this series, I am going to focus on what e-learning is. Firstly, I keep trying to decide on how I should write it: elearning ? e-Learning ? eLearning ? E-Learning ? Oh why does it matter...it sounds the same any way I write it.
So, what do I know about e-learning. Well, it is how education or training can be delivered...in this case, the mode used is electronically via computers, tablets, and smartphones. It can be fully online or in hybrid format (hybrid is a percentage split between in-class and online). It is a money-saver which also increases productivity for organizations where employees don't have to leave the place of work or business. We'll see more of this in Part 2 when I write about how it can benefit your organization.
The modern software of today has made learning online so much more effective using interactive and engaging learning solutions. I particularly love using Articulate Storyline2 (SL2).
Anyway, moving on....e-learning can be broken down into three groups: Self-Paced, Interactive, and Media Rich.
Self-Paced is basically "work on your own time and place" and is mostly asynchronous. There is no dress code (pyjamas work fine). Some deadlines are usually required. There is no requirement to drive anywhere unless an exam must be written in a supervised area. No big deal.
What I like is when the courses include an interactive and engaging learning module (again, I love SL2)...another plug for Articulate. I really like the fact that the modules can be viewed over and over. Practise makes perfect. I always believed that if learning is fun, learning will be made easier and more inviting. Good e-learning specialists (ES) and instructional designers (ID) know that and will work their magic to build learning modules that are entertaining and engage the learner to respond to activities and action required, which leads me to the next group...
Interactive is the most engaging e-learning. Did I mention that already? Rather than just an information dump or soaking in knowledge through reading a bunch of words and definitions, learners can get actively and intimately involved. They have to click, choose options, make critical decisions and drag content from one place to another.
It's fun. Did I mention that? They learn from games, quizzes, and decision-making scenarios where learners have to be accountable and explore the consequences of their choices. The ES and ID, however, have to also make the right choices in design for the right subject matter and audience. While I'm on the subject, did I mention what an ES and/or ID is? An e-learning specialist can also be named an instructional designer. There are similarities except an ES works on projects for online courses and the ID can also do so but can also work on traditional (in-class) course development. So stepping further away from traditional...
Media-Rich includes...what else...multimedia. PowerPoint was the "go-to" at one time for animated learning and everyone could learn to prepare it for teaching but today it's nothing but bullet points, images and entrance, emphasis and exit animations. Still, it's also now used to create learning modules which can be imported to SL2. Yes, PowerPoint is alive and kicking still but partnering with other software applications.
Back to multimedia...many e-learning courses incorporate not only animation, but audio and video with an interactive touch where the learner has to communicate back.
So, those are the three groups. There are two categories that e-learning falls into regardless how it looks, and that is "information-based or performance-based". Information-based is just that - full of company product, policies and procedural information or subject matter presented by an educational institution. Basically designed to increase awareness or to ascertain an understanding. It is not meant to change behavior. Performance-based looks to change behavior like how to convince a difficult customer to purchase a product. It is generally results-driven and can boost the learner's confidence through positive feedback.
So, I'm at the end of Part 1. If you haven't gotten the picture yet, e-learning has many forms and can often not appear like a course because of the freedom to learn and the methodology used. In Part 2, I will explain how e-learning can benefit any organization, especially yours!
Until next time...thanks for reading !
Above Source: e-Learning Guide for Beginners (kindly contributed by Articulate)
Below Source: http://trinarimmer.com/2010/07/29/the-evolution-of-e-learning-adoption/
