e-Learning for Beginners - PART 3: Creating e-Learning - PEOPLE
E-Learning is like baking a cake. You need people, a process and production tools. People help decide what ingredients will make the best cake. A process, like a recipe with instructions, in the right order and proportions will result in the best flavour. Tools are necessary to mix the ingredients, bake the cake and then present it for serving. Part 3 will take you on a journey to baking your own e-learning cake by using real-world example like sales training. In Part 3, we will focus on "People" and in subsequent posts, we will look at Process and Tools so not to overwhelm you. That's how e-learning works - chunking. Chunking means to provide new information "one bit at a time".
If you were asked to design and develop training for your sales team to help increase sales, you first need to determine who (what people) will assist in compiling the best ideas for learning. People are the key to e-learning. Everyone from stakeholders, project managers (PMs), subject matter experts (SMEs), instructonal designers (IDs), quality assurance experts (QA) to various technical experts like graphic designers. Large or small project teams, the main roles are clients, SMEs, and e-learning designers. Let's look a these three roles closer:
Clients are those who have decided to ask for your help in achieving their goal. In the case of sales training, the client may be looking to increase sales and wants the sales team to get some training that will help them improve in closing sales.
Subject matter experts (SMEs) are knowledgeable in the content/subject that is needed to help the client achieve their goal. The client and SMEs are often the same people or group. It's possible to have multiple SMEs that will contribute to the learning objectives. For example, you could have a sales manager who supervises and coaches and understands the responsibilities of a salesperson. There is the product manager that is an expert on the product being sold. Since the company's customers are important, the marketing manager must be familiar with the product and needs of the customer.
E-Learning designers (developers, instructional designers) create the course like a baker of e-learning cakes. If you are like me, this most likely describes you. In doing your part, you would follow a design process by consulting with the client, subject matter experts and learners if appropriate. It is important to ask many questions to ensure you understand the goals (objectives), content and identify any knowledge gaps. From there you would design and develop a detailed document outlining your learning plan.
So, let's say people play a huge role in e-learning. Building a strong relationship with the people that surround the success of any project is vital. For now, that's it. Until next time when we look at "Process".
Cheers !
