eLearning Oversimplified - Introduction

Learning should not be a hurdle to progress or a brick wall to growth. 
It should be fun.  And it has to be helpful - - to both the employee and employer.

                                                                                               -me

Hi, my name’s Scott.  I help the people at corporations and organizations create web based training and eLearning tutorials.  Specifically, I help you write it, I create the content (sound, video, graphics, etc.) that goes with it, and I help you put it all together.

For the next seven days I will be sharing an article that I have written on eLearning.  I’m going to share it in chunks because it’s a lot more than I tend to read at one time…however, if you would like to read the whole thing RIGHT NOW, I’ll offer that in a PDF link.  Please subscribe to my RSS feed to receive updates.

My article covers many basics of eLearning, including Planning, Rationalizing Costs and Benefits, Measuring Effectiveness, Types of Content and Types of Training, Organization and Presentation, and Delivery Methods. 

That’s a mouthful, but I’m going to try to say all of this in a way that doesn’t twist your tongue or boggle your brain.

This is going to be simple food for thought; take what you will for your situation, and think about deeper questions for your situation. 

A bit about me:  I’m 36.  The only way to be on my radar is to email me or send me a link, and make sure that the information is compelling to me personally.

That’s my profile.  How many of me work at your company?  Are you engaging with this “me,” or are you helping “me” fill up “my” trash bin?

Here’s a very different profile:  Employees requiring training are going to be very different in just two years.  Approximately half of the workforce will be Millenials by 2014 (ASTD link).  These are people who have had internet access their entire life, expect rich media, and caused the social media explosion.  You think I throw things away fast?  How is your company engaging with these employees under the age of 30? (SHRM link)

Here’s one more profile:  My son is six years old.  He loves playing Angry Birds on my iPhone.  It’s intuitive.  Assuming he gets a job when he’s 18, god willing, he will enter the workforce in the year 2024.  That’s only 12 years away, yet he is never going to have to use a physical keyboard or mouse.  His generation is growing up with the world at their fingertips, and it’s only going to get closer.  He’s going to require a far more intuitive engagement than a static power point ever provided.  Don’t even get me started on textbooks J

That said, here’s an amazing question to consider: when it comes to manipulating the parts of a laptop or desktop computer to use some unknown unresponsive interface that is supposed to help people learn, how much does my 6-year-old have in common with a Baby Boomer?  

Is your training plan fun?  Is it going to be intuitive?  Does it give your learners the instruction they need to contribute more, to earn the credits that allow them to keep their licenses, to grow in positive directions?  Does your training add to profitability?  Does it have a purpose or does the training exist for trainings sake?

The very first time I had to take an eLearning course (had to), it was terrible…a power point with zero frills that the company had managed to put online.

This was a safety course for Charter Communications, at the time, the nation’s third largest cable company.  The topic: staying safe while installing cable service at a customer’s house.  It covered dogs, meth heads and gun wielding customers, even brown recluse spiders.  Too bad I was working as the Creative Services Supervisor at the time, interacting with local businesses to create their TV commercials….and had never done an install.  I was a prisoner to training had nothing at all to do with my job. 

Charter’s safety training was a corporate mandate.  The quizzes, a way to “check off” that all employees had completed the course.  ALL employees.  (executives included?) That was the measure of success.  “Everyone passed the online safety course, so now we’re a safer company.” 

The other “high tech” training method involved packing a large room with employees and popping in a DVD.  Watch this.  Learn this.  Now.  NAOW!

That was only 10 years ago, and sadly both of these methods are still used quite often today.  However, today’s technology takes learning a lot further than a mandatory power point or a DVD in the lunchroom, and offers far greater metrics to measure success.

Again, I’m Scott.  I help the people at corporations and organizations create web based training and eLearning tutorials.  Specifically, I help you write it, I create the video and graphics that go with it, and I help you put it all together.

Tomorrow is topic number 1:  Targeted Questions and Real-World Examples