THE HRD EAST AFRICA SYSTEM IS UGANDA'S LEADING PROVIDER OF CERTIFIED BUSINESS & PERSONAL SKILLS COURSES & ILM QUALIFICATIONS

Failing to understand the Online Training Medium

Much of the reason for making Mistake 1 is that of thinking about elearning as a substitute for face-to-face training just delivered cheaper and faster whenever employees want it.

This is not what elearning is about and certainly not what our elearning system is about.

While computers bring strengths and opportunities to the learning experience, it must be remember that they also remove some of the critical components of face-to-face learning.

To partially overcome this we believe in setting up blended tutor supported elearning programmes and in-house action learning groups, plus educating managers in their role of elearning coach and mentor, and continuing to deploy learning groups in in-house workshops with supporting work based assignments.

(In-house workshops can of course focus on the elearning systems reference material, ebriefings and quizes, etc., to both consolidate the learning and also be used to focus on links with other corporate learning initiatives, learning assessment and the application of learning within the workplace).

We can also ensure that in addition to the systems elearning ebriefings and www elearning study links the system can also include customised, corporate ebriefings and also corporate www elearning study links to your organisations learning materials and corporate documents where appropriate.

We recognise that the evolution of good elearning content, and its design, is still in its infancy and therefore much is still to be done. We know that whilst elearning cannot avoid being reliant upon text we try to make the information layouts pleasing on the eye, relevant, current and interesting. For example the specialist Long Term Unemployed programme designed for the Australian Government which is supported by video and workbook.

However if elearning content is to compete with face-to-face delivery for richness, then there is still a lot of audio and visual work to be done to compensate for some sensory loss!! The HRD Online training system can incorporate graphics and multi-media and so we are working on video integration BUT until the world is on broadband this media, with its potentially slow download time, could disadvantage many of our online training users.

While a lot more thought clearly has to be invested in the design of online elearning content and its presentation there are powerful opportunities offered by the elearning medium as well. With elearning taking the burden of knowledge presentation, live face-to-face training, when combined with elearning, can become much more focused on rich interaction, group work, dialogue, coaching and feedback, i.e. skills development. Therefore the blended elearning format allows for extreme flexibility for both knowledge absorption and for collaborative work with colleagues via e-mail, elearning forums and virtual meetings. In particular the problems of sychronising face-to-face learning, made more acute if personnel function in widespread locations, are overcome by greater scaling and speed of delivery of targeted elearning.