Almost everywhere you turn on the web someone is peddling their latest online or mobile learning app. It's great being in learning and development nowadays especially if you have some frontend + backend programming skills because you can probably roll out your own web app (actually it's not that easy). And many pro-techy guys in the industry will swear to the death of any kind of face-to-face intervention because everything should be done via a technology delivery medium. Really? I'm not so sure. To be honest I like technology myself and have recently started designing learning with Articulate Storyline and I'm also enrolled on a Coursera course to learn introductory front-end web development skills (and no I will not be developing an app just yet), but I'm not convinced technology driven delivery is the answer to every bit of learning. Here's a question, what's the best way to deliver a short learning session on positive risk management to a team of support workers working with people in supported living accommodation.
The answer - design a really engaging elearning course with good scenarios and case studies showing how to complete support plans. That's one answer, but what I have found very useful from experience is delivering bite-sized sessions in the actual locations. Why? Because people love to talk, share their knowedge and reflect on their experiences. The learning sessions last for about two hours and people can learn in the environment in which they work and also talk about some of the challenges they have faced too. The rich learning experience in this context could not have been replicated through an elearning course.
The clear lesson for me from that experience is, good and effective learning and development provision is not about jumping on the band wagon of the latest shiny gadget and showing people how tech savvy you are, but rather choosing the right tool for the job. This involves not just understanding the need, but the context also. Having worked with a number of mental health teams my inclination is to help teams get empowered so that they can actually deliver a lot of their own training. If we could provide them with easy to use learning resources then they could do a lot of learning delivery through their team meetings, one-to-ones and job shadowing sessions. The advantages are that people who understand their problems get to facilitate their own learning in the environment where the learning needs came from. Off course a learning and development practitioner will still need to provide some form of support to ensure that the learning is going well.
