You might not be 10,000 miles away in the jungle. But maybe you feel like you've just been landed with your very own training version of a bush tucker trial.
The one where they call you into their office and tell you the 'good' news. The news that starting next month, they're going to begin moving some of your training courses to e-learning.
And the 'even better' news? They won't be making you redundant, but they will be expecting you to systematically turn your classroom courses into e-learning ones.
And probably after that, you didn't hear much else. All the corporate L&D speak about the benefits, the technology and the systems. All just background noise, as your heart pounded and your head throbbed and you broke out in a cold sweat just thinking about the prospect of suddenly becoming an e-learning designer.
When you're faced with a 360 shift in your world like that one, what do you do? Where do you begin?
Without question, you have to think differently. A new start. A new paradigm. Trying to take the classroom skills you've honed for years and graft them onto a computer screen simply won't work. And in your heart of hearts you know this.
You've sat in front of those deathly dull e-learning courses that page turn their way like a user manual. The ones where they sometimes have you dragging things pointlessly across the screen. And set you insultingly stupid quizzes and tests every 10th screen.
So where do you start? To begin with, forget about content. Sounds crazy, but it's not. You must shift from thinking about content to thinking about context first. This is your new starting point. Where your learners are at. Their reality. Their environment.
This is the key shift in your thinking that will help you grab their attention. This is the key shift in your approach that will help you draw them in. This is the key shift in your learning design that will help them practice and retain new knowledge and skills.
This is the key shift that will break you free of the boring e-learning so many of us have been subjected to, for far too long.
To find out more about how to shift your learning from boring to boredom-busting, get an Effective E-Learning Toolkit available here:
One Response
It really depends
Hi Andrew, first of all good post. I would just like to point out that although i agree with many of your points, there are some great e-learning based software's, i shall try to compose a list of my favourite.
I have recently been employed by an accountancy firm in Gatwick (Carpenter Box) and they had a brilliant system in place for there general training and task specific training.
I believe they have a bespoke system built in flash.
They on screen elements was not simply drag and drop. it was voice recognition, touch screen and had many features such as live support. (which was brilliant) i was able to communicate first hand with an attorney based in america.
I will ask my employers if i am able to share the name of the training organisation we use
Alex