e Learning

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e Learning
An exploration of Myth and Reality
Brian Sutton Chief Educator, QA
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Agenda for our discussion

• Where are we now
• Why the rush towards e-Learning?
• What is our current experience?
• The corporate legacy
• Why invest in Learning? - how does it happen?
• Some ideas, concepts and facts about learning
• Where we learn vs - where we put our money
• Future directions for learning
• What is Blended learning
• First steps
• A glimpse of the possible
• Summary

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What do we mean by e?
Lesson in a box
Virtual Classroom
E-Labs
Test Preparation
Simulation
Free form Search
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What do we mean by Learning?
Pedagogy
The principles, practice and profession of
teaching
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Implied Benefits of e-Learning
Travel Savings
Time Savings
Cost Savings
Improved Access to Content
Ability to Report and Measure Effectiveness
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The Worldwide Expansion of E-Learning!

• Circuit City
• is training 50,000 employees from 600 stores
  using customized courses that are short, fun,
  flexible, interactive and instantly applicable on
  the job.
• The US Armys virtual university
• offered online college courses to more than
  12,000 students located anywhere in the world
• Estimated to be a 42 million e-learning
  program.
• Dow Chemical
• needed to train 40,000 employees across 70
  countries on workplace respect and
  responsibility, using 6 hours of e-learning
• Result All 40,000 passed
• Savings 2.7 million

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US Energy Company

• Problem
• IT technical training for employees
• Solution
• Async, Web-based, self-paced learning
• Some employees discussed learning in virtual
  classroom
• Result
• In 12 month span, 3,000 courses completed and
  another 7,000 partially completed
• Benefit
• Payback period of 3-4 months
• Faster time to competency
• Reduced re-work
• Higher employee retention
• Higher quality of service
• Reduced help desk call volume and costs
• Less system downtime

(CLO, March 2003)
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British Telecom sales training

• Problem
• Train 17,000 sales professionals to sell Internet
  services
• Solution
• Internet simulation
• Result
• Customer service rep training reduced from 15
  days to 1 day
• Sales training reduced from 40 days to 9 days
• Benefit
• Millions of dollars saved
• sales conversion went up 102 percent
• customer satisfaction up 16 points

(CLO, March 2003)
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E-learning promise fulfilled, paradise gained

• The last 15 years have seen great advances in
  technology and multi-media design. Courseware is
  now
• Very interactive, includes sound, video, links to
  job aids and other documents, message boards,
  live mentors (24x7)
• Virtual classroom technology allows live
  instructors to lead world-wide sessions
• Advantages of current courseware
• Can be used anytime, anywhere. Take breaks at
  any time and return to exactly the same place.
• Learning is reinforced through constant testing,
  performance is tracked.
• Patterns of learning are different, sessions
  shorter, easier to fit with job requirements. We
  no longer loose days away from the workplace.
• Material stimulates multiple senses, therefore
  more memorable.
• Faster time to competence.
• Can be expensive to create but then cost per
  delivery rapidly becomes marginal

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E-learning promise unfulfilled, paradise lost

• We took the pedagogy of the classroom and applied
  it unchanged to a new delivery mechanism.
• The last 15 years have seen great advances in
  multi-media design whilst learning design has
  been largely ignored - result
• Very pretty courseware that provides little
  stimulus to learn
• Criticisms of current courseware
• Learning that is not Authentic, little connection
  to real world.
• Learning not reinforced, no mentoring or post
  course support.
• Useless after first use, no indexing to aid
  finding things later.
• Does not support information discovery,
  experimentation and what if type exploration
• Not linked to enduring corporate repositories of
  knowledge
• Expensive to create, even more expensive to
  maintain

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The Corporate Legacy

• Large installed base of generic e-learning
  materials from a range of providers. Mostly
  following a pedagogy of tell and test.
• E-learning modules not linked to personal
  development objectives and rarely integrated with
  the rest of the learning portfolio, especially
  not linked with ILT provision.
• Poor take up rates of e-learning and poor
  completion rates.
• Workers find all sorts of excuses for not doing
  the e-learning, a current favourite is I
  couldnt get access to the net when I had the
  time to study. (Dont spend time and money
  trying to fix this, it is a symptom not the
  problem)
• ROI based on avoided cost by not doing training
  some other way, rather than effectiveness of
  change in Knowledge, attitude, skills or habits
  and subsequent linkage to operational
  effectiveness.

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Building Performance

• ( K S ) x A
• Improved Personal and Organisational Performance
• 1. Knowledge
• 2. Skills
• 4. Attitude

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How People Engage with Learning Experiences
(
) x

Individual Support Environments
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Informal Learning Represents 70 of Learning that
Occurs in the Workplace
Informal
Formal
Informal Learning the improvised, unplanned
instructional efforts that are part of the
everyday fabric of business operations.
Source U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
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Building Performance Over Time
Informal Learning
Formal Learning
Study by Sally Anne Moore, Digital Equipment
Corporation Time to Performance
At the Water Cooler of Learning by David Grebow
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Important Learning Links
Adapted from At the Water Cooler of Learning
by David Grebow
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When is Retention the Highest?
Source Self-explanations How to study and use
examples in problem solving Cognitive Science,
1989
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Work-related learning preferences of work-based
learners
Source ICLML, Middlesex University
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Online Pedagogy Grid
Gives learners control over style, location,
pace, duration, sequencebut not task
Presents traditional training and teaching by
innovative means
Instructor Specified tasks
NW
NE
Learner managed process
Instructor Controlled Process
SW
SE
System liberates and supports learners to decide
and control own direction and process
Process is predetermined - learners
explore content and direction.
Open ended, strategic learner directed
Coomey,M Stephenson,J 2001, Its all about
Dialogue, Involvement, Support and Control, in
Teaching and Learning Online, Stephenson, J,
Kogan Page London
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Online Pedagogy Grid
Instructor Specified tasks

• Learner managed virtuallearning environment
• Customised intuitive tools
• dis-aggregated company-specific and commercial
  materials tagged
• for personal relevance
• open to outside sources
• online mentoring.

NW
NE
Learner managed process
Instructor Controlled Process
SW
SE
Open ended, strategic learner directed
Coomey,M Stephenson,J 2001, Its all about
Dialogue, Involvement, Support and Control, in
Teaching and Learning Online, Stephenson, J,
Kogan Page London
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Online Pedagogy Grid
Instructor Specified tasks
Vast majority of cases in research literature
were in NW, some in NE and SW, few in SE
NW
NE
Learner managed process
Instructor Controlled Process
SW
SE
The SE quadrant is where e-learning in the
work-place can be most effective
Open ended, strategic learner directed
Coomey,M Stephenson,J 2001, Its all about
Dialogue, Involvement, Support and Control, in
Teaching and Learning Online, Stephenson, J,
Kogan Page London
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Defining Blended Learning
Blended Learning has been defined as a
combination or mixing of at least four different
methodologies

• Applying different forms of instructional methods
  (Classroom, e-Learning, collaboration,
  simulations, etc.)
• Combining delivery technology (Internet, CD-ROM,
  etc.)
• Mixing teaching approaches (behavioral, cognitive
  and constructive)
• Integrating formal learning activities with
  actual job activities.

Adapted Blended Learning Let's Get Beyond the
Hype By Dr. Margaret Driscoll
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Infusing E-Learning

• Problem
• A manufacturing company needed to transform a
  week-long safety program
• Solution - a three-part blended offering
• Phase 1 - One day in classroom
• Phase 2 - Multiple online simulations and
  lessons.
• Phase 3 - One final day of discussions and exams.
• Note must accomplish online work before phase 3
• Result
• raised success rate
• Improved transfer of skills
• lowered hours away from the job

(Elliott Masie, March 2002, e-learning Magazine)
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Ratheon, Build Own LMS

• Problem SAP Training and LMS
• Choices
• Vendor (390,000)
• Build Internally (136,000)
• Cost of Instructor-led Training (388,000
• Solution
• Five Training Components in 18 Weeks
• Role-based simulations
• Audio walk-throughs
• Online quick reference system
• Live training support (special learning labs)
• Online enrollment and tracking
• Result
• saved 252,000
• within 6 weeks, 4,000 courses taken by 1,400
  students

(John Hartnett, Online Learning, Summer 2002)
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Putting the e back into Learning

• The promise of new blended learning programmes
  lies in their ability to empower the learner. To
  transform the quality of the learning experience
  rather than their ability to dumb down or remove
  cost.

Effectiveness
Excitement
Energy
Enthusiasm
Engagement
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Summary

• E-learning in its present form has been an
  expensive experiment and has (by and large)
  failed to live up to its promise.
• The solution to our corporate education problems
  lies in the fundamentals of how people learn. We
  need to consider both the formal and informal
  dimensions.
• Putting the needs of the learner foremost helps
  us to build learning programmes that support the
  ways that people learn.
• e-learning is getting better only because it is
  beginning to support discovery, story telling,
  trial and error, application, experimentation and
  collaboration.
• E-Learning is not the solution it is part of a
  solution.
• We should perhaps look towards the e- enablement
  of informal learning networks