Online Training: Tailor-made Lessons

As most projects

are implemented across the globe, cross functional groups are involved at

various critical stages and significantly contribute to the value chain. The

chances of success are greatly enhanced when each component of skill attached to

the project is equipped with the desired level of competency. This scenario

raises a few challenges before any organization. Traditional classroom training

exposes the limitations to handle such dynamic situations. Increasingly, the

corporate sector is evaluating technology-based training methodologies, which

are expected to ease the situation.

Growing shift

International

Data Corp predicts that technology-based training delivery will grow at a

compound annual growth rate of over 50% from now till 2002. Web-based training

is expected to claim the largest share of the market within this sector.

The research predicting the

increase in internet delivered training is quite understandable. There are

several compelling reasons for web-based training to be an attractive delivery

model. It eliminates travel and trainer expenses, provides just-in-time

training, solves logistical issues of widely dispersed audiences and keeps pace

with rapidly changing technologies.

Professional training managers

are certainly feeling the pressure to respond to these issues. The needs of the

corporation, the training manager and the learner are all converging, and

web-based training appears to be a highly desirable solution.

Learn before you leap

Though this

alternative still comes to us via the internet, we must use it only as a tool to

deliver training better and faster than before. We must use the internet as a

vehicle to offer the audience a new learning experience while incorporating the

components necessary for skill transfer.

There is, however, a great deal

of hype around many self-defined new paradigms for online learning. Most of

these offerings are far from being satisfactory.

The real alternative that we must

pursue is a totally new strategy that allows us to leverage the power of the

internet to address our business objectives. This new strategy is e-learning. An

e-learning model leverages the power of the internet to reach individuals in

real-time in a geographically-dispersed business world.

Benefits of e-learning

Ideally, the

components of e-learning should deliver the following benefits to the learners:

In addition to the above,

e-learning should be collaborative. This way one can gain and use knowledge more

effectively. The real power of e-learning is that it finally allows you to be in

complete control. e-learning makes an unprecedented and varied number of events

and resources available to you, and lets you decide what you need. By responding

to your interests and characteristics, it dynamically presents what is most

relevant to you at each particular moment. Your experience of e-learning may be

entirely different from mine, and that is exactly as it should be.

Apart from being dynamic and

collaborative, e-learning has to meet the challenge of being comprehensive.

People in the learning world fragment learning into subjects or modules. So, one

can take a session in some specific element of Java programming, a second

session in project management and a third session in working as part of a team.

This type of learning creates enterprise learning communities.

Ground work for e-learning

solutions

To ensure that an

organization is able to take full advantage of the benefits in implementing an

e-learning solution, it should prepare its staff for impending changes and train

them to address those changes. Changes can cause people to be resistant,

apprehensive and frustrated before they move to acceptance, excitement and

commitment. The organization needs to ensure that the staff understands the

benefits of this new strategy for the company, the department and the persons.

Understanding and addressing the team’s concerns would be critical during this

stage.

_{Creating e-learning}

Assessment

Application: The assessment application

becomes an integral part of a student’s learning. The assessment application

should ideally incorporate adaptive, simulative and certification testing. This

enables measurement of actual learning.

Content:

The course content should be developed with the concept of component technology.

This ensures that updating any component of the course does not affect the

complete application. The course should have suitable web links, say, to a

virtual university site. The curricula ownership is crucial. The component needs

to be updated to provide up-to-date



learning.

Mentoring:

To add human interface to the courses, mentors on the courses constitute an

integral element. Mentoring service can be divided into collaborative and

interactive components. Discussion forums, seminars, white papers, articles and

FAQs form the collaborative component. The interactive component incorporates

setting a chat server or making a virtual classroom that can deliver the

mentoring services.

Golden opportunities

Training

companies will need to leverage the internet to pursue these business

opportunities. The first is a business-to-business opportunity, in which the

service provider will equip the organizations seeking to remain competitive in

an economy, where knowledge and innovation is a source of competitive advantage.

The other opportunity is the business-to-consumer opportunity that will tap the

enormous scope of meeting the demand from professionals seeking to upgrade their

skills for career advancement. This transition would open vast new markets.

Organizations with core competencies, visions, resources, experience and

reputation are poised to play a big role in this space.

Joseph

Chacko