First Build a Strategy
“One of the biggest mistakes organizations make is leading with technology before a strategy is established.” M. Rosenberg. (2006), Beyond e-Learning, Pfeiffer, 20
There are three categories of online learning strategies and unfortunately most fall into the first category which has the lowest impact on learning in terms of changing behaviors and improving performance.
Shovelware Strategy
(1) Online Interactive Documents: These engage learners by having them read text on the slide or in hidden pop-ups and listen to narrations. Then you normally see a quiz at the end to measure comprehension of the document. These have the lowest impact on learning and unfortunately are the most common. PowerPoint and Articulate work just fine for this type of elearning and as a result this is the most common. The development requires little to no design, other then some document organization concepts. If you can cut and past text onto a PowerPoint slide you are good to go so people love it. However the learning impact minimal.
Knowledge Management Strategy
(2) Online Knowledge Centric Presentations: Very few organizations even get to this level which applies good presentation design and avoids cognitive overload. For example, the audio narration should never mimic the text on the screen. “Slidology” from Nancy Duarte is a great book for designing effective presentations and Nancy Ruth Clark’s most recent book discusses the problems with cognitive overload. These types of courses are a bit more effective taking communications design into account but are still low on the learning effectiveness curve. Again, PowerPoint and Articulate can get you this far as long as you consider effective communications design. If you need to include a demonstration of a software application, I would throw in Adobe Captivate which is excellent for building software demos, originally designed for sales presentations but has since evolved to allow for tracking of actions. I also highly recommend Rapid Intake’s tools, ProForm and Unison which offer a template structure and do offer a tool to convert PPT slides to ePresentation slides.
Learning Management Strategy
(3) Task Centered Learning: This level requires a bit more design, a knowledge of instructional design, the learning sciences and computer sciences. However, this type of learning has the highest impact on the learner and the business. Low levels of task centric learning can be achieved with tools like Captivate but again to make it task centric requires design and an understanding of adult learning and instructional design. The tool will not create a good design, no more then a power saw will create a work of art book shelf, unless you know how to design correctly. The tool of choice for designing task centric learning is Adobe Flash.Consider working with an outside vendor to build a few templates that you can re-use to meet your Business Journalism learning goals. The upfront design consulting and development of templates will increase the quality of your training significantly.
Conclusion
You strategy and implementation of online learning should match your organizational goals. If your strategy is to shovel content onto the web then you have what others have called, “shovelware”. If you want to provide well designed information that is searchable and allows for communities to discuss and reflect on the content, you have a knowledge management strategy. However, if you want to provide learning experiences that will impact the way in which people behave and perform on the job, and you have a way to measure the changes in behavior and performance, you have a learning management strategy.
References
Allen M., (2007). Designing Successful E-Learning, Pfeiffer
Clark Ruth C., Nguyen F, and Sweller J. Efficiency in Learning: Evidence-Based Guidelines to Manage Cognitive Load. Pfieffer
Duarte, N., (2008). Slide:ology, The Art and Science of Creating Great Presentations, O’Reilly
Rosenberg, M. (2006). Beyond e-Learning, Pfiffer
