Essays

At its simplest, E-learning is using the Web to learn. It is the ability of learners or students to learn what they want, when they warn, in the form that best suits them in the  modules or 'chunks' that they want. By accommodating learner preferences, they want" By accommodating fundamentally enhanced the learning experience is more effective. Trained people are more makes the learning more effective. Trained people are more confident which makes them even more effective and productive preferences. By knowing the student is a sales rep, for example, the highly technical information that is actually targeted for an engineer is not delivered. Further, if a preference for audio has been expressed, the delivered lesson can have more audio segments than text.

Another key way to focus on the learner is by providing' prescriptive learning. In my example about the call centre rep, the student started his training efforts by first taking a short test. Based on the results of the test, the student was told what training would be most beneficial. That is prescriptive learning, assessing the student's needs and based on the results, prescribing what learning is needed. This is a powerful method because the student only has to learn what they specifically need to. This saves time and makes for a very personal learning experience.

E-learning is a paradigm shift and change always takes some time to absorb and accommodate. By starting with known, quality materials, the focus can be on redesigning for e- learning, adding interactive elements and making it learner- centric instead of struggling with the core content itself. Also, by starting with something that exists, there's a fallback position if a deadline looms or issues are encountered.

It is tempting to take short cuts to get a feeling of accomplishment, but that usually results in a lesser quality learning experience. One might assume that taking the PowerPoint slides from an existing course and turning them into static HTML is E-learning. But, what kind of learning will it be? There is no instructor to add all that extra knowledge and, by the way, the information on the slide needs to change next month because of a new offering. Think of the content management challenge when you have hundreds of pages of HTML that must be reviewed and Updated when products and services change.

Assemble a team that embraces change - When embarking tin your first e-learning initiative, build a team that likes to try new thing. Remember to include all the different roles needed to develop and deploy great E-learning - course

developers, media/graphic specialists, editors, subject matter experts and IT. All of these roles are important and by bringing the team together early and often you share ideas, continuously improve the process and create advocates for your mission.