Seeing as how its 2009 and eLearning exploded onto the scene somewhere around 1998, we cannot assume every organization has the infrastructure to support online learning methods. In fact some of you reading this work for organizations that do not use eLearning nor do they believe they should. However, with the recent economic shift and the budgetary cuts training departments have been faced with, cost cutting is a necessity. There are obvious financial benefits to online learning given the global nature of today’s workforce. Although this is clearly not the only value add. Online forms of learning avoid scheduling conflicts, are easily deployed to all employees and easily tracked, thanks to LMS and LCMS.

What is the starting point for including eLearning into the mix of things? I have recently started down this path with one of our clients who is interested in getting up to speed with eLearning. First and foremost, do you have an LMS? If the answer is no, then you need to start looking around. Keep in mind that installing your own LMS is a costly investment and not always the only option. LMS outsourcing is always a possibility and provides more than just cost savings. If you partner with a vendor you get their expertise and a helping hand to walk you through the process.

Thoughts?

We are constantly striving to find innovative ways of engaging learners.  Often Scenarios are designed to illustrate correct behaviour in a given situation.  The problem is we cannot really tell if the learner is paying attention and grasping all of the subtle nuances to be successful.

By creating a “First Person” reinforcement activity, learners can practice what they learn in a safe and supportive manner.  A few years ago I began to experiment with this technique.  As technology has evolved we have become able to do some amazing things.  In the past we would have to create a storyboard matrix and lay out the possible paths a learner could take during a conversation.  Once these were identified, scripts for both the Learner and the person with whom they were interacting onscreen had to be created. The script for the onscreen person was recorded with an actor in character.  The script of possible responses or questions was laid out on screen, giving the learner the opportunity to select a response or question from 4 possible ones at that moment.

The tricky part was recording the video with all the necessary outcomes that wouldn’t take the learner so far down a path they couldn’t recover.  I remember in one situation we had to get the on screen character to get more and more upset with the learner during the course of the conversation.  We had over 40 video clips she needed to record.  By the end the actor told me that this was one of the most difficult shoots she had done, especially getting more and more upset, staying in character while keeping it feeling real.  However the project, which was for a very large accounting firm in the US, got an overwhelmingly positive response, with learners scoring very high.

The feedback from this style of learning was fantastic.  Companies were able to see immediate improvements due to the fact that the training was not static and the role playing that typically went on in the class was much more consistent and controlled to maximize the learning.

Results from this online learning experience were fully tracked and then sent back to the LMS when appropriate.

Where are we headed next?  Avatars, “Second Life” style characters, Learning 2.0 online virtual mentors ….?

An increasing number of companies today find their HR or training departments having to do front line level 1 LMS support for their internal learning communities. A few questions come to mind:

• Are they prepared?
• Do they have the right resources?
• Do training coordinators have time to take password reset requests?
• Many of the large LMS offer expensive Level 1 call support, but when does it make sense to consider bringing in an outside company to help out?
• Most training groups will have a person available to answer questions, but this is not their specialty and they usually have other responsibilities.

In large organizations the IT department will often have to support users via the Help Desk.  But IT personnel don’t usually know about training so questions have to be escalated to the training department anyway.

So when does it make sense to outsource LMS support? We know that there are peaks and valleys for call volumes, so often full-time staffing is the wrong answer, since it results in either not enough staffers to handle peak call times or excess staffers during low-volume times.

Moving to an outsource model to support your LMS by support specialists who understand Learning Management Systems and user needs simply makes sense.

At MindMuze, more and more of our clients are moving to this model of support. It can be done based upon a per-call cost or a fixed monthly rate depending on call volumes. At the end of the day, if you want to concentrate on creating great learning without using up time and resources for supporting your LMS then outsourcing support may be something to consider.

Contact us to learn more or go to bvirtualinc.com