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IT Blended Learning The term blended learning has been the most overused buzzword in the learning industry over the past couple of years, but it has, in fact, always been the way that training has been provided. Technically speaking, any combination of delivery methods is a blended learning solution, such as an instructor-led session coupled with take-home workbooks. Elliott Music refers to a session he did via phone with PowerPoint slides hed sent ahead as an example of technology-driven blended learning. As far back as 1996, Pete Weaver of DDI was evangelizing technology-driven blended learning through presentations titled, The Magic Is in the Mix. For most organizations, a robust blended approach should maximize the ROI potential of a complete curriculum. To prove that, a Thomson Not study published earlier this year found that a structured curriculum of blended learning will generate a 30 percent increase in performance accuracy and a 41 percent increase in performance speed over single-method delivery options.
Thomson Job Impact Study (June T+D) New technologies have enabled companies to explore novel and creative ways to mix and match delivery methods to learning needs. Given what we now know about how people learn and what employees need to be successful, organizations are excitedly experimenting with these different methods, searching for combinations that provide for the greatest increases in workforce productivity. There isnt a vendor or training department that wouldnt say it is providing blended learning today, but confusion from the myriad of different and new technologies has kept most suppliers and training functions from truly maximizing the potential of this approach. Bluntly, most organizations havent matched the right delivery methods to learners needs. To help your company design, develop, and deploy blended learning solutions that can increase productivity, drive revenue, and support individual development, lets explore a sample blended learning scenario and six best-practice components needed for successful blended learning solutions. (3) Let us examine possible solution for an average person, who wants to gain some new knowledge through blended learning. For this purpose we are going to use made up woman named Sue.
Sue has been a sales rep for the past six years and has participated in many training courses to more effectively sell her companys products and services. Sue likes to receive the core of her training before shes ready to use it, but she also has come to rely on print and her companys intranet to find the information she needs. However, she often can t find that information when she needs it. Like most salespeople, she thinks classroom training takes her away too long from making sales. What she likes about instructor-led training is that she learns as much during lunch and hallway conversations with other salespeople as she does in class. Learning through collaborating with and observing others is not only important to her, but its also enjoyable.
You probably know a lot of people like Sue. She has different learning needs at different times. Lets look at three sample paths that, when combined, provide an effective blended learning approach. (6) Path A: Formal preparation training. Lets assume the company is rolling out one of its most significant products in the past several years. To get the sales force up-to-speed quickly and all grounded in the same basic information, the training department prepared a structured, core set of learning activities for Sue and the rest of the sales force. Sues first exposure to the new product is a Just the Facts knowledge document, a set of marketing materials that have been re purposed and that provide her with a quick overview and a cheat sheet she can print out.
Next up is a 20 -minute introductory Webinar. This second exposure to key information appeals to Sue; hearing and seeing a presentation by a top sales producer is usually worthwhile. Once completed, the presentation will be edited and enhanced, including the addition of questions and answers gathered during the session and posted on the intranet that same afternoon. That provides sales staff that missed the Webinar with the ability to launch the presentation and receive credit through the LMS. (6) Ready to drill into the product details, Sue registers for the online course, completing the 45 -minute training in two separate sessions. Shes given the choice to take an in-depth training track or a condensed overview version. The track provides detailed information on all aspects of the new product, a pre-test that enables her to skip areas in which shes already proficient, and a post-assessment that will allow her to assess her mastery of the material.
The final task in this structured portion of the curriculum is for Sue to demonstrate to her manager that shes well prepared to sell the new product. She spends 15 minutes on the telephone telling her manager how she would handle a challenging prospect. Sue has undoubtedly received more training in this blended sequence of activities than in previous product trainings, and its probably taken less than half the time and has barely interfered with her sales responsibilities. Of course, this formal curriculum didnt cover all of the bases.
She recognizes that she has more to learn and will be getting those needs met through informal learning activities and just-in-time performance support materials. (6) Path B: Support of informal learning. Shortly after the new product launch, Sues regional manager asks the reps to share their best-practice approaches to a common sales challenge. He does that through a threaded discussion, to which reps are asked, but not required, to comply. Because Sue prefers to observe and reuse what has worked well for others, this is an especially effective forum. Days later in getting ready for a customer call, Sue searches the knowledge database to look up possible strategies for overcoming a technology incompatibility she knows this customer will ask about. When unable to locate what she needs in the product documentation, she sends off a request for more detail using her companys Ask the Expert program.
Based on Sues time constraints, the ability to contact other employees in real time, observe how others are addressing similar problems, and being able to ask an expert for help turns out to be more beneficial to Sue than attending a class. (6) Path C: Just-in-time, just-enough performance support. In the past, quickly finding the support materials Sue needs when she needs them has typically been a frustrating experience. Today, however, Sue accesses the intranet and uses the companys information management system to within minutes view, save, and print such items as competitor kill sheets, product specifications, and other reference documentation. A Key Links document lets Sue quickly locate new product materials scattered across the corporate intranet. And though she never thought of instant messaging as anything other than a social toy for her teenage daughters, it has become a real help to her when shes on a conference call with a prospect and needs an immediate answer to a question.
Currently, most companies arent providing that level of blended learning, but this scenario is within reach. This type of robust blended training and support is possible through a well-thought-out approach using available technologies. Several organizations have already begun deploying aspects of those three paths. (6) In deploying blended learning, here are six best practices that are important to creating an effective solution: 1) Create a structured core curriculum of learning activities transferred via different delivery methods. Just about everybody needs to interact with content more than once in order to really understand and be able to use it. This contact preferably happens in a variety of delivery formats that meet the learners day-to-day learning requirements. A well-thought-out formal curriculum encompassing different delivery formats is more effective and time efficient.
In terms of blended learning, such formal learning activities will probably include a combination of Web-based courseware, ILT, virtual Webinars, enhanced knowledge documents, and mentoring. For some learning objectives, live (synchronous and co-located) events may be required. For instance, in our sales example, Sue and her colleagues might learn a new sales presentation for a product launch best by working in small groups to practice, critique, and refine their presentation skills under the guidance of a sales or product mentor. (7) 2) Support an environment in which people can learn in small chunks. To obtain significant performance improvement in the workplace, you must provide a learning environment that addresses real-world learning needs and work-driven requirements. The one size fits all approach has never, and will never, work. Most people learn better in small chunks not in lengthy, information overload training sessions. 3) Create a system through which people can learn informally.
Its common knowledge that most of what people learn for doing their jobs, they learn informally through over-the-cubicle conversations or by observation. That informal method of learning needs to be embraced rather than discouraged, especially in an environment like sales, where new best practices are constantly emerging. Technologies such as ask the expert functionality, instant messaging, and threaded discussion enable workers to gain valuable insight from co-workers. This type of learning happens faster than formal learning and is usually more readily believable and accepted by the workforce. 4) Provide an information management repository. Because just about everybody needs to review learning content more than once to get it, the repository will be the place where anyone can view or print just-enough, just-in-time information, reference documents, and other performance support materials to help them do their day-to-day jobs. 5) Provide your development team with a comprehensive set of tools. Its challenging to create an environment that adequately supports formal, informal, and just-in-time performance support.
The best way to identify the required tool set is to match the content development need with the right tool. Ideally, the team should have an easy-to-use tool set that can create Web-based courseware, publish performance support materials, re purpose and enhance existing content, support instructor-led training, and provide live synchronous events. In some ways, selecting a set of development tools is similar to buying a home entertainment system. You might get better individual quality if you buy each piece separately. But, commonly, after spending a great deal of time to get everything working together, few people are able to use the system of development tools effectively. On the other hand, integrated home entertainment systems are built to work seamlessly and are usually up and running and producing a high-quality experience quickly.
Keep the ease of integration of development components in mind when looking at the right tools as it becomes particularly important in a multiple delivery environment. 6) Build a shared development environment. The Delphi Group found that 7 to 20 percent of employees time on the job is spent replicating existing solutions for others. To avoid that, a company looking to develop learning in-house needs a central system to store, organize, and manage documentation, reusable learning objects, and assets, as well as facilitate communication and support during the development process. That will significantly reduce development time and help maintain a consistent, high level of instructional quality. (7) As long as technology and delivery formats are optimized for the situation, blended learning is usually the right answer for a company seeking to benefit from a complete mix of training and support that will give its employees what they need, when they need it. Expanding the mix to include a rich variety of formal training; support for informal learning; and easy-to-find, just-in-time performance support will provide your staff with a learning environment that should create magic from the mix.
Whether e-learning is currently in a state of boom or bust depends on your viewpoint. The conflicting claims of the e-learning naysayer and proponents can be hard to sort out. Consider, for example, the experience of Express Personnel Services, the worlds largest privately held staffing firm, based in Oklahoma City. Four years ago, during the Internet boom, Express Personnel invested in an expensive streaming-video training system that offered every bell and whistle imaginable and gobbled up so much bandwidth that no one at the company could use it. After junking that system, the company has returned to e-learning with a less expensive system that uses shorter online classes. E-learning is making a comeback.
While spending for corporate training remained flat in 2003, e-learning expenditures rose by a striking 22 percent, says Michael Brennan, an analyst at International Data Corp. Whats more, IDC predicts that funding for e-learning will rise by an average of 27 percent over each of the next five years. Analysts are quick to add, however, that the e-learning of 2005 will be nothing like the version that crashed and burned with the dot-com implosion. As in the case of Express Personnel, e-learning initiatives now tend to be far more modest and targeted. (1) Companies no longer accept the notion that technology and the Internet are the perfect solution for every kind of training. Many firms are still licking their wounds from those earlier efforts.
The seven-figure learning management systems that many firms purchased took, in some cases, years to fully implement. Many of the expensive libraries of content remain largely unused. Employees frequently found that big clumps of static material were too dry and difficult to figure out. Many companies bought a three-year subscription to a catalog of courses, put the material up on their intranet, and then found that no one ever logged on, says Jeff Snipes, CEO of Ninth House, a San Francisco maker of online training modules. Now companies are treating e-learning strategically, with greater attention to ROI and more awareness of how to used not use online training.
The American Society for Training and Development recently released its 2003 state-of-the-industry report, which shows that many companies are avoiding the most cutting-edge e-learning technology. Old-fashioned CD-ROMs represent 46. 9 percent of technology-delivered training, virtually the same amount as two years before. Perhaps as a result of the dot-com fallout, networked online delivery of training decreased in 2002. It represented a mere 31. 5 percent of technology-delivered training, down from 41. 3 percent two years earlier. (2) Even the most technologically gung-ho firms no longer promote the notion that e-learning can replace all forms of training. The first mantra, more than ever, is blended learning, which means using technology in conjunction with classroom training.
D. L. Karl, vice president of product development for Achieve Global, a training firm in Tampa, Florida, says that the blend between new and established methods commonly has been accomplished by guesswork. This mentality has led to disappointing returns for the training dollars. Karl's experience has been encountered by many others in the same arena, who conclude that e-learning does an excellent job of helping workers learn conceptual subject matter, such as product information or the tenets of customer service, but that developing interpersonal skills requires personal, face-to-face practice. Express Personnel, for example, found that managers can benefit...
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Research essay sample on Day To Day E Learning
