E-learning, more than hype?
Then there is e-learning. Gordon says e-learning received a lot of hype in the beginning which meant that every man and his dog raced out to set up an e-learning company which resulted in “acres and acres of boring text-based material”.
“There was a grossly over-simplified view of the e-learning environment. People saw it as the be all and end all, and a way to slash their budgets and decrease costs,” he says. “But the first lot of content that came out was just deadly boring.”
He says e-learning has come a long way since then and it is no longer just putting a text book on the screen. “[There is] video experience, some interaction, real trainers not actors, one-on-one type experiences, and [students] feel like they have the classroom on screen,” explains Gordon. He believes all of the original reasons why e-learning was going to be good are still valid, such as 24x7 access, a consistent experience, and cheaper cost than typical instructor-led training.
It can also be a good way to provide training to a large number of people. Gordon says e-learning is popular for desktop courses. The common argument against e-learning is that students rarely finish the course, but he says In Learning courses have a 97 percent completion rate.
Pricing for e-learning packages is probably different to what you would assume. Although basically just software, sales don’t work like other software packages. Instead of buying user licences, the company just pays a one-off fee and can keep the material on their server for as long as they like and can have as many staff accessing it as they like. According to Gordon, the price is scaled depending on company size.
Tell me all about it
As mentioned earlier, it is difficult to measure the ROI for training but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do any follow up. Get feedback from staff on what they thought of the course and of the trainer. If you have a lot of staff receiving training, conducting regular surveys, say every six months or annually, is a good idea.
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