E-Learning Buzz to Your Training Toolbox

It's learning in a widely networked world. It's green, it's in cyberspace, it's blended and unblended, it supports change. It can save your organization money, it fosters interaction and collaboration, it's global, scalable, adaptable and part of the new learning fabric that goes hand-in-hand with revolutionary and technological change. That's the buzz of e-learning. But is e-learning in your training toolbox?

Content and Providers

The e-learning market is expected to surpass $52.6 billion by 2010, according to a May 2008 industry article. Shorter business cycles, mergers and increased competition are driving businesses to incorporate of e-learning in their training curriculums. Other drivers include quality instruction, cost effectiveness of new technology and increasingly supportive cultures of e-learning.

Another trend is not only in the purchase of software but also the added value of training vendors who can provide online facilitation, blended approaches and coaching. This increases engagement and customer learning satisfaction leading to outcomes contributing to the bottom line.

Scenario: A data processing company is rolling out supervisory training for its 200 managers. The company wants to deliver the same training to all managers, but because the participants are in five locations in three states, classroom-based training is not feasible due to the cost of bringing participants to one location.

The decision is made to use e-learning. A training vendor supports online training by interacting with students through threaded discussions. The online trainer is also available to answer participants' questions. Thus, students feel supported. They apply their learning on the job for a defined period and return to the online course fur further discussion and coaching with the instructor based on their real-life experiences.

Productivity levels are measured before and after the training, as well as at six months and one year. The results show that turnover is reduced and productivity has increased.

Learning 2.0 and Social Communities

According to research, the future of e-learning may be in workplace communities using social learning, which is a major change for business training. As a training professional or chief learning officer, you are responsible for managing and delivering training with classroom, online or blended approaches. The prospect of socialized learning adds to the formal approaches. E-learning lends itself well to this because it is already delivered via technology and uses features such as chat, asynchronous threads and document sharing.

How they do it: Social networking sites and blogs can be easily embedded into e-learning formats. The accessibility of posts for best practices and ideas are built upon and archived over time, becoming a wealth of collaborative knowledge for the organization.

Another way inject social learning is to wrap it around existing formal content and link to social forum spaces where they can discuss the training. These are public spaces where additional outside experts contribute so learning is further enhanced.

Learning Management Systems

Learning management systems (LMS) need not be expensive. They allow companies to register, track and catalog available courses for participants within the organization, allowing them to manage the function.

Choosing the right content and provider can bring resources to you without the expense of building or investing in large-scale systems beyond your reach or budget. This makes it easier to deliver value to your organization and mange results. For example, tracking the number of participants, courses delivered, and time spent in courses compared to the return on increased customer service or productivity following training.

Scenario: An auto parts store chain has rolled out training to its 257 stores nationwide. Through its LMS, the chain can track those who have received customer service training. Because the store also tracks customer service levels, it can draw correlations between those who completed the training and increased customer service ratings. Further return-on-investment has been shown through this tracking.

Vital Learning Brings the Buzz to Your Toolbox



Organizations are increasingly examining the incorporation of e-learning and the vast array of technology and Web-based tools strategically. Resources include planning and evaluation methods.

Vital Learning has been delivering online training courses and tools since 1996. With its affiliated training partners, Vital Learning offers a sate-of-the-art LMS and courses that can be delivered as stand-alone modules for self-paced learning or for blended learning solutions. Contact your Vital Learning training consultant today to discover how you can add e-learning to your toolbox.