e Learning
An exploration of Myth and Reality
Brian Sutton
Chief Educator, QA
Agenda for our discussion
 Where are we now
 Why the rush towards e-Learning?
 What is our current experience?
 The corporate legacy
 Why invest in Learning? - how does it happen?
 Some ideas, concepts and facts about learning
 Where we learn – vs - where we put our money
 Future directions for learning
 What is Blended learning
 First steps
 A glimpse of the possible
 Summary
What do we mean by e?
What do we mean by Learning?
“The principles, practice and profession
of teaching”
Implied Benefits of e-Learning
Travel
Savings
Ability to Report
and Measure
Effectiveness
Cost
Savings
Time
Savings
Improved Access
to Content
The Worldwide Expansion of E-Learning!
•
Circuit City
– is training 50,000 employees from 600 stores using customized
courses that are “short, fun, flexible, interactive and instantly
applicable on the job.”
•
The US Army’s virtual university
– offered online college courses to more than 12,000 students located
anywhere in the world
– Estimated to be a $42 million e-learning program.
•
Dow Chemical
– needed to train 40,000 employees across 70 countries on
workplace respect and responsibility, using 6 hours of e-learning
– Result: All 40,000 passed
– Savings: $2.7 million
US Energy Company
•
•
•
•
Problem
– IT technical training for employees
Solution
– Async, Web-based, self-paced learning
– Some employees discussed learning in virtual classroom
Result
– In 12 month span, 3,000 courses completed and another 7,000
partially completed
Benefit
– Payback period of 3-4 months
– Faster time to competency
– Reduced re-work
– Higher employee retention
– Higher quality of service
– Reduced help desk call volume and costs
– Less system downtime
(CLO, March 2003)
British Telecom & sales training
• Problem
– Train 17,000 sales professionals to sell Internet services
• Solution
– Internet simulation
• Result
– Customer service rep training reduced from 15 days to 1 day
– Sales training reduced from 40 days to 9 days
• Benefit
– Millions of dollars saved
– sales conversion went up 102 percent
– customer satisfaction up 16 points
(CLO, March 2003)
E-learning –
promise fulfilled, paradise gained


The last 15 years have seen great advances in technology and multi-media
design. Courseware is now;
 Very interactive, includes sound, video, links to job aids and other
documents, message boards, live mentors (24x7)
 Virtual classroom technology allows live instructors to lead world-wide
sessions
Advantages of current courseware:
 Can be used anytime, anywhere. Take breaks at any time and return
to exactly the same place.
 Learning is reinforced through constant testing, performance is tracked.
 Patterns of learning are different, sessions shorter, easier to fit with job
requirements. We no longer loose days away from the workplace.
 Material stimulates multiple senses, therefore more memorable.
 Faster time to competence.
 Can be expensive to create but then cost per delivery rapidly becomes
marginal
E-learning –
promise unfulfilled, paradise lost
 We took the pedagogy of the classroom and applied it unchanged
to a new delivery mechanism.
 The last 15 years have seen great advances in multi-media design
whilst learning design has been largely ignored - result
 Very pretty courseware that provides little stimulus to learn
 Criticisms of current courseware:
 Learning that is not Authentic, little connection to real world.
 Learning not reinforced, no mentoring or post course support.
 Useless after first use, no indexing to aid finding things later.
 Does not support information discovery, experimentation and
what if type exploration
 Not linked to enduring corporate repositories of knowledge
 Expensive to create, even more expensive to maintain
The Corporate Legacy

Large installed base of generic e-learning materials from a range of
providers. Mostly following a pedagogy of tell and test.

E-learning modules not linked to personal development objectives and
rarely integrated with the rest of the learning portfolio, especially not linked
with ILT provision.

Poor take up rates of e-learning and poor completion rates.

Workers find all sorts of excuses for not doing the e-learning, a current
favourite is “I couldn’t get access to the net when I had the time to study”.
(Don’t spend time and money trying to fix this, it is a symptom not the
problem)

ROI based on avoided cost by not doing training some other way, rather
than effectiveness of change in Knowledge, attitude, skills or habits and
subsequent linkage to operational effectiveness.
Building Performance
(K+S)xA
=
Improved Personal and
Organisational Performance
1. Knowledge
2. Skills
4. Attitude
How People Engage with Learning Experiences
•
Play
•
Story Telling
•
Collaboration
with their peers
Individual World
View
Individuals develop
Attitudes based on:
•
Observation
•
Peer behaviour
•
Trial & Error
•
Environment /
culture
•
Guided Practice
•
Past experience
•
Need for well being
•
•
Application
Experimentation
Individual World
of Performance
Individual
Set of beliefs
Build in Context
Stimulate Multiple Senses
Access real systems / tools
Individual Support Environments
Adapt / Adopt
Discovery
)x
Individuals Acquire &
Perfect Skills Through:
Practice
•
+
Personal Reflection
(
Individuals Acquire & Share
Knowledge Through:
Informal Learning Represents 70% of Learning that
Occurs in the Workplace
Informal
Formal
Informal Learning
“the improvised, unplanned instructional efforts that are part of the
everyday fabric of business operations.”*
* Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
Building Performance Over Time
I Adopt and Adapt
Informal
Learning
75%
Performance
20%
5%
I Can Do
I Know
Study by Sally Anne Moore, Digital Equipment Corporation ‘Time to Performance’
‘At the Water Cooler of Learning’ by David Grebow
Formal
Learning
Important Learning Links
Formal – In the Classroom
Informal – At the Water cooler
General & Academic Need
Specific & Practical Need
Longer Term & Full-time
Shorter Term & Part-time
Standardised content
Requires pre-requisites
Individualised content
Requires purpose
Isolated from work
Associated with work
Assessment-based
Results-based
Teacher-centered
Measured & Scheduled
Control
Learner-centered
Unmeasured & As Needed
Empowerment
Adapted from ‘At the Water Cooler of Learning’ by David Grebow
When is Retention the Highest?
Reading
Seeing
Hearing
Seeing & Hearing
Collaborating
Practice
Teaching
10%
20%
To teach is to learn twice.
Joseph Joubert
30%
50%
70%
80%
90%
Source: Self-explanations: How to study and use examples in problem solving Cognitive Science, 1989
Work-related learning preferences of
work-based learners
90
Hands on, doing
76
Work mentor / supervisor
68
68
Work experience
Group problem-solving
12
12
16
20
24
Web materials
Self-help groups
Internet networks
Self-study materials
Story telling
32
Manuals
48
Formal f2f
0
Source: ICLML, Middlesex University
20
40
60
80
100
Online Pedagogy Grid
Instructor
Specified
tasks
Presents
traditional training
and teaching by
innovative means
NW
Instructor
Controlled
Process
Process is predetermined
- learners explore
content and direction.
NE
SW
SE
Open
ended,
strategic
learner
directed
Gives
learners control over
style, location, pace,
duration, sequence
but not task
Learner
managed
process
System liberates and
supports learners to
decide and
control own direction
and process
Coomey,M Stephenson,J 2001, It’s all about Dialogue, Involvement, Support and Control, in Teaching and Learning Online, Stephenson, J, Kogan
Page London
Online Pedagogy Grid
Instructor
Specified
tasks
•Learner managed virtual
learning environment;NW
•Customised intuitive tools;
Instructor
•dis-aggregated
Controlled
company-specific
and
Process
SW
commercial materials tagged
for personal relevance;
•open to outside sources;
•online mentoring.
NE
SE
Learner
managed
process
Open
ended,
strategic
learner
directed
Coomey,M Stephenson,J 2001, It’s all about Dialogue, Involvement, Support and Control, in Teaching and Learning Online, Stephenson, J, Kogan
Page London
Online Pedagogy Grid
Instructor
Specified
tasks
Vast majority of cases
in research literature
were in NW, some in
NE and SW, few in SE
NW
Instructor
Controlled
Process
NE
SW
SE
Open
ended,
strategic
learner
directed
Learner
managed
process
The SE quadrant is
where e-learning in
the work-place can be
most effective
Coomey,M Stephenson,J 2001, It’s all about Dialogue, Involvement, Support and Control, in Teaching and Learning Online, Stephenson, J, Kogan
Page London
Defining Blended Learning
Blended Learning has been defined as a combination
or mixing of at least four different methodologies:
1.
2.
3.
4.
Applying different forms of instructional
methods (Classroom, e-Learning,
collaboration, simulations, etc.)
Combining delivery technology (Internet, CDROM, etc.)
Mixing teaching approaches (behavioral,
cognitive and constructive)
Integrating formal learning activities with
actual job activities.
Adapted ‘Blended Learning: Let's Get Beyond the Hype’ By Dr. Margaret Driscoll
Infusing E-Learning
•
Problem
– A manufacturing company needed to transform a week-long
safety program:
•
Solution - a three-part blended offering
– Phase 1 -One day in classroom
– Phase 2 -Multiple online simulations and lessons.
– Phase 3 -One final day of discussions and exams.
• Note: must accomplish online work before phase 3
•
Result
– raised success rate
– Improved transfer of skills
– lowered hours away from the job
(Elliott Masie, March 2002, e-learning Magazine)
Ratheon, Build Own LMS
•
Problem SAP Training and LMS
– Choices
• Vendor ($390,000)
•
•
•
•
Build Internally ($136,000)
Cost of Instructor-led Training ($388,000
Solution
– Five Training Components in 18 Weeks :
•
•
•
•
Role-based simulations
Audio walk-throughs
Online quick reference system
Live training support (special learning labs)
•
Online enrollment and tracking
Result
– saved $252,000
– within 6 weeks, 4,000 courses taken by 1,400 students
(John Hartnett, Online Learning, Summer 2002)
Putting the “e” back into Learning
 The promise of new blended learning programmes lies in their
ability to empower the learner. To transform the quality of the
learning experience rather than their ability to dumb down or
remove cost.
Summary
•
E-learning in its present form has been an expensive experiment and has
(by and large) failed to live up to its promise.
•
The solution to our corporate education problems lies in the fundamentals
of how people learn. We need to consider both the formal and informal
dimensions.
•
Putting the needs of the learner foremost helps us to build learning
programmes that support the ways that people learn.
•
e-learning is getting better only because it is beginning to support;
discovery, story telling, trial and error, application, experimentation and
collaboration.
•
E-Learning is not the solution – it is part of a solution.
•
We should perhaps look towards the e- enablement of informal learning
networks