There is constant buzz of how beneficial eLearning can be and the advantages it has over conventional learning. This type of learning has many attractive features for companies as it saves time and money as well as gives the most flexibility for learning as it can be done almost anywhere, anytime! There have been many articles and options from the pros on this kind of technology however this article deals with a student’s perspective of eLearning. Recently I was able to sit down with a fellow named Robert who was utilizing a corporate university in order to train for a new employment position.

Robert gained a position with a company in Ottawa which manages client care for other companies. AT&T is one of the many contracts that it handles. Representatives in Ottawa deal with billing issues as well as technical ones that the customers may have. To learn how to deal with these issues and how to best resolve them, employees undergo five weeks of training through AT&T’s Corporate University. Prior to his training through AT&T, Robert only had basic knowledge of what eLearning was and how it could be applied.  Here are the questions we had for Robert and his experience:


Did you have any knowledge of eLearning prior to dealing with AT&T’s Corporate University?

I was aware of eLearning but I had never experienced it firsthand. I didn’t really know anything too specific about the technology or how it was really used but I understood the idea behind it. I thought that it sounded like an interesting way to have people learning.

Were you apprehensive to take such an innovate approach to learning?

Honestly, I wasn't too sure about it.  I'm more of a pen, paper and textbook kind of guy so I wasn't positive that reading materials on a computer screen was going to be effective in helping me learn what I needed to for my job. I sometimes find that computers can be a distraction when I am trying to really concentrate on something and focus.

After completing the training through the corporate university did you still have reservations about eLearning?

Actually, it was the best way to learn the materials that we needed to know. The material that we were dealing with was rather dry, however it was nice to be able to have the interactive online quizzes and scenarios to help understand and learn the material.  There were a few chalkboard lessons along with what we did but it was only to reinforce what we had previously learned, more of a review than actually learning new material.

Were you engaged with the learning?

As I said before, the material was rather dry, however there were many mediums used to relay the information. PowerPoint’s, online quizzes, mock scenarios, program tutorials as well as the conventional handouts were used to teach the methods and techniques that we were going to have to utilize once we were taking calls and dealing with clients. Because there were so many ways that we were able to learn about the information it made it more interesting than if we would have been reading from handouts and chalkboards and textbooks while in training.

What did you enjoy the most about the online learning experience?

I enjoyed the fact that I was able to go at my own pace, that things were explained clearly in the tutorials and that I was able to follow along with them as I completed the sections. The modules also allowed you the ability to go back and look over something if you were not able to grasp it the first time. It was nice knowing that I wasn’t holding any of my colleagues back with a question. It was a very comfortable way of learning.

The tutorials were also nice because it was nice to have it explained and then be able to put it into practice. The online quizzes were also beneficial as it allowed you to track your progress and informed you of where you would be able to make improvements. The learning was organized in modules which flowed logically from one section to the next. Sometimes I find that learning from a textbook and lectures can be unorganized, jumping from one topic to the next and not connecting the two together.

How would you rate your corporate university experience?

Overall I was extremely satisfied with the corporate university experience and the eLearning involved with it. I was sceptical at first but it was the best way that I would have been able to learn the material that I needed for my job. It is a great way to teach many people at one time. It allows all students to learn at their own pace which seemed to really work for the other employees who were in the same training group as I was.

I would certainly be open to learning again through a corporate university or training for a new job with eLearning tools. I think that it is a positive move forward for any company that aligns themselves with this kind of technology. It makes training and learning so much more enjoyable and easier.

The Epoch Times has published an interesting article on eLearning in their early September edition. You can read the full article here, but I wanted to highlight a few key points I found interesting.

• (University) professors went from just posting a course syllabus to podcasting lectures and now 85 percent of students (at the University of Cincinnati) use it in at least one of their courses.
• The renowned Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) offers 1900 courses on everything from Chinese to the Aerodynamics of Viscous Fluids through MIT Open Courseware.
• In the 2007-2008 school year, 23,000 (Ontario) students registered in online classes.
• Patricia MacNeil, a spokesperson for the Ontario Ministry of Education which funds e-Learning Ontario, says the province will be investing $6 million in e-learning for K-12 in the 2009-2010 school year.
• Tanya Blazina, a spokesperson for the Ontario's Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities says the province will invest $2.5 million this year to open 12 new e-learning network centres and to support five centres already up and running in southern and eastern Ontario.

Another interesting comment was that "some software can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars a year to license and support. [...] There are free, open-source alternatives like Moodle that can fill the role for a fraction of the price for schools willing to roll up their sleeves and read the self-help tech forums." Haven't these guys ever heard of Dual Code Inc.? 

I recently found an interesting article from Black Enterprise explaining that "lack of adequate training and ongoing support is the most common complaint among franchisees". I thought this article would be of high interest to franchisors or business owners considering franchising their business.

Long story short: invest in an online Corporate University. It could go a long way to convincing your potential franchisees that you invest in your most important resource: THEM!

Many organizations are torn between hosting their online Corporate University themselves, or getting someone else to host it for them.

A survey conducted by Gartner Inc. in late 2008 concluded that nearly 90 percent of organizations expect to maintain or grow their usage of software as a service (SaaS), citing cost-effectiveness and ease/speed of deployment as primary reasons for adoption. In fact, more than one-third of respondents indicated plans to transition from on-premises to SaaS, citing total cost of ownership (TCO) and unmet performance expectations with on-premises solutions as key decision factors.

“Use of SaaS has been evolving during the past decade and the SaaS model has become increasingly popular over the past three or four years,” said Sharon Mertz, research director at Gartner. “Our survey indicates that more than 40 percent of organizations have used SaaS for more than three years, implying a growing fluency with the model within the end-user base. Users are demanding higher levels of functionality, sometimes prompting organizations to renegotiate their contracts early to opt for more feature-rich solutions, or to add more users as the organizational footprint expands.”

"SaaS especially makes sense in the eLearning market" stated Luc Richard, President & CEO of Dual Code Inc., a leading eLearning solutions provider that offers a turnkey Corporate University solution under a SaaS model. "There are so many changes taking place in the eLearning industry right now that trying to keep pace with change is nearly impossible for a small to medium size company's IT department. Letting an eLearning provider manage your Corporate University means you're solution will remain leading edge without you ever having to worry about it or invest large capital sums."

Additional information is available in the Gartner report “User Survey Analysis: Software as a Service, Enterprise Application Markets, Worldwide, 2008.” The report is available on Gartner’s Web site at www.gartner.com/DisplayDocument?ref=g_search&id=802221&subref=simplesearch.

Additional information is available on Dual Code's Corporate University solution by visiting http://www.dualcode.com/elearning/index.htm.

For those of you thinking about franchising your business, I wanted to point out a "Franchising 101" tutorial on the CFA (Canadian Franchise Association) Web site.

http://www.cfa.ca/Publications_Research/Tutorials/

From an online training perspective, this tutorial would probably get a 1 out of 10 - at best! It's basically 20 mini-chapters of text. No images, multimedia, or even the ability to search through it. That being said, if you can manage to read through the entire CFA tutorial, you can find some very valuable information.

Two sections of this "Franchising 101" tutorial are related to training. Section 7 is related to initial franchisor training and section 8 deals with ongoing training. Section 9 additionally provides you with an introduction to Operations Manuals.

I'm a bit disappointed that the Canadian Franchise Association barely touches on the subject of online training. An online Corporate University is such a great tool, especially for small to medium size franchisors, that it probably deserves an entire section in this tutorial.

A company trying to franchise has enough things to worry about. The more you can automate, the better. Especially if you can find a good, reliable service provider to outsource the administration of your Corporate University (e.g. hardware maintenance, software upgrades, network administration, etc.)

By Fred Green

We've come a long way in a short amount of time. The internet's remarkable growth and the increased affordability of technology and access have combined to usher in the age of elearning. Today, the idea of sharing information and conducting educational projects online isn't exotic or futuristic. It's commonplace. Elearning is now a key component in the educational and business worlds.

The ability to connect to the Internet in an efficient and affordable way was a necessary precondition for the elearning explosion, but it wasn't sufficient. One missing link remained. The right software. Hardware will only get you so far! Without the right programming, elearning wouldn't have become the force it now is.

Fortunately, developers filled that gap with some quality products. It quickly became possible to conduct multiparty webinars online, providing live training opportunities that rivaled their traditional offline counterparts. Meanwhile, other educational software tools made it possible to conduct asynchronous online education, as well. These LMS systems represented a significant leap forward in the realm of online educational software.

Today, things are getting even more interesting-and powerful. The right elearning software can handle both of those tasks readily with one set of tools. In the business training sector, we're also witnessing the development and implementation of high-quality blended elearning programs that go even farther in terms of their potential use, creating a seamless top to bottom training and education system that has outward-facing benefits in terms of customer loyalty and service.

Gains in the elearning field have made the process incredibly popular. Entire university-level courses of study are now available online. Businesses are using blended elearning software to replace traditional training methods. Analysts maintain that elearning is now a $35 billion per year industry and there's no reason to think that number will do anything but go up. The efficiency and efficacy of elearning makes it a growing area of interest even in a recessionary economy.

Are you using elearning software to improve your educational efforts or business training? If not, now is the time to jump on the bandwagon. Elearning software is now capable of performing all necessary functions effectively and inexpensively.

Get Your FREE eZ-Web Meeting, and FREE eZ-Contact at www.eLearningZoon.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Fred_Green http://EzineArticles.com/?The-Advantages-of-High-Quality-E-Learning-Software&id=2429663

 

Is it eLearning or e-Learning?

A recent (August 12, 2009) search on Google Trends shows that worldwide, eLearning (without the hyphen) took the lead on e-Learning in late 2008. Seems like people are dropping the dash.


Figure 1. Worldwide search volume for eLearning and e-Learning.


The same search in Canada indicates that we've had a preference for eLearning for quite a while. I guess Canadians are ahead of the times.

Figure 2. Canadian search volume for eLearning and e-Learning.

The eLearning Guild has a collection of free eBooks available for download. More importantly, you can download these eBooks without registering to their Web site or newsletter.  Some sample titles include:

• The eLearning Guild's Handbook of e-Learning Strategy
• The eLearning Guild's Handbook on Synchronous e-Learning
• 65 Tips for Getting the Most Out of Your e-Learning Budget

You can access these eBooks at the following address: http://www.elearningguild.com/content.cfm?selection=doc.545

Enjoy

Did you come across this article searching for the term Moddle but really meant Moodle?

If you did, then chances are you've heard of Moodle and are trying to figure out what the heck it is. And while doing so, you misspelled it as Moddle. If you want to learn more about Moodle, you can visit their Web site OR BETTER YET, you can stop searching and contact Dual Code.

Dual Code hosts Moodle and has packages starting at $89/month. Their fully hosted solution is provided to you as a subscription-based service (SaaS), which alleviates your burden of purchasing, installing, configuring and maintaining the hardware equipment or software application. All of Dual Code's packages include a free 14-day trial and:

• Free installation and configuration
• No-charge ongoing maintenance
• Secure, private database
• Technical support
• Daily backups
• 24/7 monitoring
• 99% uptime guarantee
• Risk-free cancellation policy

So, instead of spending countless hours trying to download, install, and learn how Moddle works, visit Dual Code's Web site at www.dualcode.com and sign up for your free trial.

The CSTD (Canadian Society for Training and Development) is hosting a 1-hour Webinar on Thursday, September 24, 1:00pm titled "Maybe You Shouldn't Do That! Research-Validated Practices for Designing eLearning".

The cost is $25 for CSTD members and $40 for non-members (plus GST).

Abstract: Do digital natives and immigrants really exist? Should you convert all of your online learning to games? In what types of learning situations is eLearning likely to be effective? What personnel challenges does eLearning present? Should you feel guilty about not measuring the ROI of your learning program? Academic and third-party research on learning suggest answers—and they might surprise you. This fast-paced session presents a number of research-validated answers in the context of your on-the-job challenges—and suggests ways that you can seek out similar information on your own.

For more information or to register, click here.