News
Revolutionary times for the learning management industry
In a recent presentation, Graham Sherry successfully showed just how much times have changed - more importantly the need to keep with the times.
Work from home? Train from home
Originally published in e-learning age, an article written by the Driven Team in February 2007.
Work from home? So why not train from home? But is there such a thing as flexible learning?
Flexible working. Everybody’s talking about it; advances in handheld and broadband technology mean that now you can be in touch with the office and working wherever you are. But how about flexible learning? If the future really does involve making practical use of previously wasted time away from the office then eventually training will need to adapt to catch-up. The good news is that it looks like there’s plenty of opportunity to make this happen, when the time comes. A key issue for business is how to make the most of flexible learning for real competitive advantage – rather than mere convenience.
Potential – what’s on offer?
Flexible training is at a relatively experimental stage, to see how far it could be taken we can look to the academic world. Universities and colleges are aligning web 2.0 communication ideals with e-learning to create an almost virtual campus – with wikis, blogging, chat-rooms and collective research databases.
At the Open University Niall Sclater (Virtual Learning Environment Programme Director) is already calling their approach “e-learning 2.0”. Niall’s team are currently
“…developing Moodle (open source LMS) as a virtual learning environment to make much more Open University learning content available online. We’re also making our communication more online too.”
These objectives highlight the fact that if there is such a notion of flexible learning it is as much to do with communication as it is to do with availability of content. Having learning content available through the internet is of clear benefit in business as it has talent retention implications for employees working from home; on sabbatical or long-term leave.
Bill Perry of SumTotal, global LMS vendors, says that the concept of learning from home in a corporate context is already well established, if that’s where people are working already:
“Companies often choose to train pharmaceutical or insurance sales forces from home. These sales people often see a steady stream of data and marketing on new products or services. To constantly rotate such groups through a central training facility would be costly and take time away from these teams’ sales activities. Since many of these sales people work from their homes, it’s efficient to provide training in a setting in which they normally work.”
Or it can be used to bring people up to the same level for classroom based training; Bill Perry again:
“…employees can prepare for more advanced training courses by taking prerequisites at home, prior to the first day of class. This brings a classroom of employees up to a pre-determined baseline, which aids an instructor in moving a class through a prescribed curriculum.”
Communication Cycle
Looking at communication, there is an interesting cycle in development – many of the tools being incorporated to enable learning flexibly were developed with business communication in mind to start with. Now they will be used in the academic sector for learning and soon reinvented for learning in business.
“Aspects of the OU innovations will be made available for handheld media, where appropriate. Users can give themselves quick tests online, or contribute data findings directly from the field – so people on a geography field trip, for example, can instantly send recordings or findings to a central database.” says Niall Sclater.
The benefit to the academic world here is that they can centralise the findings of thousands of students (provided they have a high enough subscription) using technology developed primarily to make communication more mobile, primarily for business advantage.
How can the business world reclaim their technology and apply them to their own learning needs? According to Graham Sherry, Director of Driven Systems, corporate LMS specialists, it’s performance that matters:
“Potentially, using mobile connectivity to record training results from the field can be very helpful. Field sales on-the-job-training, for example, can be recorded instantly in terms of how much exposure a trainee received to what kind of sale and what level of retention should be expected by the trainer. It’s always about getting the balance right though, performance can be negatively affected or measured badly if too much irrelevant information is recorded.”
The shockwaves of any academic breakthroughs with mobile learning can be expected to be felt in the corporate sector, eventually. How much and how quickly will depend on the extent to which these innovations can solve real business problems.
The major difference between academia and business learning is that while the universities can build themselves purely around a hive of learning and collaboration; the corporate sector must seek solutions to business challenges. So while the advances made at Open University and the like can be looked upon as a general innovation, the same principles need only be applied in business if there is a distinct competitive reason to do so.
People and uptake
As with all innovation that requires virtually 100% buy-in to be effective; flexible learning for business is currently all about potential. A major factor in realising this potential lies with the end user themselves - Whilst online resources in academia make learning more convenient and therefore more appealing, a corporate training agenda that infringes on an employee’s downtime could be met with half-hearted participation or even outright rejection.
“Uptake of flexible learning is heavily subject to delivery strategy and incentivisation of the training itself. Whether you use remuneration, perks or exciting, seductive training content like serious games or a Ricky Gervais podcast (if you can afford it) making flexible e-learning attractive to the end user is a vital ingredient if the project is to be a success.” - Graham Sherry
Cisco Systems, sellers of e-learning are well known for seeking innovative ways to interact with users, in the academic and the business world using technology. Their approach seems to be simply to acknowledge that people generally use communications or games devices all the time and that if you want to connect with them – then that’s the way to do it. They’re calling it the “new age of the Homozapien”.
Always learning
One thing evident within this cyclical bloom and rejuvenation of technology is that we are all capable of learning wherever we are – in fact we can hardly help it. Businesses who appreciate that this is yet another brilliant feature of their best resource (people) will be able to make the most of flexible learning – even if that means making an informed decision not to introduce it on a large scale.
The magic balance of innovation, business value, and user enthusiasm is an equation we in the E-Learning sector are constantly trying to resolve – and one in which the values are constantly variable.
Perhaps the only sure way to get the best results in learning – is to be flexible.
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