In Focus:  eLearning?  Really?  Must I?
 

How many online training events have you experienced? None? Seriously?

These days, eLearning is hard to avoid. Whether it is your company asking you to take a training, your brokerage telling you about new invest­ment options, your industry asso­ciation conduct­ing a remote meeting, or your own desire to develop yourself and learn some­thing new, some kind of online learning tool is usually involved in any of these acti­vities, from You­Tube videos to canned presen­tations, webinar soft­ware, or other online meeting tools. All of this comes under the um­brella of distance learning or ‘eLearning,’ the ‘e’ letting us know that compu­ters are involved.

Problem is, experience lets most people expect online learning to be boring with a big B. There is little fun to be had when you watch a PowerPoint presenta­tion on your computer, trying to follow a mono­tonous narra­tive while tempted to do some­thing more fun, like checking your email or social media news. Newer online communi­cation tools at least show you a video of the speaker, but that small talking head in the upper right corner of your screen hardly makes this much more exci­ting. Sure, class­room-style learning can be boring, too, but a lively trainer will make a diffe­rence here. But online?
 
My first e-learning expe­rience as a facili­tator came more than ten years ago, teaching a virtual class in an MBA program. Back then, online training was boring. Band­width was limited, down­load times were long, and tools for online educa­tion were poor. Accor­dingly, simple visuals plus (recorded or live) audio were all that eLearning had to offer. While people recog­nized that learning online had some advan­tages, like the option to access lectures and other mate­rials repea­tedly and at one’s own schedule and pace, the limita­tions that were inherent to those days’ techno­logy still made this way of learning pain­ful.

However, techno­logy and tools made great progress since then, enabling far more complex approa­ches to remote teaching. For my part, I also learned over the years how to facili­tate online learning in ways that are as rich and intense as any face-to-face training should be.

Personally, the strongest push came from a very large American client who insisted that we find a way to take a three-day training online that pre­viously took place in-class­room. Their issue, common across large multi­natio­nals, was that the groups and teams to be trained were distri­buted across several countries and time zones. The company was that much not worried about flying a trainer around: bringing all of these learners to the same loca­tion was what they consi­dered cost-prohi­bitive. Our answer was to employ blended online training, which typi­cally includes off­line elements (complex inter­active lectures, reading, etc.), team assign­ments where learners colla­borate in virtual teams, and virtual class meetings bringing every­one together online with an instructor. The concept worked extre­mely well and allowed training events that were simply impos­sible before. For instance, we had deli­veries of this training that in some cases simul­taneously included partici­pants living and working in 12 differ­ent countries.

Allowing geographically distributed groups of learners is only one advan­tage of this type of training: timing can be much more flexi­ble, too. Where possible, we try to structure such programs in ways that demand only 1-2 hours of learner time per day, a real benefit in today’s work environ­ment as people can still handle much of their normal work­load while conti­nuing their personal develop­ment.

When a large European client asked for a series of face-to-face training events across several countries, we con­vinced them to inte­grate an online component, with the primary purpose of helping parti­cipants become more comfor­table with online colla­boration, a growing need in their daily inter­actions. Exploring how online meetings can be both effective and fun converted several of the parti­cipants from sceptics to enthu­siasts!

Nowadays, eLearning can include video of whoever is speaking, switching automa­tically between all involved. Chat functions and drawing tools are ubiqui­tous and allow every­one to share opinions, question and comments whenever they want. Many other inter­active elements, such as polls, multiple-choice forms, self-assess­ments, and more serve to add further depth to the learning expe­rience. All of these options make it easy for facili­tators to design online learning that frequently involves and engages all of the partici­pants. In fact, eLearning events that do not include regular and frequent inter­action across the whole group in my view should be banned alto­gether.

Because of all the techno­logy changes and the result­ing options to offer a much richer online training expe­rience, I am convinced that more and more people will discover eLearning not as a cost-cutting tool, which it is not, but as a power­ful option for effective people develop­ment. The next time you attend a boring online event, make sure to tell the facili­tator that it does not have to be and challenge him/her to make it more interactive, productive and exciting. You deserve it!

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Blended Online Training:     Working Effectively across Cultures

• Can be spread over as little as two days and as much as two weeks.
• Flexible schedules allow learners to get most of their normal work done.
• Online access from anywhere facilitates multi­cultural learning.
• Webinars can leverage client’s normal environ­ment.
• Newsletter informs learners of next steps.
• Password-protected site provides self-paced modules, course information, and additional materials.

Lothar Katz is the founder of Leadership Crossroads.  He has helped many clients achieve productive cooperation across cultures and drive business success on a global scale.
 
A seasoned global executive, he regularly interacted with em­ployees, cus­tomers, out­sourcing partners, and third parties in numerous countries around the world.

Contact : info@leadershipcrossroads.com
 
 
 
 
Leadership Crossroads^SM, 2016