E-learning – The opportunities, the limitations
and the danger of letting the geeks control it!
Written by: Andrew Vincent, Medicology Ltd. Published: 3rd June 2010
With the ubiquitous nature of personal computers and the internet, reducing costs whilst expanding development possibilities through e-learning appears to be an attractive proposition.
Today’s modern healthcare, office and homeenvironment means that almost everyonehas access to a PC with broadband internetaccess and this opens a world of opportunitiesfor training and development of staff.
Missed opportunities?
There isn’t a corner of a healthcareorganisation that cannot benefit fromcontinuous training and developmentand this is far from limited to the clinicalspace, where there are obvious implicationsof insufficient continuous professionaldevelopment. However, with so muchpressure to manage costs and balancebudgets, many Trusts find the ever increasingrequirements for statutory training, coupledto a growing need to develop leadership& management capability, whilst keepingup with job-related skills across all areasan almost insurmountable challenge. 
It is perhaps surprising therefore that e-learning has not been utilised more, with its obvious cost advantages.
So, why hasn’t e-learning taken off in thepublic sector, or any sector for that matter,to a greater degree, given the huge time andcost advantage associated with no trainers,no venue, no catering, flexible access,simultaneous delivery to hundreds or more?Perhaps it looks like an opportunity missed,or maybe it is an opportunity examined andthen discarded because of the fundamentalissue that most e-learning fails to deliverthe learning impact that organisationsdesire. Perhaps then, if e-learning can beconstructed in a manner that restores thetraining impact, then more organisationscan benefit from the potential it holds. Toexamine this, we need to consider the what,how, why set of questions that could heraldthe solution to the e-learning enigma.
Keep the geeks at bay!
The root of the problem is actually easilyidentified when you start to assess thecurrent and burgeoning array of e-learningpossibilities.
The developmental pathway appears to looklike this. Someone has had a good idea forimportant training that could be delivered ase-learning but then, conscious of their owntechnical limitations, has passed it on to theirIT people (the Geeks) to implement it. On theface of it this appears sensible because afterall it will rely on technology for construction,migration and delivery. However, the realityis often an end result that consists of aseries of text-based pages amounting to aparagraph or two explaining the topic anda few questions with limited, quantifiableanswers designed to test whether theparticipant has understood the topic. If theyget the right answers, they’ve obviouslyunderstood the topic, if not they just needto go back and read about the topic again.Simples...
The problem is that this is so simple that itis also not effective. You could be forgivenfor asking the question “why didn’t I just buya book?” which you also know would havesat on the shelf because it too often fails todeliver the intended learning benefit. To befair, this approach may work for the scienceand maths-based training that Geeks haveundertaken – I know, I am a geek – butit falls way short for many other subjects– especially the “softer sciences” such asmanagement training.
Another problem with letting the technicalpeople run the project is that although itwill work perfectly, just as it was intendedto run, it will usually miss out some keyelement that Geeks feel isn’t worth thespace or programming time. Take forinstance the human element. We ‘technical’people tend to feel that human interactionis overrated – why risk the robustness andintegrity of the project on something asspontaneous and unpredictable as a person,when all the information you could possibleneed can easily by conveyed through afew paragraphs, a simple table or chart orpossibly, at a stretch, maybe an image ortwo?
The human element
In reality, few e-learning products dealmeaningfully with the human element,whether it is the need to engage or howto encourage new learning into practicalbehaviour. The most obvious limitationof a purely electronic system is that it isdifficult to build in true human to humaninteraction and yet most trainers will knowthat this element is fundamental. In truth,it is not so much the human interaction asthe engagement with the training, provenby the impact of an engaging book thatyou can’t put down. The trainer is purelythe conduit for the information in a mannerthat promotes engagement, as well as themonitor who can bring things back whenengagement ebbs.
Well constructed e-learning includesthe human element. Whether it is videonarration, a method of asking questionsor even practical case examples involvingreal life application of principles, it is vitalthat the engagement issue is addressed.Furthermore, at a simple level, it takes ahuman to say “out of the last 5 pages ofgenerally useful information, paragraph 4 onpage 2 is the most important thing you needto know”. If we can get that right then we arewinning!
So, if that helps at an individual, whatabout group learning? As technologyhas progressed we’ve gained the abilityto communicate in a more personal waythrough the internet and with much greaterease, access and speed. Gone are the daysof needing dedicated video conferencingsuites to communicate effectively over greatdistances – we now have video messagingthat can allow groups to see and talk witheach with setup costs which are less than thetaxi fare to get across London to a trainingcourse. The predominant issue remaining isthat use of these facilities is second natureto the Geeks, who sadly don’t need or wantto interact anyway, but frightening to realhuman beings who actually do. Geeks 1:Humans 0...
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Let’s consider the products themselves.Probably the second biggest problem withcurrent online training courses is that, for themost part, they appear to fall into one of twohighly unsatisfactory categories:
An existing training course which has beenturned into an online version, withoutcareful design for the environment andwhich just doesn’t work in that formatA new e-learning course created for a specificpurpose, but done so without the right mix ofelements for the material to be covered e.g. apurely technical description of leadership
The first I have seen too many times on theinternet. A training company decides theyhave an opportunity to expand their trainingproduct (delivered courses) into a newmarket (millions of training hungry onlinepunters) but achieves this by simply savingtheir current PowerPoint presentation asweb pages and loading this onto theirwebsite. If you’re really lucky there will besome extra annotations to explain the slidesbut that is usually it. You come away feelingcheated – simply sold a product becausesomeone can, rather than a commitment toyour development, which is what you reallyneed.
The second is a tougher challenge toovercome. It is possible that there are somesubjects that just don’t lend themselves toe-learning. Take ‘leadership’ for instance.It’s not that elements of leadership can’tbe covered in an e-learning approach butleadership is part acquisition of skills andpart journey of self-discovery. The formercan be covered in part by e-learning but thelatter really needs careful facilitation thatjust can’t be provided without one of thosehuman-being things. Geeks 1: Humans 1,drat.
Resolving the challenge
So, with the score at 1:1, let’s examine howwe can improve the e-learning experience.
| Element | The solution |
| The subject matter | Needs an intelligent decision about whether itis suitable for the e-learning format. Goal for thehumans. |
| Include the trainer | By using video embedded in the programme,engagement is improved and the viewer has someoneto direct them to the most important content. Goalfor the humans, again. |
| Function | It must work well. By working with competent ITstaff, you can ensure that any interactive elementsand tests work exactly as they would in a classroomenvironment. It may be more technically complicatedand take longer to setup, but the benefits will be clear.Goal for the Geeks. |
| Embedding & transferring learning | The programme needs to build in appropriatereinforcement, as well as ways to transfer oftencomplex learning to daily practice. This really requiresan intelligent construction of exercises, self-directedprocesses and careful guidance. Drat, another goal tothe humans. |
| Presentation is everything | By ensuring that the finished product looks good,presents the information well and is intuitive to theuser, the overall result is a smooth experience withmaximum learning. Actually, we’ll claim that goalbecause most of that’s in the construction. |
| Reliability | It would be amiss not to mention access, availability,system up time, bandwidth, redundancy, security andmore and that’s definitely techy territory. Another lategoal for the Geeks! |
The final score
Well, we’ve added up the goals and the finalscore looks like this:
Geeks 4: Humans 4
It appears that the sort of e-learning thatdelivers the sorts of results demanded byforward thinking, performance-orientatedTrusts is actually a combination ofintelligent application of learning scienceby experience human beings, married torock solid technical structure and reliability.Ultimately, the humans can’t deliver itwithout the Geeks and the Geeks can’tconstruct it without the humans. The reallygood news is that combine the two andmaybe, just maybe, we can fully harnessthe power of technology to increase reach,reduce costs and improve results. That’s notso much a draw as a win-win.
