We all know that online learning has gone beyond being a trend and has become an accepted and permanent part of our teaching mix. It is hard to come up with a subject that is not, in some form and at some level, taught online. Whether it's astronomy or zoology, Arabic or Zulu, addition or... well, you see where I'm going with this. If you want to learn about something, a simple Google search will get you started. Besides being plentiful, programs are low-priced or, often, free!
Organizations and training vendors are very motivated to place content online. Ease of distribution and the relatively low cost of production (compared to a comparable traditional program) are resulting in online and blended solutions becoming part of almost every organization's training plan.
So with all of this content available at such an affordable price, why aren't more people learning online? And why are so many of those who are learning online being forced to do so by their managers at a metaphorical gunpoint?
The answer, I think, is easy to identify. While organizations are spending money on technology and programming, they are often not investing in creating effective learning environments to encourage participants' success. We are treating e-learning implementations as technology initiatives instead of as change initiatives. We must find ways to make e-learning "real learning"—and ensure that participants understand that the energy invested is worthwhile.
To ensure that participants are successful, organizations should make sure that the following characteristics are present in their learning environments:
Adequate participant motivation;
Opportunity for participants to collaborate and interact;
Useable technology; and
An active and participative trainer.
During the analysis phase of the ISD process, the designer should investigate the environment and identify to what extent these critical success factors can be incorporated into the learning experience.
Everyone understands how to learn in a traditional classroom environment. We've been doing it all of our lives.
Online learning has introduced a new learning culture—one that takes time with which to become familiar. Organizations use a great deal of resources planning for and investing in technologies, but often forget about the culture change involved with this new learning environment. In order for online learning to be successful, developers need to create environments in which people can effectively learn. Participants need to be open to learning in this new way, and confident that their time invested in professional development is well-spent.
Why do we need to be more concerned about motivating online learners than traditional learners? It is because online learning often comes with a stigma that's totally unmotivating. Learners often feel that they're being cheated out of an instructor, that online learning isn't real learning, and that having to learn at their desk is more trouble then it is worth. While going to a traditional class may have interrupted the week, at least it gave us a change of environment—and usually there were snacks.
These demotivators are fairly obvious. Indeed, negative factors always seem to be the most recognizable when individuals are faced with a change. Our challenge as e-learning professionals is to find ways to motivate learners so the demotivators become less of an issue.
So, how do we motivate our online participants? Keep this list in mind when designing your online courses and interacting with your learners and you may be amazed at what a difference a little motivation makes.
Publish requirements and set expectations ahead of time. Getting more work than you bargained for or taking a class that isn't appropriate isn't only demotivating, it can be downright aggravating. To ensure that learners are able to meet expectations, publish them ahead of time. Create a Webpage containing a detailed course description, learning objectives, work assignments, and an estimate of the time it will take to complete all of the work. Explain the technology mix and any prerequisite requirements. Armed with enough information, learners can make an informed choice about the appropriateness of the course for them. And if the course is required, at least individuals can try to balance their schedules to accommodate the workload.
Establish relevance. Many organizations have libraries with hundreds of off-the shelf online learning programs. That's great, if the learners need the content. Before requiring someone to take a course (off-the-shelf or home grown), communicate the reasons why the content is import to the individual and the organization. If the learners don't understand the relevance, they will tend to the minimal amount necessary in order to complete the program.
Provide continuous encouragement. Email and other communications are great, cheap, and easy ways to encourage your online learners. Post a Frequently Asked Questions list on a discussion board. Email reminders and offers of assistance, or personally call learners that aren't logging on. Knowing that a real person is watching over things helps to humanize the online environment, and motivates learners to stay engaged.
Use assessments. Surprisingly, assessment has been identified as a key motivator for online learners. Participants learn what they know will be assessed.
Building in tests. Requiring participation in discussion boards, or inviting supervisors to observe synchronous classes are all very effective techniques that are easy to implement. Publish the course requirements and assessment techniques, and let potential learners know that if they fail to meet the minimum requirements at the end of the course, they will need to take the class again.
Get supervisor and peer support. One of the most difficult parts about learning at your desks is the constant interruptions by those working around you. There's a perception that online learning can be interrupted, without much consequence. However, the reality is that once a learner is interrupted several times, retention falls and the number of learners who will complete the program dramatically lowers. Similarly, if a participant feels they need to work after-hours in order to complete a program, they'll grow to resent the medium. Learners should plan time to complete programs, inform their supervisors and peers, and should feel confident that the required time will be respected.
Market internally, market continuously. In a networked world, word gets around fast. Make sure the word about online learning is positive, and constantly reinforced by people that matter. An initial marketing burst without a continuing campaign will make your initiative appear to be another passing fad. But regular news about what courses are coming up and their importance to the organization will help employees understand that online learning is an integral part of the organization's learning culture. If online learning is "in," employees will want to be part of the crowd.
Make learning a management mandate. It's critical to have upper-level management support the idea that online learning is a vehicle for professional development in your organization. Get management involved by inviting them to record short presentations to welcome learners and encourage them to participate in the online initiative. If potential participants know that management is behind the initiative, they'll be more inclined to sign-up.
Offer rewards and recognition. It feels great to answer a question correctly, and to receive feedback from instructors and peers. Learners often don't expect positive reinforcement from online courses. Find ways to build in opportunity for tangible rewards and recognition—even for asynchronous programs. Provide completion certificates and publish a regular report containing the names of people who successfully finished courses. You can also link online learning programs to the performance management process, making it clear to participants that the time they spend participating in online programs is recognized as contributing to their professional development.
Publicize success stories. Early technology adaptors will try anything, the rest of us need a little coaxing. Finding and publishing success stories about online learning in your organization is a great way to reassure tentative new learners that they can be successful learning online. Use the success stories to supplement your marketing effort.
Ensure personal success. Give learners the opportunity to be successful and they will come back! Do your best to create effective online learning environments, strong support systems, and well-designed programs right from the beginning. More important, provide early successes and ground-roots support for the organizational initiative.
Early computer-based training programs were represented by designs that were, by nature, independent studies. Partnered with the evolution of Internet technologies, computer-based programs have started to focus on more collaborative interactions, including the experiences and feedback of other participants in various asynchronous (self-directed) and synchronous (live and online) exercises.
How can online education be collaborative? When you find ways to bring participants together in some kind of social interaction or bring groups together to work to solve problems, you have potential collaboration. Participants in online programs feel more involved in the process, and therefore learn more effectively, when involved in these interactive collaborations. Chapter 3 discusses online collaboration in more detail.
Probably the most obvious impediment to learning online is the technology: software, hardware, bandwidth, and being able to use it all. When talking with people (learners, trainers, IT) about what they are worried about—technology is usually first on their list. The fourth critical success factor to creating effective, online learning environments is useable and accessible technology; however, useable and accessible technology means more than a system that operates. It means having technology that works efficiently, having support for that technology, having programs that are designed to effectively utilize the technology, and orienting learners to their new environment.
While technology is advancing all the time (for example, more bandwidth is available, hardware and software are becoming less expensive), there are still many issues that need to be addressed to ensure that learners have a positive online experience.
The first issue is just making sure that learner's technology works. Before they start doing work, they need to make sure that their technology works so that they have enough time to fix things or come up with other solutions. Typically, we send out hardware and software specification (i.e., RAM, bandwidth, operating system requirements), while this information is very useful to their technical support contact, it generally doesn't do the end user much good. To assist the end user, give them tips on how to test to see if they meet the minimum requirements. For example, if a sound card and speakers are required—give them a link to a website that has sound on it. Another thing that you can do to assist is to send them a set of questions that they can use to communicate with their desktop support, such as:
Is my machine equipped with a sound card that allows for audio-in and audio-out
What bandwidth do I have access to
What plug-ins (Flash, RealPlayer, etc.) are standards or my machine
What version browser am I using
Are there any firewall issues (for instance if VoIP is used, or if there are website access restrictions).
Once the learner has verified that minimal technical requirements have been met, make sure that you provide them with contact information (phone number and email) in case they have technical problems while using the software (i.e., password issues, system crashes, or unexpected happenings).
Suggest that they print these instructions and post them in their learning area since it won't help to have the information in their computer if the computer goes down.
It is critical that learners test their machines well ahead of any scheduled online activity. Too often, the first clue that learners have that their machine isn't responding appropriately, is when they sit down to complete their assignment or attend the program. This can be too late to resolve the issue and results in a frustrating learning experience that will leave a lasting impact.
The next issue with which we need to be concerned is to make sure that learners can use the technology so effectively that collaboration becomes effortless. Even though many online software packages—both synchronous and asynchronous—are touted by the vendors as easy-to-use, we still need to give the participants the opportunity to acclimate themselves to this new learning environment.
I suggest some kind of online learning orientation program. Use the synchronous classroom (the live, online classroom) to manage this process and offer this orientation to your learners on a regular basis. During the program, give participants permission to be frustrated and ask them to share their frustrations during the class. You want to alleviate their frustrations here, and not let them carry over to content oriented programs.
In this orientation, consider including the following items:
A tools overview, which instructs learners on how to use the different technologies that they will be using in the online class
Communication guidelines that emphasize the importance of participating actively and completing all assignment
Ground rules to instruct learners about what is acceptable and not acceptable in this new learning environment (for live events they need to show up early, self-directed work MUST be completed prior to live events, if they need to "step out" they need to inform the online facilitator, etc.)
Provide participants tips on how they can maximize the learning experience from their own desk—how to minimize interruption, maintain focus and concentration, and how to communicate with their managers and peers that they are actively engaged in a learning process
Explain the different components of the program—for example you may have an asynchronous discussion board supporting multiple live, online events, and this blend may be supplemented by a printed participant workbook with assignments that need to be completed by specific deadlines. Emphasize the fact that self-directed work is as important as any of the live events and that the learner needs to commit to the entire learner process.
It's not a bad idea to have your IT support team participate in online orientations and events so that they understand the environment they must support and can intelligently answer technical questions from learners. This insider experience also may make them more empathetic to the time-is-of-the-essence pressure the learner faces.
Another thing that we can do to minimize the focus on the technology rather than the learning, happens at the design stage of the program. The instructional designer needs to resist incorporating all of the bells and whistles that the learning technology allows. Make sure that any use of technology supports the learning and is not showing off programming skills. For this reason it is very important the designer is involved with multimedia tutorials. Don't simply turn over the development to a programmer and assume that they are going to create the best environment. Sometimes simplicity makes the best point.
To help ensure that this occurs, it is critical that the instructional designer be familiar with the technology from the learner perspective. The instructor should participate in programs that have been constructed using the various technologies they will be using as well. For example, if the instructional designer determines that a self directed multimedia tutorial is he best method for delivering a particular piece of content—they should take as many classes as possible that are in this format in order to identify best practices in exercise design, screen design, and navigation, and in keeping learners engaged. If it is determined that a live, online interaction is the best delivery medium, then they need to be sure they are familiar with all of the collaboration tools available in their synchronous platform. Additionally, they should attend as many live events (or watch recordings of live events) as possible so that they fully understand the learner experience.
While technology expands our ability to disseminate learning across our organizations, it's not about the technology; it is about well designed programs that effectively meet performance objectives. By ensuring the effective use of technology in your learning environment, you will lay the groundwork for creating online programs that are as effective (dare I say more effective?) than traditional training events.
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(Note: Technology can also present problems during the live event. For more information on how to manage technology during a live event, see Chapter 5 of The Synchronous Trainer's Survival Guide.)
The final critical success factor to creating effective eLearning environments is an active and participative online instructor.
The online instructor plays a vital role to ensure that the participant is successful. Whether delivering using a traditional, synchronous, asynchronous, or blended approach participants need to feel like they have developed some kind of personal rapport with the instructor. It is even more important in an online environment than the traditional approach. The online instructor acts as an anchor, reassuring participants that support, reinforcement and assessment is readily available. "Active and participative" does not mean excessively communicating with email messages and synchronous lectures. What it means is creating an environment that is participant centered and takes the focus off of the technology and the instructor and onto the content and the learners.
So, how does the online instructor weave together the critical success factors in order to create the most effective eLearning environment?
One of the dangers of online learning is that participants feel isolated, so the online instructor becomes the central human contact point—reducing the impression that the participant is learning from a computer. The more participative the instructor, the more opportunities the instructor has to maintain a high level of motivation among participants. The instructor can be "visibly" involved in many ways—he or she can offer recognition, can conduct assessments and can facilitate relationship between remote participants. Assessment was identified as a key motivator for online participants (people will learn what they will be tested on). The online instructor manages the assessment process by giving continuous feedback and encouraging people to complete assignments in a timely manner. The effective online instructor continually reinforces online participant's performance by providing rewards and recognition of achievements.
Just because the technology works it does not guarantee participant success. Introducing new learning technologies, different ways of communicating, twenty-four hour access to information can be overwhelming for even technology competent learners.
The online instructor needs to manage the learner's adoption and mastery of this new skills set without it interfering with their learning the content that is the purpose of the course. To do this, the instructor needs to begin communicating with participants several weeks ahead of time and focus on getting the technology issues out of the way before participants need to focus on the new skills and knowledge. A way to do this would be to set up a communication plan which would time-release information regarding setting up the technology, getting support whenever needed (after hours, differing time zones), and providing tech-checks and orientation to the new environment.
In order for the online instructor to do this, he or she must have full mastery of all the technologies involved in the blend. The online instructor will know they have reached this level of mastery when they are able to provide detailed learner support providing technical assistance remotely and with enough detail that the learner can follow along. For example, "If you would like to put text on the whiteboard, locate the text tool—identified by the letter A on your toolbar—click on that tool once, then click once on the whiteboard, and type your message. When you are done typing, click anywhere outside the box so that the rest of the class can see what you wrote."
Earlier in this series, we discussed the importance of designing interaction that maximized collaboration between participants. The skilled instructor will encourage collaboration even when it is not in the design of the course. Maximizing the engagement and interest of the online participants is critical to the learning outcomes. The online instructor can facilitate this by encouraging participants to speak as often as possible, to give one another feedback, minimizing lecture and maximizing interaction, and by providing feedback to the participants on the results of their collaboration.
Using language appropriately can encourage collaboration online. For example, minimize the use of techno-jargon in order to emphasize the learning and minimize the focus on technology. For example, instead of saying, "Please wait while I launch application sharing," ask participants to participate in a chat activity while you launch the application. Like magic—even a new online instructor can have an application "shared" and ready to demonstrate. Another language tip is to constantly use people's names and to circle-back to comments made earlier in the program in order to facilitate interest amongst the learners.
There is a tendency to treat the individual portions of a blend (synchronous events, discussions, tutorials), as independent of one another. The active and participative instructor constantly reinforces the connections and finds ways to communicate to the participants that the asynchronous components are critical to one's overall success in the program. By ensuring that self directed work is completed in a timely manner, incorporating the knowledge gained in the self-directed portion of the course with the live-portion of the course, and continually communicating with participants throughout the blend—not just during the live events—learning becomes a continual process not a compartmentalized event.
So you might be wondering: How an instructor successfully accomplishes all of these things while managing multiple sessions, or courses, simultaneously? The answer is a team teaching approach. Using a "producer"—known in some organizations as an assistant instructor—the instructor can focus on content and maximizing interaction, while the producer can focus on such thing as technical support, distribution of materials and emails, and validation that deadlines are being met. During the live sessions, the producer can assist by managing chat, preparing application sharing and breakout room exercises, and generally assisting the instructor with content. In essence, the course has two equally important people ensuring its success and supporting one another. To alleviate confusion, make sure that participants are aware of the dual roles, what the responsibilities of each of those people will be, and how they should direct their questions (for example, instructional or assignment questions go to the instructor; questions of a technical nature go to the producer).
Some organizations are resistant to the team teaching approach primarily because it is viewed as an additional overhead expense. The producer role does not need to be an expensive resource. Organizations have successfully used college interns, administrative assistants, and training coordinators to take on this role. In addition, an instructor can as a producer when an SME is the person responsible for delivering the content. In addition, the role of producer can fill your trainer "pipeline" by developing in-house expertise in the eLearning arena.
In order for the quality and learning outcomes of your blended solution to meet the same standards as your traditional training, use a producer to manage the administrative and technical portion of your blend.
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(Note: For more information on the role of the online trainer, see Chapter 2 of The Synchronous Trainer's Survival Guide.)
Creating a successful online learning program means more than using the latest gizmos. It means more than applying successful instructional design techniques. One needs to create a solid environment in which participants can learn. To do that we must incorporate the success factors critical to creating that environment.
Once a successful learning environment has been established, the next step is to think about the level of collaboration that is appropriate for the program and to take steps to ensure the right design has been implemented to guarantee that collaboration.