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UNIT 10 TRAINING and TECHNOLOGY

As with much else in our culture currently, technology has had an impact on training both with regard to the delivery of training and the need for it (i.e., new technologies demand training). While technology is a moving target, constantly changing and improving, it is important to try and understand some of the fundamental ideas related to technology and training. That is the purpose of this particular unit.

We begin by taking a look at e-learning. E-learning is a term used to denote learning that takes place via some computer and/or web based platform. Simply put, it refers to computer and web-based training. So, for example, a company may use a series of computer and online materials (videos, assessments, etc.) to train employees about safety procedures. The entire training can take place in front of a computer.

While web based training has some natural limitations, it provides considerable benefits as well. These are realized particularly in the ease of access (anyone with a computer can access the training) and completion (people can proceed at their own pace, repeat steps that are more difficult, and check their progress). Additionally, it minimizes the cost of training and appeals to contemporary learners who are used to accessing information via the computer.

An additional benefit of e-learning is the ability to move away from multi-hour training sessions and to replace those with small, focused, and specific training segments. Such segments are highly targeted and comparatively brief in nature. And they are accessible repeatedly. Thus, someone can complete the training and return to review it as many times as necessary to ensure mastery of the skill (versus only sitting through a longer, larger multi-hour training session).

E-learning also allows for revamping training on a much quicker basis. While the organizational needs change, it usually is quicker and easier to reformat short/focused training sessions and only those that need revamping versus an entire longer training session.

Another interesting facet of e-learning is that it affords the ability to conduct training that is either synchronous (everyone is participating at the same time) or asynchronous (people complete it separately and at different points in time).

Given these attributes, it is not surprising that e-learning particularly with regard to training is gaining quickly in popularity. See the article to read about this trend.

Differences in Traditional and Web-Based Training

The follow table lists the differences in training on a continuum from traditional delivery to e-learning delivery. The differentiating factors being:

Setting (face-to-face or online)

Timing (synchronous versus asynchronous)

Directedness (trainer or self-directed)

Traditional Classroom Delivery

Face-to-Face

Trainer Directed

Web/Video

Conference Delivery

Partially online and Face-to-Face

Trainer Directed

Web-Based Delivery

Fully Online

Self Directed

Synchronous Asynchronous

Clearly, there are considerable differences between traditional and web-based training. Thus, it is important to take a closer look at what makes for optimal web-based training.

Design Principles for Web Training

1. Keep it Simple

Don’t let the technology overshadow the content and process of the training.

2. Use Three Clicks

Make everything accessible with fewer than three clicks. Navigation tools should be easy to see and follow, and in a consistent location throughout the training module.

3. Avoid Dead-Ends

Do not want trainees to get lost or be unable to return to where they need to be. Thus navigation tools need to be clear and consistent and well conceived in the first place. Make sure a website allows users to continue, return, and exit/escape — and that these options are made clear.

4. Make it Sticky

Sticky refers to the ability of a website to attract and maintain attention. This can be achieved by having content that is:

Simple (keep core messages and supporting graphics clear and coordinated)

Concrete (use tools like mnemonic devices to help trainees understand and remember)

Credible (draw on experts or known personalities to endorse the relevance and importance of the training content)

5. Chunk It

Chunk the content into pages (as a rule 15-20 pages) that can be examined and understood in about a minute each. Also, chunk the overall content into chapters that can be complete in discrete units. This provides a sense of accomplishment so that people know and appreciate that they are making progress.

6. Keep it Organized

The training should be clearly organized. This should include:

Previewing the Training Program

Previewing Separate Units/Chapters

Reviewing Course Content within Units/Chapters (can be done through quizzes or other forms of assessment)

Providing Opportunities for Additional Content (content that can be accessed by “drilling down” to see an article, video, exercise, etc.)

The beginning of this unit noted that technologies are changing rapidly. Not surprisingly the delivery of training is changing as well. E-learning is now being accompanied by something being called m-learning, which refers to learning via mobile devices. This is not surprising given the advantages of e-learning noted above combined with the miniaturization and mobilization of computing technologies. What once filled our desktops can now be found on a smart phone or personal computing device. Have a look at this article to learn more about m-learning.

Another technology that has gained moment in recent years is video gaming. And it appears that this technology has found its way into training as well. Read the following piece to learn more.

Now it is time for you to critique a piece of e-learning/web-based training. Complete the Web-Based Training Activity to complete this unit.

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Learning Technologies

Training Industry Exclusive

mLearning: A Framework for Moving from IF to HOW By: Shabnam Irfani & Chris ShusterJune 28, 2011

There is substantial buzz sweeping through today’s conference rooms and around water coolers about all things mobile and for good reason. With 5 billion mobile subscriptions worldwide, 72 percent of the U.S. workforce already mobile and 200 percent year-over-year growth for tablet computers, companies are well beyond debating if mobile is a good strategy… and are now laser focused on when and how.[1]

As Christina “CK” Kerley explained through The Mobile Revolution & B2B, “There are no holes left to fill in the business argument for mobile integration, only dots left to connect by today’s executives.” Further illuminating mobile’s profound implications, Google’s Dennis Woodside declared, “This new, huge technology market will transform almost every industry.” Indeed, the business world finds itself transfixed by a remarkable innovation that produces stunning opportunities across marketing, sales, communications, support, and, yes, training.

Yet our experiences suggest that most companies lack a cohesive mobile strategy, let alone one that focuses on learners. And so, this article lays out a 5-step framework—supported by key questions and critical considerations—to guide your development of an mLearning strategy.

Step 1: Determining mLearning Strategy

Wherever your company may find itself in the mLearning adoption curve, creating a well-defined strategy will ensure a more successful outcome. Begin by asking “What exactly is driving mLearning adoption, and what are the perceived benefits of adding this arrow to the learning quiver?” It’s likely the answers will reveal broader assumptions about your company’s learning investment.

For instance, when mLearning is part of a larger business initiative, such as a product launch or compliance training, it’s more likely to be viewed as a “once off” and can quickly lose momentum. Here are some tips for incorporating mobile into your overall strategy:

 Launch a pilot to perfect and promote. Execute a pilot to prepare audiences, build buzz and detect needed optimizations.

 Identify mobile metrics. Define success metrics specific to mLearning initiatives as separate from the larger project.  Achieve alignment from senior leadership. Gain executive buy-in to secure the requisite resources for execution.

Step 2: Identifying Mobile Infrastructure

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Once your mLearning strategy is in place, the largest and most costly part of the adventure awaits: infrastructure. Key in this stage of development is assessing the current state of your mobile infrastructure (device pervasiveness, OS variance, provider reliability, content security) to calculate the gap to your future-state mLearning strategy.

The best place to begin infrastructure planning is with your mobile provider and IT team to determine:

 Can your provider scale to meet the demand and offer content support for the various platforms, all while providing cost incentives for enterprise adoption?

 Do they have content and application partners with offerings you will need?  Will they keep you up to speed in a market that changes at a speed surpassing its own bandwidth?

Moving beyond technology, it is equally important to pinpoint the governance, financial, content and additional support resources that make up the larger infrastructure—and requisite investment—needed for execution.

Step 3: Developing Mobile-Optimized Content

Content takes on a new dimension and must support a new set of user needs when it goes mobile. It must be easily accessible, snack sized, readily available and support existing learning strategies. It’s anytime, anywhere performance support! On that note, a few ways to re-engineer content for mobile devices include:

 Mobile Apps. Remember those long, linear-based eLearning courses? Shorten and chunk them for mobile delivery. Do you have a flashcard drill that reviews marketplace data or dosing information? Create a series of brief drills to reinforce your larger learning efforts.

 Mobile Gaming. Transform label knowledge check activities into game-based approaches better suited for the mobile environment.

 Mobile Polling. Interested in real-time feedback or identifying a gap? Institute a short mobile survey to solicit feedback on a recent training experience, or leverage polls as part of a communications campaign that illuminates how much learners know about a topic.

Step 4: Instituting mLearning Governance

Since mLearning should fit within an organization’s current learning strategy, it should not be treated separately but instead be integrated into a cohesive Organizational Learning Strategy. Best practices include:

 Involving cross-departmental participation (e.g., HR, Technology, Key Business Stakeholders) so as to extend across the enterprise

 Establishing a learning function  Maintaining and advancing learning plans based on organizational needs and gaps.  Offering systematic reviews of technical, legal, regulatory, and medical capabilities  Providing mechanisms to prioritize needs  Ensuring plans are in place to evaluate program life cycles based on established metrics

Step 5: Setting mLearning Metrics

As with any learning strategy, metrics are essential for tracking progress and needed optimizations. Begin with identifying what you are looking to measure and what those metrics encompass. Key considerations include:

 Isolated or Comprehensive. Are you evaluating just the mLearning training intervention, or the entire curriculum in which mLearning is one component of the blend?

 Level 1-4. If you are only evaluating an mLearning training intervention, then Level 1 questions around content, connectivity and usability should be asked. However, if you are looking to capture data around the entire curriculum, then a Level 3 or 4 type measurement is best.

 Mobile and Social. As mLearning and social media technologies continue to converge, and informal learning continues to gain in relevance, it is important to consider social media metrics (e.g., virality, engagement duration, recommendations and links).

Conclusion Beyond all the noise, mLearning has a critical place in integrated learning strategies. As organizations realize this, executing their mLearning strategy may prove to be a competitive advantage through increased engagement and improved performance.

Footnote:

[1] 5 billion subscriptions: ITU/2010, 72% of U.S. workforce: IDC/2010, 200% YOY growth: Display Search/2011.

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About the Authors: Shabnam Irfani (Director, Learning Solutions) and Chris Shuster (Business Development Manager) are with ClearPoint, an interactive health education company with headquarters in Hoboken, N.J. and global operations in the U.S., Europe and Asia.

Written for TrainingIndustry.com

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MARCH 27, 2006 NEWS: ANALYSIS & COMMENTARY

Laura Holshouser's favorite video games include Halo, Tetris, and an online training game developed by her employer. A training game? That's

right. The 24-year-old graduate student, who manages a Cold Stone Creamery ice-cream store in Riverside, Calif., stumbled across the game on

the corporate Web site in October.

It teaches portion control and customer service in a cartoon-like simulation of a Cold Stone store. Players scoop cones against the clock and try

to avoid serving too much ice cream. The company says more than 8,000 employees, or about 30% of the total, voluntarily downloaded the

game in the first week. "It's so much fun," says Holshouser. "I e-mailed it to everyone at work."

The military has used video games as a training tool since the 1980s. Now the practice is catching on with companies, too, ranging from Cold Stone to Cisco Systems Inc.

(CSCO ) to Canon Inc. (CAJ ) Corporate trainers are betting that games' interactivity and fun will hook young, media-savvy employees like Holshouser and help them grasp

and retain sales, technical, and management skills. "Video games teach resource management, collaboration, critical thinking, and tolerance for failure," says Ben Sawyer,

who runs Digitalmill Inc., a game consultancy in Portland, Me..

The market for corporate training games is small but it's growing fast. Sawyer estimates that such games make up 15% of the "serious," or nonentertainment market, which

also includes educational and medical training products. Over the next five years, Sawyer sees the serious-games market more than doubling, to $100 million, with trainers

accounting for nearly a third of that. It's numbers like those that prompted Cyberlore Studios Inc., maker of Playboy: The Mansion, to refocus on training games -- albeit

based on its Playboy title. And training games will be top of mind at the Game Developers Conference in San Jose, Calif., this month.

Companies like video games because they are cost-effective. Why pay for someone to fly to a central training campus when you can just plunk them down in front of a

computer? Even better, employees often play the games at home on their own time. Besides, by industry standards, training games are cheap to make. A typical military

game costs up to $10 million, while sophisticated entertainment games can cost twice that. Since the corporate variety don't require dramatic, warlike explosions or complex

3D graphics, they cost a lot less. BreakAway Games Ltd., which designs simulation games for the military, is finishing its first corporate product, V-bank, to train bank

auditors. Its budget? Just $500,000.

DRAG AND DROP

Games are especially well-suited to training technicians. In one used by Canon, repairmen must drag and drop parts into the right spot on a copier. As in the board game

Operation, a light flashes and a buzzer sounds if the repairman gets it wrong. Workers who played the game showed a 5% to 8% improvement in their training scores

compared with older training techniques such as manuals, says Chuck Reinders, who trains technical support staff at Canon. This spring, the company will unveil 11 new

training games.

Games are also being developed to help teach customer service workers to be more empathetic. Cyberlore, now rechristened Minerva Software Inc., is developing a training

tool for a retailer by rejiggering its Playboy Mansion game. In the original, guests had to persuade models to pose topless. The new game requires players to use the art of

persuasion to sell products, and simulates a store, down to the carpet and point-of-purchase display details.

Don Field, director of certifications at Cisco, says games won't entirely replace traditional training methods such as videos and classes. But he says they should be part of

the toolbox. Last year, Cisco rolled out six new training games -- some of them designed to teach technicians how to build a computer network. It's hard to imagine a drier

subject. Not so in the virtual world. In one Cisco game, players must put the network together on Mars. In a sandstorm. "Our employees learn without realizing they are

learning," says Field. Sounds suspiciously like fun. By Reena Jana Advertising | Special Sections | MarketPlace | Knowledge Centers

Close Window

On-The-Job Video Gaming Interactive training tools are captivating employees and saving companies money

Slide Show >>

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hrreporter.com

Jun 29, 2011

'Growing acceptance' for virtual training: Survey Benefits include lower costs, convenience, efficiencies

There is a growing acceptance of virtual solutions for corporate training and HR applications, according to a survey by

ON24 in San Francisco, provider of webcasting and virtual event solutions.

A majority (88 per cent) of more than 3,000 HR professionals in the United States stated virtual training lowers overall

training costs and 85 per cent find virtual corporate training more convenient than in-person training.

More than 48 per cent of the respondents also said virtual training is more efficient and 77 per cent stated traveling to

physical events is costly and time-consuming compared to logging on to a virtual event. In addition, almost 60 per

cent stated retention rates for online training were equal to or better than in-person educational sessions.

On the environmental side, 56 per cent of ON24's survey respondents said online events are greener than in-person

training meetings.

“Virtual training continues to gain mindshare and traction across a broad range of industries because it is a proven

way to reduce expenses, increase convenience and provide a greener alternative to physical events," said Denise

Persson, chief marketing officer of ON24.

Some 67 per cent of those surveyed agreed virtual environments allow HR professionals to allocate their time more

efficiently overall and 62 per cent felt HR activities such as annual benefits enrolment and employee certification and

testing programs would be easier if conducted online. More than one-half (54 per cent) cited the ease of conducting

new hire orientation online.

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