Making
e-Learning Work
 "The
dirty little secret of e-learning is that learner
usage rates are dismally low" commented Paula Young
of PriceWaterhouseCoopers at a recent conference.
Behind the hype and the genuine potential of online
learning, the reality is that not that much is going
on..
It
is what Adrian Snook (of DigitalThink) describes as
'e-nis envy'. Like sex, e-learning is something we
read about all over the place. Everybody else seems
to be doing more of it than we are, doing it more
often and having much more fun. You
can stop worrying. Most organisations are doing as
little e-learning as yours.
When
I speak at conferences I ask 'how many people have
started an online course?'. A lot of hands go up.
'How many people have completed an online course?',
I continue. Very few hands stay up.
At Happy Computers we produce a range of online learning
products, for IT, under the brand name LearnFish.
As virtually all the products are entirely online,
we track all usage, and after we launched in January,
we discovered a curious phenomenon. For a while it
was much easier to sell e-learning than to get people
to use it.
Take
one large financial institution which will remain
anonymous. We began a pilot scheme with key secretaries
who wanted to boost their IT skills. All of them were
keen and enthusiastic. They gave us great quotes to
use in our marketing material and said they would
certainly use it 'when they found the time'. That
phrase should have warned us that actually there would
be very little use.
'Finding the time' for an unstructured learning activity
in the middle of a busy office is very tough. The
strength of the classroom method is the structure.
You have the people booked out and in the room. They
are there for six hours, and most likely, they will
achieve the course objectives. Whether those objectives
are useful for them, or whether the learning translates
to any change in job performance is another matter,
but they will be there and they will learn.
The weakness of the classroom, and a key strength
of e-learning, lies in flexibility. One delegate told
me that his aim on an IT course was to learn two things
he could use back in his job. If he did that he would
feel the course was a success, even if that represented
just a small part of the course. The student often
finds that, out of a six hour course, they already
know two hours of the material and don't need another
two hours. So two thirds of the course is a waste
of time.
E-learning clearly has the potential to be more effective.
In that case the student need only spend two hours
on it. You can learn at your own pace, when you want.
But it is only effective if people actually use it.
So let's go on to examples of organisations who have
made it work.
At
Manchester NHS Trust they are nearing the end of a
trial of 200 people studying for the ECDL (European
Computer Driving Licence) using LearnECDL's online
materials. Lavinia Hill and Julie Davidson have built
a very clear structure to ensure its success. To join
the programme, students must commit to a two hour
classroom session every week (using the online materials,
but with a trainer present for support) and two hours
online study in between.
98% of students are completing the course. Pass rates
for the ECDL tests are currently running at 93%. Those
figures are remarkable and they result from combining
the structure of the classroom with the flexibility
of online.
The
Blended Approach
Some
readers will react by thinking this isn't proper e-learning
or that e-learning wasn't supposed to be this hard.
Most people involved in the field now recognise that
the 'blended' approach is how to make e-learning work.
Nigel Howarth, Managing Director of NETg (probably
the largest seller of e-learning materials in the
UK), states that although they only supply materials,
they should be used in a blend that includes the classroom.
NETg staff themselves learn through a combination
of e-learning and classroom. You can define learners
on a spectrum from 'dependent' learner to 'independent'
learners. School has taught us , and still teaches
our children , to be dependent learners - expecting
to be told when to learn and to be fed with information.
Independent learners work out what they want to know
and search for the courses and sources of information.
For
e-learning to succeed fully we need people to be independent
learners. However Lavinia Hill and Julie Davidson
recognised that you cannot wave a magic wand and turn
your people into independent learners. So they created
a flexible, but structured, approach that worked.
At CMS Cameron McKenna they took a different approach
with the LearnFish courses, which they were using
to attain Microsoft's MOUS accreditation. Three trainers
came on the half-day classroom introduction but then
didn't use the materials for the next month. Our e-tutor
was monitoring their learning and emailed them to
encourage them to get learning.
The students responded by booking the dates of their
MOUS exams. This was significant. They didn't wait
until they had learnt the materials but set themselves
a deadline. A couple of features of the CMS culture
are important here. CMS financially rewards certification
and allows staff to book time out to study at home.
With
a clear deadline, strong motivation, organisational
support, online encouragement and fellow staff to
work with to a common goal they made the online learning
work. They have passed the MOUS exams with one student
attaining an unprecendented 100% score on one exam.
At CMS the staff were towards the independent end
of the learning spectrum. But it is still the case
that just making the material available and saying
use it if you want (what we call the financial director's
solution) wouldn't have worked. It was a blend of
some classroom, active online mentoring and online
learning - combined with strong organisational support
- that made e-learning work.
The
motivation element is crucial and sometimes this is
created externally. When I ask the questions about
completing e-learning courses, I often ask those whose
hands stay up what enabled them to complete. At the
last conference all five gave the same reason: "my
job depended on it".
Compulsion is one way to make e-learning work. This
is also being used by some of our further education
clients. By making completion of the online course
a compulsory part of the curriculum they are hoping
to ensure students will find the time to do it.
The
term e-learning is just two years old and we are still
experimenting with how it works best.
However
what is clear is that the blended approach works best
- and that it takes a lot of hard work and organisational
support to get the most from it.
The 5 Secrets of Making E-learning Work
- Organisational
Support
- Does the learner's organisation and manager give
a clear message that online learning is encouraged?
Do they recognise and support the results of online
learning? Is it part of the appraisal and salary
review process?
- Motivation
- is the key to ensuring learners complete their
online courses. Sometimes this can be external (eg,
your job depends on it) but the strongest motivation
comes from an internal desire to complete a course.
- The
Human Touch
- e-tutors are Central Only 3% of the population
want to learn online alone (according to research
by the Campaign for Learning). For the rest of us,
we need human support. Trainers are central to making
e-learning work.
- The
Classroom Makes Online Learning Work
-The hype of pure online learning has now been replaced
with a recognition that a 'blended' approach is
the most successful, mixing classroom, online and
online mentoring. Research shows that a classroom
introduction, for instance, increases the success
of e-learning.
- Dependent
or Independent Learners -We
are trained to be dependent learners, expecting
to learn when we are told to. For e-learning to
succeed we need to move people to being independent
learners, or to provide strong structure to make
it work.
Henry
Stewart is founder and Chief Executive of Happy Computers
- IT Training Company of the Year 2001.
Henry
can be contacted via email at: henry@happy.co.uk
e-Learning
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