Currently, too many investments in training are made that are unrelated to company objectives. It should come as no surprise, then, that management often regards training costs as superfluous and unnecessary. How different management attitudes would be if your training initiatives were tied to corporate objectives and that training expenditures could be linked to company growth and profitability. A CEO in a recent Business Week article said it all, “An organization’s ability...
Newer is not necessarily better! In the case of skills training, the prevalent e-Learning courseware does not begin to compare with the learning values designed into traditional interactive CD-ROM training. Full motion video and animations, combined with optional word-for-word audio are proven to be the best way to communicate with our Generation X and Generation Y workforce. Knowledgeably-designed interactive CD-ROM training incorporates it all. It is a true, individualized interactive learning system....
Last week, I attended the SALT (Society for Applied Learning Technology) Conference in Reston, Virginia. As I have mentioned in previous blogs, the SALT Conferences (one in Orlando and one in the DC area each year) are the best places to see what’s coming down the pike. I have been attending for three decades and it is only at SALT that one can get a “first peek” into the future of new...
“And the purpose of the University is nothing less than to procure a moral, intellectual, and spiritual revolution around the world. . . the specific task of the university is the development, release, and direction of intellectual power. . . . The total resources of the university must be focused on the problem of raising the intellectual level of the society which it serves.” (Robert Maynard Hutchins by Milton Mayer, p.328) Hutchins...
For a moment, think about the implications of the following statement: “Those organizations that desire to get the most out of their training initiatives will routinely begin with an appropriate Skills Assessment!” That certainly is a true statement. But, few organizations actually practice it — and, that is to their detriment. If you don’t start every training initiative with a valid skills assessment, you are seriously wasting your organization’s money. Some of...
Many times, in previous posts, we’ve looked at the salient characteristics of well designed E-Learning. Today, however, we’re going to reverse that story. We’re going to examine the characteristics you should avoid when buying or producing E-Learning. The following items are the “No-Nos” — if you are committed to learning and retention. (Unfortunately, far too many current E-Learning offerings contain one, or several, of these to-be-avoided attributes.): • Page-turning programs are the...
No one wants to buy “training!” Why should they? Shouldn’t their new hires be already equipped with the necessary skills — and ready to perform their assigned tasks? But, as you well know, that only happens in Utopia. So why, then, do you have to develop or purchase training programs for your workforce? The answer is not very complicated. We only purchase training programs when we want to solve a particular problem....
Unfortunately, Instructional Design has become more of an engineering function these days. Too often, design-for-learning has been replaced by a design-for-information approach. And, when that happens, we all lose. E-Learning courses become a memorization activity instead of delivering the skills-acquisition benefits our American workforce needs. With that in mind, the following five essential requirements will give you an outline of attributes you should find in E-Learning courses that are designed for skills-acquisition...
