The Ecampus Blog

Elearning Update

Elearning Update

Elearning 2.0

To get a sense of eLearning 2.0, it’s helpful to have some sense of what Web 2.0 is. Probably the most cited article on this is from Tim O’Reilly called “What is Web 2.o?”

Emerging E-Learning Technology: Podcasts

One of the emerging technologies associated with E-Learning today is incorporating the use of podcasts into E-Learning course delivery.

Pros And Cons – Pros And Cons Of E-Learning

E-learning has shown its great advantages through its accessibility to all students irrespective of their residence.

Concept Design Tools

Designers of digital products and services like ourselves can dramatically improve our work by generating more concepts early in our projects. This article tries to make concept design easier to learn by illustrating three simple tools for generating concepts.

Choosing The Right Content-Authoring Tool For Your E-Learning Needs

There are several hundred e-Learning tools out in the marketplace today. Selecting the proper course-authoring tool for developing your company’s online training content is no small undertaking.

Tags: Authoring Tools, elearning, Elearning Content, lms

How to develop an elearning strategy.

Define your objectives.

The first step in developing an e-learning strategy is to define the objectives of the intiative. What knowledge do you need to transfer to your students? Determine what time frame you would like to develop your initiative in and you cost restraints. And ask yourself, how you will track the learner’s progress.

Who are your end users?

Think about who will be using the course. If the learner is older and less tech savvy, you may need to accommodate for additional support. If the learner is young, you may want to produce a course with animation.

What tools to use?

There is an abundance of e-learning tools to choose from and it can be overwhelming. You will need to decide what features you require and how you will use the application.

If you plan on creating a course with interaction and multimedia you may need to purchase a high end elearning tool. However, if it is a simple text based course there is no need to spend additional money on a fancy application.

Internally or externally develop.

You must determine whether you will develop content internally or engage an outside source to develop the content for you.

Engaging a professional content development company may seem expensive at first but could save you a lot of time and money in the long run, with a better final product.

Technical support.

Consideration must be given to support for the end user. This decision will be based on the quantity and capabilities of the end user. There are several options for support. You may choose a help desk or supply support files. However, don’t forget, even in this day and age, there are people unfamiliar with computers. Even the simplest computing tasks may need to be explained.

Measuring success.

Finally, indentify how you will measure if the initiative was successful. Was one of the objectives to decrease the cost in training? If so, make calculations on return on investment. Calculate how much your current method of training costs and compare with total cost of the e-learning initiative

Tags: elearning

Ten Reasons Elearning Can Fail.

1. No Overall Aim. Make sure students understand why they are taking the course and what they’ll get out of it. 2. Vague planning. Decide what you want students to learn and how they’ll learn it. Vague aims will not usually suffice. Find out the technical options. The course must be defined in those terms. The first slide will contain this video in this format, we’ll use this font, we’ll use pictures here, video there, and so on. Write it all down. Discuss it with colleagues. Test your ideas on prospective students. Don’t be afraid to ask developers to explain things.

3. Poorly designed content.

Many elearning modules are bland. They have too much text. Elearning should be interactive. It should look good. Video, animation, sound and good design can really help. Before you start, find out about what the technology offers. How can you use it? For instance, how will you use forums? Quizzes? Audio? Animation? Video? Drag and drop?

4. Hard to use. The course doesn’t work on student computers. Lack of testing.

The course and the LMS must be easy to use. If it is not user friendly then people will avoid using it. Make it easy to enrol, take the course and review results. Test the course on typical student computers. Consider bandwidth, browser versions, firewalls, operating systems, and so on. For instance, will student internet connections be fast enough to watch video playback?

6. Inadequate tracking of enrolments and results.

Who has enrolled? Who has completed the course? Who is failing? These sorts of questions are answered by tracking student interaction with the course. You can only get answers based on the information gathered. So when you test your course with typical students, test the reports being generated too. Make sure that all the information you need is being recorded. Make sure that the system records what you want before real students start taking your course.

7. Stakeholders not consulted.

Every stakeholder needs to be aware of the aims of the elearning program. Where possible, involve all stakeholders in appropriate parts the project. For instance, make sure adminstrative staff are happy with the reports generated by the LMS.

8. Poor support.

Good support means a support desk, an online forum and FAQs. Without access to support, learners will become despondent if they encounter a problem. When you solve problems, add the solution to a FAQ or a forum. Prefereably one students and staff can search.

9. Poor workflow integration.

The most important step is to integrate the elearning program with business processes. Make sure the way it integrates is supported by all management.

10. Forgetting business aims.

For example, does the course improve efficiency and reduce expenses? Does it reduce training contact time? Ask these sorts of questions. Can these things be quantified financially? Does the course represent a good return on investment?

Tags: elearning, lms