It Blended Learning part 2 Essay - 4,937 words

... from online material about the principles of hiring, but need classroom instruction with role-playing to learn those skills. When personnel go to one of the companys training centers, they learn a lot from other people doing the same job at a different location. You cant package that in a class, says Diana Scott, the firms e-learning manager. (7) The company experimented with online forums to promote such exchanges but found that busy workers simply wouldnt use them. Experts say that the methodology used for each of the various phases of the training process should reflect the desired outcome for that stage, not the cost or convenience of a given technology.


No one has found an ideal mix of technology and classroom instruction, but IBM seems to have come close. It conducts 48 percent of its training electronically, says Ted Hoff, IBMs chief learning officer. With 320,000 employees scattered across 76 countries, the company has a special need to quickly and efficiently train its people. But like many other firms, IBM has found that e-learning works most effectively when strategically coupled with classroom training. A prime example is Basic Blue, IBMs training program for new managers. In years past, the more than 5,000 new managers who are trained each year would be brought together for a five-day event to learn the basics of the firms culture, strategy and management practices. That was too much information to absorb in such a short time, so IBM expanded the program to 12 months by adding different types of e-learning to the weeklong live event.


Five months before the live event, managers now do self-paced Web learning modules that discuss basic management skills and use simulation modules to handle real-life business scenarios using videos of a fictional colleague or customer. By the time the new managers meet for the five-day event, they have been in the field long enough to discuss actual experiences. After forging those face-to-face relationships with other managers, they continue to do online group simulations and mentor one another for seven months. (3) Studies conducted by Harvard Business School and other organizations determined that the program enables managers to learn five times as much material at one-third the cost of a classroom-only approach. Before going through Basic Blue, managers said that they preferred face-to-face training. Afterward, Hoff says, surveys indicated that managers overwhelmingly liked the blended approach better, and in the future always wanted some training delivered electronically. IBM, of course, sells e-learning technology and has a vested interest in its success. Other companies remain more wary.


Four years ago, when the Internet was still considered miraculous, Express Personnel looked for an e-learning system to help save its franchise owners time, travel and training costs. An Express Personnel vice president checked out some programs and was wowed by the setup at a real estate company where e-learning was provided 24/7 through streamed video delivered by satellite. Soon afterward, Express Personnel purchased a similar video training system. Problems started immediately. Creating content was expensive and time-consuming. Worse, many franchise owners didnt have enough bandwidth to view the videos over the Internet. The videos would get stuck all the time, and the presenters looked distorted, Scott says. We bit off more than we could chew. (3) The experience was not uncommon.


In the first go-around of e-learning, many companies had a follow-the-leader mentality. They installed state-of-the-art learning systems with 3-D simulations, but never considered whether the systems were necessary or cost-effective. In the past, people used a lot of crazy metrics and spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to build e-learning systems with a lot of gratuitous functionality, says Dave Palumbo, head of the learning practice for Sapient Corp., a Boston consulting firm. Those kinds of approaches have been scaled back, he says, along with high-flying e-learning providers that could charge whatever they liked for support. What remains are crisp, clear solutions that solve well-understood problems. Express Personnel got rid of the expensive Internet video system, and the vendor that sold it, in 2002.


The second time around, the companys training department involved the IT department in choosing a simpler e-learning system that wouldnt tax the franchises computer systems. Now, franchise owners and their employees can log on and, instead of being confronted with a mountain of videos, are directed to shorter online classes designed for their specific job functions, such as inside or outside sales. If an e-learning system overwhelms the users with too much information, they will not come back. The new system has a lot of capabilities that we turned off and are not using, Scott says. In e-learning, more is not better. (2) Many companies believe that how employees are prepared for e-learning has a big effect on the trainings outcome. Kathy Harris, an analyst at Gartner Group, notes that student-managed learning is a radical change for most people, and companies must provide incentives to use it.


Before IBM inaugurated a series of Web seminars for salespeople on how to sell e-business technology, a vice president of sales sent a message to all salespeople about why the information was important to their jobs and to the companys future. Like many other successful e-learning initiatives, the seminars were well attended because they were mandatory. But it is important to send the personalized note about why this is valuable so the participants have the right mind-set, Hoff says. The training wont be effective if people are doing it only because its required. Granted, IBM has tremendous resources. Still, even small firms with modest e-learning programs are finding that the same principles apply. Windsor Frozen Foods, a tiny division of the Keebler Company, finds that few employees are interested in attending training after work, especially if the course is held at a remote location that requires additional transportation time.


George Young, Windsors corporate director of human resources, thought e-learning was a perfect solution, so he purchased learning modules on management practices from Ninth House about subjects such as how to ask better questions at meetings. The key to the success of the self-paced modules, he found, was setting up sessions afterward for the users to discuss what they had learned and how they could apply the information to their jobs. (2) Given employees past lack of interest in additional training, Young approached the program with trepidation. But the employees had a lot of lively discussions, and he now frequently sees situations in which people apply some of the things theyve learned from the modules, even if they dont realize thats what theyre doing. A crucial aspect of the self-paced training was letting people know in advance that these discussions would be held, so they had greater focus and a sense of accountability. Despite the success, Young is taking the go-slow approach that now characterizes many e-learning initiatives. The first modules were done by 14 company officers, and e-learning is being rolled out to the rest of the workers gradually.


The ASTD report shows that learning technology is rapidly taking the place of much of the training traditionally presented in a classroom. Overall, 15.4 percent of corporate training in 2002 was conducted through learning technologies, compared to 8.8 percent two years earlier. Among Fortune 500 companies, learning technology constituted 25.5 percent of all training, up from 18.7 percent two years before. Not surprisingly, the more advanced forms of e-learning are much more popular among larger ...................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

...................You are reading a preview................... Visit our Blog and Unlock Full Access to this essay

Continue READING the FULL Essay by clicking HERE

Essay Tags: learning experience, classroom instruction, classroom, module, manager

This is an Essay sample / Research paper, you can use it for your research of: It Blended Learning part 2