Thinking about using e-learning in your organisation for the first time is a daunting prospect.
Just the list of questions about technology alone is probably longer than you care to admit. And that's before you've even thought about the content.
You've realised already how easy it is to get swallowed up by the technology and easily lose sight of the learning bit of e-learning.
So what's the answer? Well, we are very clear on one fundamental point. It's the learning first and the technology second. In other words, the technology is merely there to support and facilitate the delivery of the learning, not the other way around.
So keeping technology in its place is certainly a good start. But what about the learning? Let's be honest, e-learning has a bit of reputation. And deservedly so. There's way too much of it that's been produced over the years that's just embarrassingly bad.
You could hardly forgive your learners for feeling a twinge of despair when they discover that a rollout of e-learning is on the cards.
Which means you really need to think differently about your e-learning because conventional thinking and approaches really haven't worked.
And there's also the question of which content and which skills might be suitable to tackle through e-learning delivery.
And, of course, once you've settled on suitable content, and an instructional design approach that will help you create what we call 'boredom-busting' e-learning, there's the big question of the production process.
How to go about it? Who to have as part of your production team? How long it might all take. How much it might cost. How much can you realistically expect to create in a given time frame?
And this could be a big issue. Because you may have others in your organisation who want you to introduce e-learning because they think it'll be quick and cheap to get up and running.
In fact, although e-learning can definitely save you money over the long term, quick and cheap to create it isn't. Even the embarrassingly bad takes longer than most people might realise.
If all or some of this is keeping you awake at night, then we've created a 32-page E-Learning Getting Started Guide to help you think through some of these issues.
It certainly won't wave a metaphorical magic wand and solve all your problems or answer all your questions. But it will, we think, point you in the right direction and help frame your thinking.
This easy-to-read guide is divided into 4 short sections:
This takes a look at what e-learning is, why you might use it and why you might not.
What informs our design thinking. Why we create e-learning as we do.
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