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From NetSpeed Leader Volume 26, 4/7/2006
Can I tell you candidly that there are just some
changes in business that I have a hard time
embracing? If you’ve been in the training field for
awhile, you probably remember the genesis of e-
learning. Do you recall the prediction of training
futurists who insisted that e-learning would
completely replace face-to-face training in a few
short years? That was back in 1999—here we are in
2006 and instructor-led classroom training is still the
norm in most organizations. Along the way, learning
designers reconnected with the reality that most
adults prefer to learn in the company of
others.
I’ve been around long enough to recall the “paperless
office” predicted when computers entered the
workplace. I don’t have a paperless office. Instead I
have everything in hard copy and soft copy now.
(It’s messily stored both physically and electronically
in my office!)
When I was first exposed to the idea of blogging, I
couldn’t imagine why anyone would want to record
what they were thinking every day or week. And who
would be reading these tomes? Yet, here I am with
me own blog (www.netspeedleadership.com/blog).
happily spewing random opinions to the world.
(Please do me a small favor, check out a few of my
postings, and post a comment or two.)
Which brings me to my most favorite technological
innovation and my least favorite technological
innovation: web conferencing and pod casting. I
admit that I was slow to embrace web conferencing
but having experimented with several platforms over
the past year, I’ve become a true believer. We use it
here to easily conduct meetings with our consultants
across United States and Canada. We have also
developed a broad client base because we can
introduce ourselves to clients in other geographic
regions quickly and easily. In fact we’re
experimenting with web conferencing as a tool for
interactive training and have helped a few clients
deliver NetSpeed Leadership this way.
My least favorite innovation is pod casting and, okay,
I’ll admit that I don’t understand how anyone can
learn anything by listening to an audio feed. I saw an
article in the newspaper this week that featured pod
casting as a way for personal fitness trainers to
provide an exercise program directly through their
customers’ headphones. It’s the first application of
this technology that I’ve found remotely useful
because it occurs at a moment of need when the
listener is motivated to listen. I’m bemused by the
rush to embrace pod casting in the training world
considering that many, if not most, learners absorb
information visually or kinesthetically. If you know of
effective uses of pod casting in training, please share
them with me.
Though I’m sometimes slow to change, I’m always
open to learning... |
A blended learning program for customer service providers |
