Implementation

Knowledge management

Virtual classroom

Standards

LCMS

How People Learn

Best practices: people
Online Instructor Competencies from INSIGHT ED, Patti Shank. A good online instructor wears many hats.
What's an eTrainer? & New Role: eLearning Guide, Internet Time Group 2/2000
Smile, Everyone! It's Time for Your Computer Training, Fast Company, 5/2000. Empower the learners and let them have fun!

e-Moderating, the key to teaching and learning online, 4/2000

North Berwick, Scotland, 1996

Worst practices: people
The Training Weenie Syndrome: Five Foolish Things Trainers Do To Demote Training © INSIGHT ED Patti Shank Trainer, don't shoot yourself in the foot.
The Lie of Online Learning, Training magazine, March 2000. "Let’s move learning out of the workday and into the employees’ own—uncompensated—time. No one wants to tell you that the anytime of online learning is supposed to be after work and that the anyplace is at home."
Learning in the Real World. Skeptics' views on why we should be cautious about putting computers into children's schools. "In the real world we can teach, explore and learn the patterns of connection which link different people, plants, animals and places. If education software even attempts to deal with these crucial concepts, the limits of the media may make the presentation inflexible, superficial, and inadequate." Much of this reasoning applies to computer-mediated training of adults as well.
ERP Training Stinks, CIO (6/00). "The average ERP implementation takes 23 months, has a total cost of ownership of $15 million and rewards (so to speak) the business with an average negative net present value of $1.5 million. And the news gets worse."
    "But the consensus that's emerging is that the training that matters isn't techy, "this field shows this; this button does that" training. In fact, what we normally call training is increasingly being shown to be relatively worthless. What's called for, it seems, is an ability to figure out the underlying flow of information through the business itself. The traditional view of training may blind the unwary to its significance and to the tightly woven links that exist between training, change management and staff adequacy."
"The first problem is that word: training. It conjures up images of dogs jumping through hoops. This is not helpful."

Strategies for Learning at a Distance

• Surface approach:
  • Focus on the "signs" (e.g., the text or instruction itself).
    
  • Focus on discrete elements.
    
  • Memorize information and procedures for tests.
    
  • Unreflectively associate concepts and facts.
    
  • Fail to distinguish principles from evidence, new information from old.
    
  • Treat assignments as something imposed by the instructor.
    
  • External emphasis focusing on the demands of assignments and exams leading to a knowledge that is cut-off from everyday reality.
    

• Deep Approach:
  • Focus on what is "signified" (e.g., the instructor’s arguments).
    
  • Relate and distinguish new ideas and previous knowledge.
    
  • Relate concepts to everyday experience.
    
  • Relate and distinguish evidence and argument.
    
  • Organize and structure content.
    
  • Internal emphasis focusing on how instructional material relates to everyday reality.
    

Improving Distant Learning

• "Becoming and staying responsible for themselves". High motivation is required to complete distant courses because the day-to-day contact with teachers and other students is typically lacking. Instructors can help motivate distant students by providing consistent and timely feedback, encouraging discussion among students, being well prepared for class, and by encouraging and reinforcing effective student study habits.
  
• "Owning one’s strengths, desires, skills, needs". Students need to recognize their strengths and limitations. They also need to understand their learning goals and objectives. The instructor can help distant students to explore their strengths/limitations and their learning goals/objectives by assuming a facilitative role in the learning process. Providing opportunities for students to share their personal learning goals and objectives for a course helps to make learning more meaningful and increases motivation.
  
• "Maintaining and increasing self-esteem". Distant students may be afraid of their ability to do well in a course. They are balancing many responsibilities including employment and raising children. Often their involvement in distance education is unknown to those they work with and ignored by family members. Student performance is enhanced if learners set aside time for their instructional activities and if they receive family support in their academic endeavors. The instructor can maintain student self-esteem by providing timely feedback. It is critical for teachers to respond to students’ questions, assignments, and concerns in a personalized and pleasant manner, using appropriate technology such as fax, phone, or computer. Informative comments that elaborate on the individual student’s performance and suggest areas for improvement are especially helpful.
  
• "Relating to others". Students often learn most effectively when they have the opportunity to interact with other students. Interaction among students typically leads to group problem solving. When students are unable to meet together, appropriate interactive technology such as E-mail should be provided to encourage small group and individual communication. Assignments in which students work together and then report back or present to the class as a whole, encourage student-to-student interaction. Ensure clear directions and realistic goals for group assignments (Burge, 1993).
  
• "Clarifying what is learned". Distant students need to reflect on what they are learning. They need to examine the existing knowledge frameworks in their heads and how these are being added to or changed by incoming information. Examinations, papers, and class presentations provide opportunities for student and teacher to evaluate learning. However, less formal methods of evaluation will also help the students and teacher to understand learning. For example, periodically during the course the instructor can ask students to write a brief reflection on what they have learned and then provide an opportunity for them to share their insights with other class members.
  
• "Redefining what legitimate knowledge is". Brundage, Keane, and Mackneson (1993) suggest that adult learners may find it difficult to accept that their own experience and reflections are legitimate knowledge. If the instructor takes a facilitative rather than authoritative role, students will see—their own experience as valuable and important to their further learning. Burge (1993) suggests having learners use first-person language to help them claim ownership of personal values, experiences, and insights.
  
• "Dealing with content". Student learning is enhanced when content is related to examples. Instructors tend to teach using examples that were used when they received their training. For distance learning to be effective, however, instructors must discover examples that are relevant to their distant students. Encourage students to find or develop examples that are relevant to them or their community.

Learning for purposes of IT Certification must combine the motivational and social reinforcement academia is working on with the PI/simulation approach of traditional IT training.

Standards

Online Learning, November 2000: "Web-based training standards entered a new era in June when the major developers agreed to make learning management systems (LMSs) and content from different vendors work together. The agreement between the Aviation Industry CBT Committee (AICC), the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and the Instructional Management Systems (IMS) Global Learning Consortium is not an official partnership — yet. And because it is informal in nature the responsibilities of the respective parties haven’t been clearly defined. But it was determined that the Advanced Distributed Learning (ADL) Initiative of the Department of Defense, which was the catalyst for the new spirit of cooperation, would act as a coordinating body."

Standards: The Vision and the Hype, Learning Circuits, by Tom Barron The drive to create industry-wide technology standards for e-learning is gaining momentum and adherents. But some see perils--and posturing--amid the promise.

Demystifying e-learning Standards Bringing flexibility to content and infrastructure solutions, eLearning. by Harvi Singh

Achieving Interoperability in e-Learning, Learning Circuits, by Harvi Singh. In today's Internet economy, achieving integration and interoperability in digital systems is increasingly important. Such integration is possible with open protocols, which allow an organization or system to exchange information with suppliers, partners, and customers in a format that accommodates each organization's system. The same approach is being applied in the e-learning arena, where a new breed of software application frameworks and approaches seek to enable true interoperability of separate systems. This article examines trends and enabling frameworks for making true interoperability a reality.

An Intro to Metadata Tagging, Learning Circuits, by Harvi Singh. Get ready for the Dewey Decimal Classification system of e-learning

Learnativity has the articles, presentations, and links of standards visionary Wayne Hodgins.

Educause
AICC
IMS IMS -- Meta Tags and Knowledge Bits
ADLnet Department of Defense