Monday, November 12, 2012

Why I'm a little depressed about eLearning

Good eLearning still requires resources
The reason might surprise you.
And I'm probably going to have a few people disagree with me. 
It's not because there isn't good eLearning out there. In fact, in the last year of exploring this field, I've seen some absolutely phenomenal examples of great m and eLearning. Creative people are using gamification, graphics, interactivity, flexibility, and performance objectives to create flexible learning models that increase employee productivity. So why am I so depressed? Because I am going to fall into a camp of people that believes strongly that good e and mLearning still needs to be thought of with the same seriousness as website development--otherwise, it's just not fair to the people who have been asked to create the learning. Even with flexible authoring tools such as Articulate Storyline and Captivate, I argue that the end product will be better if approached using agile team-based design. That means, your company's eLearning team should include a project manager, a storyteller (this could be an ID), a (graphic) designer, and a developer (either schooled in html5 or very savvy with the authoring tool). This sounds different than what I usually hear, as it's often one person who is responsible for the whole process who is then asked to liaise with the IT department. Please don't misunderstand me. I'm not suggesting the good eLearning is impossible to create--what I am saying is that the impact of it will grow if the process itself is supported.

1 comment: