MORE ON RAPID E-LEARNING HOW TO'S

MORE ON RAPID E-LEARNING HOW TO'S

A reader seeks ways to conduct rapid production of e-learning effectively. "I continually strive to find new ways to make the revision cycles smoother and faster, and I've been experimenting with some rapid prototyping procedures.

These have proven helpful, but I am confident there are more solutions to learn (or to discover) in this area." Any advice?

www.vnulearning.com
We ran responses to this query in a previous issue (April 20, 2006). Here's one more from a rapid e-learning software vendor: "The reader asks for rapid prototyping procedures to make revision cycles faster. I would argue that if the reader is doing prototyping before content implementation, he or she is still doing traditional e-learning (not that there's anything wrong with that)," says Al Moser (al@readygo.com). "Faster development of traditional e-learning can be a cost-effective way to increase ROI. From my point of view, however, rapid e-learning has the following characteristics:"

You can go from outline to implementation directly (or the authoring system you use allows you to build/rearrange the outline as part of your implementation).

It involves SMEs. "They should be responsible for implementing and maintaining content. That is, a stronger separation between the graphic/multimedia and the textual content can let each group concentrate on its specialty. Give the SMEs a tool that allows them to maintain, correct and republish the content. The graphics team should provide them with higher value-added elements as components to add to their courses. This way, the graphic artists aren't responsible for correcting or rearranging content, and the SMEs aren't trying to create graphics."
Course development cycles are counted in days instead of months.

Courses are generally shorter, get posted faster, and are updated more frequently.
Courses can be searched and indexed, just like other Web pages. "This means that workers can find the content they need faster. (Therefore, 'rapid' refers to 'learning' in addition to development.) This also means that content is not restricted to linear presentation. If users have to go through every page to get to specific content, then it is not 'rapid.'"

Your authoring system allows you to reuse chapters, sections, and other elements from one course to another, the same way you re-use PowerPoint slides.
Based on all this, says Moser, the reader should review his or her deployment procedures, review staffing, and review course designs.
www.readygo.com/isd
www.readygo.com/demo3www.readygo.com/aicc

Samples of courses designed as rapid e-learning can be found at the above URLs, notes Moser. "All of the above courses involve tracking. Yes: rapid e-learning can also involve tracking such that the author can update his or her content based on how users perform on the assessments. Also, rapid e-learning courses should still contain instructional design -- more than just chaining slides together and posting them on a Web site." Moser is VP of engineering at ReadyGo Inc., a rapid e-learning software provider in Mountain View, Calif.

source: TDF e-Net