Virtual Learning Now!

8/9/2019 Virtual Learning Now!

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Virtual Learning Now!

Virtual Learning has become a part of many organisations

knowledge management systems over the past decade, with a variety of

different methods being used. Knowledge management is aimed at

capturing, managing, and disseminating knowledge, in usable forms, as a

corporate intellectual asset.

Current Scenario Overview of status of Virtual Learning in

Organizations

At present, aspects like product features, quality, and pricing are moreor less same among competitors leading to negligible or nodifferentiation or brand loyalty based on product.Knowledge base of the organization is the competitive edge now.Its all about knowledge management Quickly capturing anddisseminating best practices, radical improvements, and informationon key customers.There is a need for better virtual learning solutions which will allowinformation to be well structured and organized and to be delivered inthe most efficient and fastest manner to the employees (The HerridgeGroup, 2002).

The current technology allows the organizations for tagging,storing, and displaying precisely the right digitized informationand learning at the job-site at the moment of need through theirlearning management systems (LMSs). The present learning management systems offer thefunctionality to initiate and exhibit content and to manage thecommunication between performers and the learning orperformance resources (The Herridge Group, 2002).Present web based learning tools like audio-video,teleconferencing provide the base for effective virtual learningimplementations such as CISCOs WebEx.Virtual learning is on verge of being revolutionised with theadvent of new technologies such as open source tools, mobilelearning technologies, Smartphones, PDAs, and personallearning environments. Hence, there is need of a radicalimprovement in the ways in which the virtual learning candelivered be delivered successfully and intermittently across allthese platforms. According to a senior employee of CISCO, it is

very necessary that the present virtual learning platforms are extendedacross all of these platforms which would foster collaboration and

partnerships amongst the learners. These new approaches to thedesign of corporate learning and performance support are focussing on

What organizations know will provide them with their single most important edge.

ucation is; rather e-learning will be about meeting the learners needs for improved performan


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chunked, reusable content that relates directly to specific performancerequirements.

The recent advancements in the various technology areas of delivering

information across different locations and different platforms haveconverged to form virtual learning providing access to content anywhere,anytime increasing the value of the learning experience.

Organizations across the globe have adapted to various variants ofvirtual learning and consider virtual learning as one of their long termreusable learning strategies. Knowledge management and performancemanagement has become far more efficient and scalable. Currently,according to a senior employee, CISCO uses a global learning platformwhich is accessible to everybody, anywhere and has a central storage.The learning management systems in CISCO normally use technologies

like Saba. The training and learning is learner-centric and specific innature. For instance, every CISCO sales employee outside the U.S has totake the Foreign Acts training on the learning platform if he/she needs tosell any product outside the U.S. But, different organizations use virtuallearning and e-learning according to their needs and business goals.These needs may vary for different organizations depending on whichindustry and sector of market they belong to.

In January 2010 ASTD published a survey on E-Learning Trendswhich was conducted in November-December 2009 across 210

organizations. The most important question asked to the organizationswas How does your organization uses e-learning. The result for thisparticular survey question is shown in the bar graph below (ASTD.Org,2010).

It can be inferred that e-learning is extensively used by

organizations for various purposes such as customer service training and

salesforce training. Rightly said by a senior sales employee of CISCO,

salesforce training is very crucial for updating the sales skills of the

employees and also to educate the partners and clients involved in the

whole sales ecosystem. These data indicate that virtual learning has

become an unavoidable strategy of many of the global corporations.

However, the changing landscape of technology and the economic &

business challenges have forced organizations to explore new frontiers.


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Current Forms of Virtual Learning

Virtual Learning has become a part of many organisations

knowledge management systems over the past decade, with a variety ofdifferent methods being used. This section will outline what is currently

available to organisations. Virtual learning is delivered, currently, in the

following two ways (IBM.Com, 2010):

Based on these two generic ways of delivering information over

the internet, there are many tools and technologies which are currently

being used in organizations for virtual learning and training. Some of

these are simple, and some are more complex depending upon their

degree of difficulty in implementation and the infrastructure required for

delivering them in a normal mode across various platforms. Examples

some of these e-learning technologies are shown below:


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It is not uncommon for these different methods of learning to be

mixed together. This can often reduce the limiting factors of one form of

e-learning and increase the availability of learning materials on different

platforms. Moreover, it provides the learner a wider range of options to

access learning and training in a virtual environment. For example, GoogleWave can be used by collaborators to edit a document simultaneously in

real time and at the same time they can also carry on video messaging on

some other application such as VoIP.

These technologies or tools can be used for various training and

learning purposes by the organizations based on their specific business

and performance needs. Though most of the organizations, currently, use

various tools for conducting in-house virtual learning and training, the

most popular tools can be identified from the 2010 ASTD E-Learning

Survey below (ASTD.Org, 2010).Each of these tools/technologies have their level of interactivity

which depends on various characteristics such as the richness of the

audio-video stream, ease of navigation, degree of engagement,

availability, portability and certainly, look and feel. There are different

levels of interactivity (low, moderate, high) depending on the e-learning

method that is chosen. These are shown in table blow:


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Which direction is virtual learning heading towards?

Virtual learning, or for the fact of the matter, e-learning has come a

long way in the last decade or so. There has been a tremendous

transgression form the traditional computer-based training systems tomore dynamic and rapid learning management systems. Furthermore, the

arrival of Web 2.0, open source tools, virtualisation, SaaS, e-book readers,

tablet PCs and social media has thrown up several opportunities to

harness information and knowledge in the most cost-effective, optimized

and efficient manner.

However, according to Gartner Education Hype Cycle 2009, the

most interesting opportunities are yet to come or are in their due course

of their mainstream adoption. The education hype cycle can be seen in

the figure below (Jimdonovan.net.nz, 2009).


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Leading Trends in Virtual Learning

Virtual Classrooms

Virtual Classrooms have

been one of the most usedsynchronous method of delivering

learning and training in most kind

of local and global organizations.

This method allows the

synchronous teaching, lectures,

simulation, demonstration and

peer collaboration over the web.

The main benefit of virtual

classrooms is that users who are

disparately located can come together online to listen, view and interact

with the live instructors and their fellow learners in a scheduled event

(The Herridge Group, 2002). The technology and infrastructure required

for establishment of Virtual Classrooms, in most of the cases is available

with the organizations and is affordable as well.

However, the transition to virtual classrooms is mostly because offinancial reasons than instructional. Organizations perceive virtual

classrooms as the way to reduce travel time, cost of travel and

importantly, the cost of replacing the instructor every time. Moreover, thevirtual classrooms allow the organizations to develop a repository of


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reusable learning and training materials, hence increasing their

knowledge base (The Herridge Group, 2002).

Are Virtual Classrooms worth it?

Though virtual classrooms provide learner-trainer and learner-learnerinteraction, it does not propagate personalization and collaboration of

work and ideas as it might be in a regular classroom. Hence, if the goal of

the learning process is to advocate team-work and collaboration virtual

classrooms might not be the best answer. Moreover, the number of

learners that can possibly participate in an online virtual classroom and

still have some level of interactivity is, most often, lesser than that in the

situation of face-to-face learning.

However, virtual classroom is cheaper to develop in comparison to the

asynchronous web-modules and in some instances, could be the best

solution. For example-

Training on a new software deployment Allowing access to a particular expert for a short interval with the

technology and facilitating a larger, geographically diverse group toparticipate.

Short discussion for a key change. Advocating collaboration and communities of practice.

But still, virtual class rooms have their own share of challenges, some ofwhich are:1. The content should be properly designed for the learners, the moduletasks, and most importantly, the delivery mechanism.2. The facilitator should be appropriately trained and skilled in managingthe learning technology and engaging the audience.3. There should be a high degree of reliability in the learningtechnology.4. The training material should be more rich and interactive in natureand should not be just a cut and pasted content from an already existing

classroom course.

Conclusively, virtual classrooms can be considered as a cost-effective

method of delivering learning with its own share of pros and cons.

HPs Virtual Classroom for Toyota Canada Toyota Canada utilizes the HP Virtual Classroom for various types oftraining purposes both in English and French. For every new car launch, aHP Virtual Classroom trainer starts going through a power pointpresentation displaying the novel features, changes in the new car andcompares it with the similar releases from the competitors. Moreover, the

product specialists, throughout this process can ask questions by usingthe hands-up feature from the facilitator.


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(HP.Com, 2003)

Peer-to-Peer Learning

Peer-to-Peer or P2P signifies inclusion of collaboration tools and

developing collaboration into virtual learning programs. P2P is a

networking technology that enables the sharing of resource. The peers

are the individual computers that make up the network(Hoffman, 2002).

This technology facilitates the virtual learners to share information and

data by allowing one computer to connect straightaway with another

computer on a network without going via a file server. This inter-

connection allows creating shared workspaces in which learners can easily

collaborate, communicate and exchange ideas (Hoffman, 2002).

Challenges of Peer-to-Peer learning

To ensure accuracy & validity of the available information? Internetis a deluge of information- how to sift out the most relevant andmeaningful data?

To ensure privacy and data security on P2P links. To make it surethat only the designated learner can access the informationdisplayed (Hoffman, 2002).

Potential market for P2P: Collaborators and group learners dispersed

across countries.


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Blended Learning

If we go by the latestbuzz in the virtual learning or e-learing sphere, blendedlearning is the most talkedabout learning method by thelearning pundits. As the namesuggests blended learning isthe method where theorganization encapsulatesdifferent modalities of training

such as instructor-led, face-to-face, self paced learning intosingle combined service. Mostof the global organizationsperceive blended learning environments as the solution to provide thelearners the vastness of content, diverse style and the fastness of accessto information and knowledge. Moreover, certain types of training andlearning do require a blended approach to be efficient and effective, ashighlighted by a senior sales employee of CISCO. For example, blendedlearning can do wonders for the training of new hires in an organization byfacilitating both basic corporate training, which is more suited to a self-

paced online course and role-specific training which has more one-to-oneinteraction with an experienced trainer or a peer. The current LMStechnologies, albeit slowly, ia keeping pace in its calibre to cater blendedapproaches.

Challenges of Blended Learning

Though organizations have blended learning solutions, they lack aclearly defined strategy of implementing them for their particularneeds.

Organizations lack an evaluation technique for tracking the progressof completion of tasks across various learning modalities within asingle program.

The organizations need a clear cut strategy to make a smoothmigration from the traditional methods to blended approaches oflearning.

The organizations are always sceptical of migrating to a newlearning technology being wary of losing the existing comfort level(The Herridge Group, 2002).

What needs to be done

Develop a robust strategy for implementing blended approach.


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Formulate tactical evaluation techniques to determine the existingplatforms resilience to adapt and deliver blended learning.

Determine and carry out a pilot study, beforehand, to know how theimplementation of blended learning might affect the learningprocess of the employees and their overall performance.

Ensure that the transition does not impact the satisfaction levels ofthe learners and the facilitators (The Herridge Group, 2002).

(Codianni, 2009)

Open Source Tools

At present, according toan estimation there than40 vendors of open sourceLMS products (few of themost renowned areMoodle, ILIAS, eduplone,Claroline and SAKAI).

Most of these open sourcelearning tools have theirown extensive developer

base and dedicatedcommunities and their


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effectiveness pose strong candidacy as alternatives to the existingexpensive commercial learning products. Some of the characteristics thatare in support of making a verdict regarding an Open Source learningapplications are associated to cost savings, stability, performance andaccess to code. Moreover, for ensuring that users in the near future as

well as the longer term have access to the best available applications,these Open Source software applications should be built on openstandards (Carabaneanu, 2010).

Appendix: Major Learning Tools in Current Practice

In current practice, organizations along with their in-house global

learning systems also use various web 2.0, social networking, VoIP tools

for virtual learning and training across the length and breadth of the

organizational structure. However, each of these tools has its own share of

challenges, strengths and weaknesses. Some of these aspects of the

major tools in practice are shown below (Mason, 2008):


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BibliographyASTD.Org (2010) E-Learning Trends 2010, January, [Online], Available:

http://www.astd.org/LC/0110_trends.htm [13 July 2010].

Carabaneanu, L., Trandafir, R. and Mierlus-Mazilu, I. (2010) Trends in E-Learning,

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Codianni, A.V. (2009) Case Study: Toshiba Simplifiesand ImprovesCorporate

Training with E-Learning Tools, [Online], Available:

http://www.astd.org/LC/2009/0109_odianni.htm [10 July 2010].

Hoffman, J. (2002) Peer-To-Peer: The Next Hot Trend in E-Learning?, Feb,

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Shank, R. (1997) Virtual Learning, New York: McGraw Hill.

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www.herridge.ca/pdfs/Corporate%20Elearning%20Trends.pdf[14 July 2010].

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Virtual Learning Now!