The ability to reach people when it is convenient for them, with powerful learning content or support tools that are relevant to what they are doing, is a compelling story for industry thought leaders to tell. And so they have been telling it for many years, with interesting cutting-edge examples and compelling presentations. But it is only recently, with the explosion of the latest  generation of smartphones, and a tipping point of success stories to reflect upon, that mobile learning has truly come of age.

Now is the time to understand what mobile learning can provide to your organization, and to do so you need to understand the basics: the “Who, Where, When, What, Why, and How” of mobile learning.

http://www.trainingindustry.com/media/3579534/element%20k%20enterprise%20mobile%20learning%20and%20development.pdf

Related posts:

1. Download: Meeting the training needs of SME’s: Is e-learning the solution?
2. Download: Using e-Learning to build workforce capability: A review of activities
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Source: Ministry of Education (NZ) – Education Counts. The full report is available here:  http://www.educationcounts.govt.nz/publications/tertiary_education/76972

Executive Summary

This research provides readers with a greater understanding of the potential of e-learning for adult literacy, language and numeracy. It investigates how e-learning can be employed as a means of reaching greater numbers of adult learners and how to better meet their learning needs.

Our overarching research question was:

What characteristics of programmes, such as e-learning, mixed mode, and distance learning, have been successful in raising the literacy, language and numeracy skills (LLN) of adult learners and could be used to supplement workplace training?

The main message that we drew from our work is that e-learning is relevant to and useful for most adults with literacy, language and/or numeracy (LLN) learning needs. However, these benefits rely on a learning programme that is carefully designed to fit each individual’s needs and lifestyle, his or her proficiency with digital technologies, and his or her level of reading literacy.

This distance e-learning, especially when blended with face-to-face support, can provide an effective way of developing the LLN skills of learners currently at Level 2 of the New Zealand Adult Literacy and Life Skills Survey (2006). In this report, we refer to this level as the intermediate level of literacy.

The 10 main findings to emerge from our research are as follows:

1. Literacy, language and numeracy skills in the 21st century include proficiency with digital technologies and practices, including e-learning.
2. E-learning for LLN is largely a recent development in New Zealand: very few well-established programmes exist.
3. E-learning is more effective if it is part of face-to-face training.
4. Māori approaches to e-learning can be used to build skills and knowledge within the Māori community.
5. As long as adequate support is in place, e-learning provides a good source of practice and motivation for second-language learners.
6. The diverse Pasifika peoples benefit from e-learning that fits their respective cultures and lives and is accompanied by induction activities.
7. Many of the e-learning strategies used for building reading and writing skills can also be successfully used for and by adults with disabilities that limit their ability to learn and/or access learning.
8. Using mobile digital technologies in e-learning contexts increases the flexibility of LLN provision.
9. Tutors and support staff require specific professional development in e-learning, and organisations need to develop so that they can successfully accommodate this type of learning.
10. Communities of practice can provide a supplementary means of professional development for tutors engaged in e-learning and can lead to the development of relevant resource banks.

Blending face-to-face LLN training with e-learning for individuals and groups has the greatest chance of addressing needs, but these types of provision must be accompanied by professional and organisational development within and across organisations. We therefore conclude our report with nine recommendations for action:

1. Provide e-learning-related professional development for tutor educators and workplace assessors who work in adult education.
2. Ensure that the quality assurance measures used in relation to LLN programmes include regular assessment and updating of e-learning provisions.
3. Partnerships between and among key stakeholders are essential for the effective development and integration of sustained e-learning opportunities. These partnerships should include web-based facilities that offer access to e-learning content, tutors and professional development.
4. Increase the capacity for e-learning in all New Zealand contexts, including e-learning on marae in collaboration with Māori institutions and communities.
5. Research and develop e-learning in partnership with rural and remote communities. Immigrants’ home countries can be party to this provision, but only if the e-learning infrastructure in these places is sufficiently developed to provide immigrant and transient populations with the opportunity to develop their LLN skills.
6. Establish banks of appropriate activities and resources for use by tutors and assessors, and support these people in a way that allows them to help develop and update those banks as part of their professional development activities. The scale of need in New Zealand suggests this approach could be a cost-effective one. However, achieving this aim would need centralised coordination (a national hub).
7. Support projects designed to investigate the potential that more recent digital technologies might offer learners with LLN needs. This potential could include, within workplaces, for example, mobile learning via mobile phones, simulations with game-like interfaces, and e-learning on hand-held computers.
8. Encourage continuing research in e-learning that is sufficiently complex to aid the evolution of pedagogical practice. How digital technologies can be used to advance learning and how the e-learning professional development needs of professionals and organisations can best be served are issues particularly in need of sustained research.
9. Collaborate internationally to continue to review research and development worldwide, and to disseminate the findings of this research to the New Zealand tertiary sector.

The full report is avaliable here: http://www.educationcounts.govt.nz/publications/tertiary_education/76972

Related posts:

1. Download: Meeting the training needs of SME’s: Is e-learning the solution?
2. E-Learning and small business – lessons from the UK and Europe
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Recently, I had a conversation with someone new to elearning and it struck me that she didn’t fully understand the value of elearning.  I think this is common as more people are joining the world of elearning.  Understanding elearning’s value helps you make the best decisions about when and why to use it.

Read: Why E-Learning is So Effective

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Elearning can have a transformational impact on small business, not-for-profit and other fragmented groups sharing common interests, challenges or opportunities.

Leaders who champion these approaches, and buy-in from participants, is key – but once people are on-board a widespread and consistent improvement in  performance can occur in a rapid and substantial fashion.

Social networking and related services have taken elearning beyond self-contained training that offered little more than traditional distance learning. It now offers an important level of interaction that brings real people together.

The opportunity for interaction between participants promotes collaboration.  This can lead to superior, and often creative, solutions which can benefit every member. Small business, for example, will only get so far working with local competitors, but can interact freely with similar businesses in other parts of the country. Innovative product or service ideas, marketing approaches, and sources of suppliers can all be freely discussed when businesses are not in direct competition.

The benefits are not solely commercial. I am constantly amazed at how much ‘cash-strapped’ government agenices and not-for-profit groups will spend to get members to centralised training, or to bring training opportunities to geographically spread groups. The travel, accommodation and venue costs alone are often substantial, and the reach limited as a result.

Take a typical sporting organisation for example. They might have national, regional, club and school based administration nationwide from the largest centres to the smallest rural communities. They probably share common issues – perhaps they all seek greater levels of grant funding.

One well designed elearning programme in which the participants learn how to submit winning funding applications would address this need. It would involve many members and be delivered simultaneously nationwide, with valuable collaboration between participants sharing experiences and looking for solutions. This would immediately lift performance across the board, and impact nationwide through many members. An initiative like this could generate thousands of dollars of additional revenue and great benefits as a result.

Complement that with programmes in strategic planning, financial practise, volunteer management, and recruitment and suddenly you have strengthened and advanced the capability of your organisation in a very practical way – further and faster than you ever thought possible.

Put simply, this is about flexibility of time and place. This phrase is often used from the learner’s perspective, but it also applies to the delivery of training. Being able to provide training to a disjointed group spread over thousands of kilometres on a flexible schedule enables you to capture more people, more quickly, and more effectively.

What do you wish your community, organisation or industry did better? Tell us and we will show you how elearning can make it happen!

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2. Why not-for-profits should embrace elearning
3. Organisation culture and E-learning

“When planning for a year, plant corn.

When planning for a decade, plant trees.

When planning for life, train and educate people.” Chinese proverb: Guanzi (c. 645BC)

When planning for e-life, empower trainers and learners to engage in e-life.

The small business community in the UK and Europe is a growth sector and collectively the largest employer. European governments and the European Commission have been keen to develop a range of programmes to support this community as many small businesses are vulnerable to market pressures, ‘red tape’ and often suffer from lack of resources and effective business infrastructure. As engine of the European economy their skill assets and continuous up-skilling will be key to economic competitiveness and prosperity, particularly in the context of the knowledge economy. To training and learning providers the small business community represents a potentially huge market, yet one which is difficult to tap into. As a community of dispersed learners VLEs or elearning generally could provide important tools to help engage these potential learners.

Concepts and methodologies of elearning will have to take into account the needs of the small business environment and its learners in order to achieve a wider learning application. A learner driven pedagogy rather than a product driven one could be experienced as the real challenge as it may confront equal opportunities and the democratisation of learning environments, be it blended learning approaches or others.

A) When talking about learning it will be useful to describe learning and elearning to provide a better basis for analysis. What forms of learning takes place involving small businesses?

B) Before assessing how small businesses can be engaged in elearning one has to assess how they can be engaged in learning. What are the conditions under which small businesses engage in learning?

C) When talking about learning in small businesses it is appropriate to describe the wider context as this should inform the business decisions of those wishing to provide learning products and services to small businesses. What is the political and economic context?

Small businesses can be defined as having between 1 and 50 employees and are financially independent, that is it is not owned by a larger company.

Many small businesses engage in formal learning activities because of legal requirements, links to supply chains, new products, machinery or processes, customer demand, standards. Most of them don’t include learning in their business planning, should the latter exist. However, all small businesses engage in some kind of informal ad hoc learning activities and if a learning provider wishes to engage with small businesses than he needs to address one or both scenarios.

From research assessing the possibilities of engaging small business in HE learning environments (Uwe Derksen, Leonardo project Euromanager report, 2001) we know

· the majority of small business managers perform a ‘hands on’ role (93%);

· their primary learning methods are informal, experiential and/or through peer groups (88%);

· academic/professional qualifications are not valued highly (68%) as their relevance is a primary issue;

· issues such as limited time and resources, and short-termism within small businesses contribute to the lack of overall formal planning, including staff develop planning, and the poor take-up of training;

· identified barriers to learning include lack of perceived benefits and lack of appropriate training solutions targeted at small businesses;

· management training is a recognised need within small businesses as a means to improve effectiveness (65%) and/or to expand the business (66%), in particular into European markets (58%);

· access to the internet has increased rapidly (76%);

· cultural issues and preconceptions inhibit the relationship between small businesses and HEIs.

During our work with small businesses we also noticed through a process of formative evaluation that many small business managers and employees required

· extensive pedagogical support and guidance (learning how to learn, particularly independently);

· a learner’s and business needs assessment;

· support in basic and key skills; especially report writing (expressing ideas and concepts) and ICT skills (using the internet as resource and working and communicating in an virtual environment);

· the use of peer groups and “fellow champions” to facilitate learning, translate academic learning concept and provide additional transfer of experiential business knowledge and information.

· a “long” acclimatisation period into an academic learning environment;

· “gate-keepers” to build up trust and mutual understanding between the learner and the training provider;

· in the beginning applicable and relevant knowledge that can be used in the business almost instantly;

· the provision of additional access to resources useful to the business (e.g. unlimited access to the internet at the campus and learning centres) and information provided by guest speakers (real or virtual);

· regular face-to-face meetings;

· the use of peer-group language and cultural values;

· a blend between online and “traditional” learning and formal and informal learning, work based and college-based;

· personal tutors;

· learning content and methodologies that were structured around the business and less around subject areas (i.e. the business is the practical extension of the learner, this is particularly the case with owner managers)

· a flexible learner centred curriculum;

· negotiated learning: the solutions to problems are explored in partnership with the tutor/lecturer and peer group members;

· a learning situation that was a local social experience and process;

· general business support as added value;

· a demonstration of tangible benefits;

· to be valued for their aims and ideas: (the business often being the extension of their personality and life);

· to build capacity to learn and learn to learn, this would include the capacity of the business itself as the development of the learner effects the relationship with his or her colleagues in the business testing their own expertise and knowledge.

Some of these findings have been borne out by other research: “Professor Ian Draffan, Head of e-Learning Services at UfI, highlighted the importance of developing a sense of community amongst online learners. To achieve the UfI ideal of flexible, ‘roll-on, roll-off’ access for learners and to add value to the learning experience, creating tutor groups in stable learning communities are key to retaining learners by active tutoring”.

And “if the benefits of technology are to be realised in terms of improved learner motivation, achievement and retention, as well as widening access to non-traditional learners, then effective learner support strategies must be at centre stage. Research shows that the quality of support for learners is key to their recruitment, retention and achievement, particularly for those non-traditional learners who may lack motivation and experience of learning.

To underpin online provision in the ‘roll-on, roll-off’ model envisaged by the University for Industry, learner support is even more important: to overcome isolation, provide personal feedback, help with technical problems, and permit the social interactions so important to effective adult learning” (Marchmont Observatory, December 2000).

If one accepts that many small businesses don’t have a formal learning culture than it is understandable that the introduction to a learning environment can be an initial daunting experience. Building self-confidence and empowering the learner are key to creating an appropriate learning environment.

In terms of the elearning and small businesses the challenge is the ability to support an environment of “blended learning “ where “blended” means the support for formal and informal learning, to facilitate the exchange of practical information and knowledge, peer group and negotiated learning, on- and off-line learning, empowerment to contribute to ones own learning environment and to challenge existing provisions. The tendency was to move away from consumer-orientated and supply-led learning environment towards a democratically orientated and need-based learning environment.

Interestingly the questions that need to be answered by businesses when engaging in learning and elearning: Which competencies do our staff need in order to ensure continued success in the market place?, What kind of knowledge do we require for such success?, How can the internet be utilised to access relevant learning content?, How do and can we need to organise work based learning?, Which partners and programmes are available? and Which media competencies do our staff require? (see Web Based Training in Kleinen und Mittleren Unternehmen, 2001), also need to be addressed by the learning providers themselves.

“Give a man a fish and you can feed her for a day. Give a man a fishing rod and teach her how to fish, and you can feed her until the fishing rod breaks. Teach a man to fish, and then how to make a fishing rod from locally available materials, then she will eat for as long as there are fish to be caught. Organise the man and her neighbours into a common property resource management scheme and they will be able to fish at sustainable levels. Support them in organising themselves, and they will be able to decide if they wish to earn their livelihood by fishing, or by some other means”

could translate into

“Give a man some learning content and she will learn for a day. Give a man the source of learning content and teach her how to work with it together with some learning provisions and she will be able to benefit from it as long as it remains relevant. Teach a man how to access learning content and learning provisions generally, then how to find appropriate resources relevant to her need, and she will benefit as long as the resources are available. Organise the man and her neighbours into a managed learning network and they will be able to learn at sustainable levels. Support them in organising themselves, and they will be able to decide which learning environment and which learning content is most appropriate”.

© Uwe Derksen 2004

SOURCE: http://www.solt.info/forum_posts.asp?TID=6

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Executives today know that business depends on well-skilled and knowledgeable employees who make the right decisions, work effectively and efficiently, and keep their skills up-to-date.

Especially in today’s economy, executives want to make successful financial investments when deciding what methods to use to keep staff well trained.

Therefore, they demand to know the data and case studies that support new learning approaches like eLearning.

This document addresses five key questions that senior executives ask about eLearning benefits and challenges.

Questions Senior Executives Ask About eLearning Specifics (.pdf)

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Recommended reading, this is part one of a two part post suggesting some ways to use elearning to enhance relationships with your customers. In  some ways it would be better titled “12 ways to use an LMS…” as some of the ideas  - particularly in part two of this post have very little to do with e-learning as such.

Having said that it is an easy to follow starting point for some interesting thinking about the different levels at which elearning can contribute positively to your business operation.

12 Ways To Use E-learning For Customer Acquisition And Retention, Part 1

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In this very succinct download, key lessons from Nestles experience upskilling its global workforce using elearning are described. The importance of learning as an integral part of organisation culture is identified, and the link between elearning culture is also hinted at when this brief case study mentions internal branding for example.

The Nestlé training team has gone one step further to ensure that continual learning is a central part of the organisation’s culture. After discussion with, and agreement from their managers, employees have no restrictions on what courses they are able to take, i.e. someone in a production job could take the MCSE or Oracle certification. By opening up learning in this way, every member of staff, from factory workers to top level management, is given the opportunity to further their personal and professional development. From the outset, the supplier’s services team has worked hand-in-hand with Nestlé, from designing the right solution to meet its specific needs, to customising the learning interface to match Nestlé’s internal branding.

The Nestlé training team has gone one step further to ensure that continual learning is a central part of

the organisation’s culture. After discussion with, and agreement from their managers, employees have

no restrictions on what courses they are able to take, i.e. someone in a production job could take the

MCSE or Oracle certification. By opening up learning in this way, every member of staff, from factory

workers to top level management, is given the opportunity to further their personal and professional

development.

From the outset, the supplier’s services team has worked hand-in-hand with Nestlé, from designing the

right solution to meet its specific needs, to customising the learning interface to match Nestlé’s internal

branding.

Nestle upskills global workforce (pdf)

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2. Linking organisation culture and e-learning
3. Download: Peer Group and Collaborative Learning

Organisation culture consists of three central components:

1. Myths: about how the organisation began, difficulties that were overcome, colourful figures and monumental events.
2. Ideology: the unified set of beliefs which explain and legitimise the organisation.
3. Values: which tell people what is important, and how to behave. Values provide meaning and standards.

In an organisation with a strong culture, key values are intensely and widely shared. The stronger the culture is, the greater the influence it has on the behaviour of an organisation.[i]

In customised elearning programmes,  good instructional design will consider and reflect the culture of the organisation. It should tell the myths, speak to the ideology and advocate key values of the organisation. It should be integrated into design from the very early stages.

Because the strength of a culture is built upon consistency, elearning can be a useful way to reinforce and shape culture. It is particularly effective when used to induct and train employees new to the organisation. Well designed elearning programmes for new staff can deliberately and convincingly shape their thinking and teach the legends of the organisations history to ensure continuity in the way culture is learned and applied across the organisation.

For these reasons, using the standard public offerings of independent training organisations for developing staff can sometimes be contrary to maintaining a powerful internal culture,  or at least be off less value than a customised solution that meets training needs and is fully consistent with the core culture of the employer.

Sometimes culture is being considered not as something to be maintained and strengthened, but instead as something to be created, shifted or changed.

Handling change is not easy. People fell uncomfortable when shifted from the status quo, negativity grows very easily and there is often tremendous resistance. Taking risks, or looking at the organisation from a different perspective can be exciting, but people will need extra support to help them reach their potential. [ii]

Often a conscious shift in culture is being implemented by key change agents and needs to be sold to the wider ‘community’ within the organisation. Sound decisions by champions of change are often carefully considered and meaningful, but rational decisions mean little to others unless they fully understand the reasons behind them.

Elearning can be an effective way to bring people on board and promote a desired change. Organisation theories can be taught, advantages can be understood, new knowledge can be acquired and essential skills developed. Perhaps most importantly, ideas that make sense in principle can be applied to ‘real life’ scenarios so people grow to believe in the change being advocated.

Finally, elearning itself can be a manifestation of a healthy and vibrant culture. If your organisation values innovation, best practise, learning, competitiveness or quality, e-learning should definitely be part of the mix!

[ii] Everything you ever needed to know about training, Thorne and Mackey,  p184, 2007.

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The relationship between organisation culture and learning is a critical one. The same considerations extend to elearning specifically. In the New Zealand context elearning is still a relatively new phenomenon.

Many organisations, and their people, will not have had widespread exposure to elearning provision. This places even greater importance on understanding how organisation culture and elearning depend upon, strengthen and influence each other.

As a starting point for identifying these issues we suggest Nichani’s article “Understanding Organisational Culture for Knowledge Sharing”.

This article is of particular interest when thinking about the collaborative aspects of  ’elearning 2.0′ which combine aspects of formal process and design principles with interaction reflecting  social networking experiences.

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