e-Learning Content

Bridging The Gap – On Line Tutorial – Part Four

Now that we have identified the potential learners, the topics you want them to learn and the delivery method the next step is to decide on the best way to source the training material, I would like to recommend that you follow this process;

  1. Take a look at what is already available in off-the-shelf e-learning courses.  If there is a title that is suitable then this could give you the following benefits;
    1. Using existing course material will drastically reduce the time it takes to implement e-learning and start the learning process.
    2. The cost will be lower
    3. The publisher may have some good ideas about the topic that you may not have thought about.
    4. With many international learners the course content will be continuously enhanced and updated.
  2. If there are no suitable courses available then find the “best fit”.  Contact the publisher and ask if they can include the topics you feel are missing.  Most course publisher are willing to take suggestions form prospective users.
  3. Examine what is missing from the off the shelf courseware and bridge the gap with other forms of learning, i.e. Tutor Led or In Process Learning.
  4. Only when all these options have been exhausted should you consider writing your course material yourself.

If you do decide to develop your own courseware you will require a Learning Management System.  (LMS), a good place to start is Moodle www.moodle.org as this is an open source product and is free to download.

There is a concept in the industry called “content re-purposing” which basically means taking course material (often PowerPoint slides) and turning them into an elearning system, there are many products that will do this for you. If you want to do this and add other learning concepts like virtual classrooms then you should take a look Adobe Connect Pro.

To help you begin the process of finding existing courseware we have hand selected over 800 different courses from 27 of the key e-learning providers and listed them for you on this web site. Take a look at our courses page and see if you can find something suitable.  We have grouped them into several sections to make it easier for you to find what you want, these categories are;

Basic Skills
Communication Skills
Computing / ICT
Health & Safety
Languages
Managing Finance
Managing Information
Managing People
Personal Development
Processes & Operations

Because we have many contacts with e-learning courseware providers we will try to find existing courses on your behalf.  If there is something you need not on the list please let us know by e-mailing me on elearning@connect-soft.com with a description of your requirements and we will search the marketplace to find you suitable suppliers.

We will look at some of these e-learning suppliers in more detail later.

Before we finish the topic of e-learning content I want to give you a word of warning.  One of the quickest and most cost effective ways to create e-learning content is to use video.  Then all the publisher has to do is point a video camera at an expert who then talks for half an hour or so.  These types of courses can be very boring to watch and this means your learners will absorb much less knowledge than with a good interactive multi media training course.  These video based courses will also need a very powerful network, video files are much; larger to download that graphics and could result in your entire business grinding to a halt when several of your learners are all working at the same time.