John Chambers, CEO of Cisco Systems, told the New York Times last year that learning will be `the next killer app` for computer technology. "E-Learning", in Chamber`s now famous words, "will make email look like a rounding error".
Peter Orton, program director of global curriculum technology for IBM, maintains that, "One cannot over-estimate the power of face-to-face learning for certain people skills, especially teaming, collaboration and leadership." (source: Training Magazine).
These statements represent the respective views of the `pro technology` and `pro facilitation` groupings in the business and HR communities. The purpose of this article will be to examine the validity of the two positions, and to suggest that ultimately both may miss the point and that a seamless conversion of the two is not only possible, but also desirable.
The Case for Technology
Go to any HR or training trade show around the world and you will see an explosion in technology based learning (TBL) companies and solutions. Clearly many millions of dollars, pounds and even Rand are being pledged to incubate and grow TBL companies, which continue to emerge like daisies in spring. In 1996 in the US, only 3% of Fortune 500 companies were using TBL. This year, 92% of large US organisations are implementing some form of TBL (source: Masie Centre).
Why this explosion? Why this talk in the boardrooms around the country about learning as if it has just arrived from outer space?
The case for technology is oft-heard in the industry:
reduced cost (including time away from the job, less travel and accommodation cost, increased reusability of materials)
use of a process that is more flexible, allowing for learning that is `just-in-time` before a particular piece of skill or knowledge needs to be applied on the job and `just enough` for that application
the process is `learner centred` which leads to employees taking more responsibility for their own development
the training message is consistent across variables of time and distance
learning and results can more easily be tracked and measured
and finally the Holy Grail: the claim that training can more easily be evaluated in terms of money or, as some express it, Return On Investment.
An example of mass movement to TBL is KPMG in the US. 3 years ago, 90% of that company`s formal training was conducted in classrooms. Today 70% of the training needs are handled using TBL. The company estimates that TBL costs 70% less than traditional training and is regularly completed in a fraction of the time. (source: Training Magazine).
The Case for Classroom
In the world of the traditionalists and the purists, TBL is a poor substitute for the teaching and training approaches ingrained in our corporations and institutions. Humans to a large degree are social animals and education is not merely the acquisition of new information and skills, but a social activity where skills and knowledge are debated, practised and demonstrated.
Technology can be a great productivity enhancer, but it cannot change the fundamentals of human communication. No matter how many data bits there are or how the aggregations are sliced and diced, they don`t substitute for interaction with other humans. The TBL and Internet pioneers have not had it all their own way. Some of the problems faced have included the fact that not everyone has access to a PC; course content is, in some instances, boring, of poor quality or lacking in interactivity; expectations by some that learners would learn outside of working hours have simply not been met.
One reason the traditional class model is still favoured by many educators is that self-paced learning is regularly effective only for highly motivated students. Traditionalists also talk of the greater effectiveness of the classroom in facilitating:
Participants learning from each other
Learning through exploration and contextualisation
Networking
Problem solving in teams
Application of learning through simulation, role play, action learning, drama
Immediate response and feedback
A useful distinction can be drawn between tacit and explicit knowledge. Explicit knowledge is procedural (how to do something) and can be taught on-line. Tacit knowledge is ingrained and difficult to articulate. How for instance would a person be trained on-line to tie shoelaces or properly grip a tennis racquet?
The Balance
In this new world of the Knowledge Economy, workers are having to shift from individual training events to life-long learning in order not only to be marketable, but also indeed to retain their existing jobs.
In this context, neither the proponents of classroom or TBL are wrong. It is submitted that the best of both be adopted to allow a menu for the Knowledge Worker of today and tomorrow from which they are able to select that will have a healthy balance of TBL, facilitation and other learning media.
Technology is a delivery mechanism, not a panacea. Properly integrated into a learning curriculum that is based on business needs and that combines the best of facilitation and self-pace, and seen as a performance technology, as opposed to information technology, that focuses on getting the right learning to the right people to enable them to enhance their business performance, TBL will take its rightful place as an integral part of the learning mix.
Increasingly there will be a convergence of methodologies and technologies employed by both on-line and classroom instructors. It is common in a classroom to see video, CD-ROM and other multimedia supporting and enhancing the learning experience. Additionally, many instructors now place their pre-work materials on class web-sites. The tools and techniques of TBL are increasingly being found in the classroom environment, and with the advent of `chatrooms`, on-line tutors, and the like, so too the other way around.
The hybrid of the future will likely have a person-to-person kick-off, followed by distance learning modules, then by more facilitated sessions to reinforce that distance learning, even if only via synchronous web-based learning sessions or text chat. The best learning experiences allow us to question as we learn, and the human mind will always have a range of nuance and question that couldn`t ever be programmed into a computerised learning system.
While today we hear of classroom and TBL as separate learning techniques, in future learning will be seen as more of a continuum that embraces a full range of methodologies and technologies. Through this healthy convergence, learning in the future will have more of the thrill and less of the chill than perhaps is the case today!
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