OH, YEAH?
October 17, 2016
My eyes automatically roll whenever I read a new ad placed by one of the many e-Learning authoring system providers.
“You can do it!” “It’s easy!” “Anyone can build an e-Learning course!”
Oh, yeah?
The evolution of new learning technology adaptation has always been delayed by the do-it-yourselfers. I first saw it with the introduction of videotape training in the 1970s. “Just give any employee a camera and he, too, can create a meaningful training experience.”
Wrong !!!
In the 1980s, the same misguided conclusions were reached when the CBT and CD-ROM technologies first appeared. Only Interactive Laser Videodisc (IVD) training skipped the intrusion of the well-intentioned crowd of do-it-yourselfers. And, that is only because too much hardware was required. (Is it just coincidence that the best computer-based training programs ever created came during that short history of IVD?)
Today, with the advent of e-Learning, there are a plethora of exaggerated claims regarding authoring software technology. Authoring software providers would like us to believe that their do-it-yourself authoring systems are the magic wands necessary to improved information flow, training, and education.
They may be right about better information flow. The newer digital technologies are certainly a boon to information storage and retrieval.
To give them their due, authoring systems can, also, certainly succeed in helping you design information-transferral programs.
But, they cannot, by themselves, contribute much to learning and retention. To do that, they must be in the hands of an experienced educator or a knowledgeable instructional designer who understands the principles behind effective learning.
Take your choice. Teaching is either an art or a highly developed skill. Few people can teach well. And, since it follows that few people can create effective instruction, few multi-sensory media programs will ever teach well.
The presumption that just anyone can design an effective training or education program is not only flawed — it is dangerous.
And, particularly so when the many useless PowerPoint or written procedure conversions become the end product. E-Learning they are not — and, will never be.
Few of us are professionally successful inventors, mathematicians, chefs, athletes, writers, etc. Does it not stand to reason that few can be creators of sound technology-based instruction — creators of programs that can actually teach so that users can actually learn?
It’s going to take a longer time than it should to bring e-Learning courseware into the “effective learning club.” Current e-Learning examples fall far short of the standards set by IVD and CD-ROM.
And, when I hear the President of a generic courseware supplier say in a public forum: “Forget instructional design. That’s all based on obvious formulae anyway. Our authoring system will allow anyone to create learning,” then I know e-Learning is currently in the hands of the charlatans.
And that is why the “do-it-yourself” purveyors will fail.
We should all applaud when they do. For then we can all move forward working hard to, once again, realize the promise of technology-provided learning.
More on Wednesday – – –
— Bill Walton, co-Founder, ITC Learning
www.itclearning.com/blog/ (Mondays & Wednesdays)