Rapid E Learning

Rapid e learning is essential for many college programs because of limited time and funding. Creating more traditional elearning products are much more expensive, unless the topics are so general they can be used by more than one department or can be used for a long period of time, with few updates. However, given the nature of changing web links, online platforms and content, most traditional programs will outdate quickly, one way or another.

One complaint about educational institutions is that they change very slowly and are not responsive to the student’s needs or employer needs. Training for a specific career needs to be relevant to the current and future employment opportunities. Education in non-training courses also needs to have components which reflect some of the real world. These courses also need to be more applicable to the careers that the students will eventually choose.
Business changes occur fast, product life cycles of 12-18 months (Bersin). In past years, I have used programs like Toolbook to develop tutorials, which were very labor intensive. They often took several months to complete, whereas with more rapid elearning tools, such as Articulate, tutorials could be completed within days from PowerPoint presentations. The latter have outstood the test of time, being still valid years afterwards, with little revision needed. The PowerPoints used have an extensive number of weblinks. Many of these are links to the latest medical treatments and include animations and videos. Quiz games can be added in minutes to the PowerPoints. I have not found any inexpensive tools though, with Articulate Presenter Pro (educational version) costing around $500 a license. Camtasia is much less and is quite but requires more effort, which is also a cost. I am using it for recording tutorials about word processed documents, such as syllabi. Another way to teach is use live web conferencing, such as Elluminate. The cost of this product for a year is about $360 per user, including students. Although budgets are all tight, the real cost for faculty using elearning products are the cost of time for development and maintenance of the learning items.
With any educational product development for the classroom, analysis, design, development, implementation, evaluation (ADDIE) (Kruse) need to be used, although sometimes very rapidly. Most teachers fear technology and its updating, only second to salary issues. Even if they use ADDIE, major barriers need to be overcome for them to devote time for development and implementation of new teaching methods. The use of simple and fast products is essential for any adoption by faculty. This is of course assuming that the faculty members have access to fast computers and online access.
References:
Making Rapid E- Learning Work, Josh Bersin, July 2005, http://www.clomedia.com/content/templates/clo_article.asp?articleid=1008&zoneid=62
Introduction to Instructional Design and the ADDIE Model, Kevin Kruse, April 2006, http://www.e-learningguru.com/articles/art2_1.htm