The Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) released a report titled “Scientific Foundations for Future Physicians.” The central thesis of the paper was that current pre-med and medical school curricula are stuck in an old course-centric model that relies on memorizing information that is likely to change rapidly as the science and technology of medicine…
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I have been in the eLearning business for a long time and I am dismayed by its obsession with technology. Approximately 85% of industry-related emails I receive in my in-box are about the newest and slickest technologies that will supposedly transform online learning as we know it. Included among these emails are veiled messages that…
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I attended a CLO Magazine-sponsored webinar titled “Benefits and Best Practices for Moving to an Enterprise-Wide LMS.” The presenters were Josh Bersin of Bersin & Associates and Shelly Heiden of Plateau Systems. Bersin presented some survey results of why organizations purchase learning management systems and what purchasers found to be the key benefits of having…
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The Masie Center has noted that approximately 60% of new learning initiatives in large companies are driven by legal compliance regulations. There is a raft of health and safety, environmental, human rights, privacy, and financial reporting guidelines that must be adhered to, and training is seen (and often legislated) as a key component to remain…
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Because we all received our education via courses, this is naturally what we tend to think about when training challenges arise in the workplace. Even in the eLearning field, our first instinct is to create a course. This is a tidy and convenient way to give structure to a training intervention. However, a course, or…
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I am constantly amazed at how many organizations (even very large ones) have only two or three people responsible for eLearning. These very small teams are charged with designing, developing, producing, implementing, and managing the eLearning initiatives in these organizations. Not surprisingly, they are often overwhelmed by these responsibilities, have difficulty meeting project deadlines, and…
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In my daily interactions with people in the eLearning field, I get the sense that many are looking for the “magic bullet” – that one thing that will solve all their challenges and help them meet all their goals for their eLearning. And, more often than not, they are looking to technology (e.g. authoring software,…
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The eLearning field is prone to hype, and one of the most hyped things I have come across in the last five years is the promise of learning objects. It is difficult to go to an eLearning conference or read an eLearning journal without hearing about the wonders of these self-contained electronic learning widgets that…
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I have written a lot lately about understanding your organization’s core competencies with respect to producing eLearning, and knowing when to “contract in” needed help as necessary. Sometimes it will be necessary to bring in learning design expertise, or programming expertise, or you may have to buy or lease some learning technologies to help you…
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When we talk with organizations that are having difficulties meeting their eLearning goals, it always seems to me that they are missing a key ingredient for success: a talented juggler. By this, I mean there doesn’t seem to be someone on hand who can bring all the disparate elements together – organizational goals, learning design,…
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