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The e-learning Festival
Dublin, July 2002
Report by Lars Hyland, Key Accounts Director, Epic
Dublin is, in many ways, a good venue for a European conference
on e-learning. There is a strong base of local companies specialising
in the field - Smartforce and Transware to name but two - along
with some sizeable international organisations such as Citigroup,
Intel and Dell who are active in their pursuit for improved productivity
supported by e-learning. But of course everyone is really here for
the Guinness and the Craic.
Elliot Masie, who runs the
Masie Center in the US, hosts the event. Elliot has a good overview
of the whole e-learning industry and gives some interesting perspectives
on how the market is developing, both for vendors and customer organisations.
Encouragingly, it appears that there is a wider recognition that
the success of e-learning hinges as much if not more on the context
of its use than on the content itself or the software platforms
upon which it is delivered. As a result, organisations are moving
from blanket provision of generic content to a model driven more
by specific business objectives and change initiatives, where the
impact of e-learning is more evident.
A key focus of the event was the global and cultural issues raised
by adopting e-learning across an organisation. Case studies by BP,
Shell and Unilever all pointed to the need for cultural sensitivity
and the perception that, generally, one size does not fit all.
Some interesting general points were raised:
- The language used affects the learning process. Where
learning content is delivered in the individual's 2nd language
(typically English), there is a stronger need to revert to the
mother tongue for conceptual understanding, than with facts and
procedural knowledge
- Different learning styles within world regions means
certain forms of e-learning work less well. For example, some
delegates shared experiences where online discussion forums led
to more confusion than communication of knowledge due to the different
questioning styles of participants across the globe
- Keeping a record of interactions on discussion forums
and other data on students can be a legal and political problem
(for example in Germany) leading to non-participation
- A company culture that dictates a clear set of shared values
can act as a bridge to the different local cultures across the
world, making it easier to communicate new learning and behaviour
- A multinational is unlikely to have a completely uniform
technology infrastructure across all world regions and so
there needs to a high degree of flexibility and pragmatism over
the technology chosen to deliver e-learning content
Read a full report on the e-learning
Festival
Next>>
Case study 1: Shell International
Case study 2: BP International
Case study 3: Unilever
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