The ABC's of elearning

Build value into your next consulting project by helping your client take advantage of elearning. Project deliverables easily fit into the ABC's elearning framework of Author, Broadcast and Comprehend.

With the Authoring done by you, the consultant, the Broadcasting is automatically done by Blackstone, all that's left is the Comprehension done by your clients. After all, effective communication that ensures understanding, delivered over the Internet is – elearning.

To be effective with elearning you must successfully manage the ABC's - Authoring, Broadcasting, and Comprehending.

elearning is about sharing knowledge, information and data that exists within your organization. This is accomplished by building learning objects or lessons, then allowing those lessons to be accessed by everyone that could and should benefit. It is useful to also track the level of understanding so additional information or feedback can help ensure understanding. Effective elearning creates "moments of understanding", which are both enlightening and empowering.
Author - Authoring is the first step. This is the creation of lessons or courses, or "modules". The key here, is to provide a means where modules can be developed by content experts who are not technical wizards. When people with the knowledge are given tools which allow them to share their knowledge, the result is effective learning. Unfortunately all too often the tools to build the lesson are themselves difficult to learn. Authoring must be simple, flexible and allow the re-use of existing material.	Broadcast - Once a module or lesson is created, it needs to be made accessible to those who can benefit from it. Publishing modules over the Internet is the most popular method to make it widely available. The modules are served via web servers, either hosted in-house or by a service provider. Web technology today makes hosting a relatively straight forward exercise. Often it is an organizatons internal politics and policies, not the technology, that causes delays at this step.	Comprehend - Finding and viewing a lesson, answering questions, and reviewing results are all covered in the Comprehension step. All that should be required by the user is a current Web browser. The requirement for any special download to the desktop can often be a significant barrier at this step. As lessons are presented, both questions and feedback are necessary to ensure the material is learned - promoting real understanding, not just memorization.

The final piece of a complete elearning solution is the Learning Management System, (LMS). This manages users, user profiles, groups and modules. Typically information like username, permissions, and the results of tests are stored here. More elaborate Management Systems can track questions and manage questions banks, while others can provide document management services requiring an author to 'check out' a document before editing, to ensure proper revision control. There is a wide variety of functionality offered by Learning Management Systems, with the single most important factor being based on industry standards, making them interchangeable.