Page 196 - DMGT518_TRAINING_AND_DEVELOPMENT_SYSTEM

Unit 11: E-Learning

Online courses provide the flexibility to connect while traveling and still teach. It’s the same for Notes
students; they can take a class any time and place they want to.
It’s quite a juggling act to maintain a smooth and energetic delivery while advancing slides,
checking for virtual raised hands, and answering notes. Also, there’s the lack of eye contact and
body language, making it much more difficult to connect with participants. Even the most
engaging speakers lose learners if they fail to deliver a highly focused class that promotes
interaction.

Class Dynamics

An online instructor cannot limit his/her thinking to controlling a class of 60 learners. He/she
may have as many as 500 in a single session from across the world. Only 50 to 60 students of that
larger number participate actively with comments and questions. Making the online classroom
‘real’ is a conscious process. Feedback and interactivity are the keys. In most online classes,
communication peaks during the first week and decreases as the weeks progress. To counter this
phenomenon increase activity-based learning as the classes progress. Give feedback to the
students. Encourage students to visit each other’s pages and comment on them. As the students
get involved, they build a classroom community. Strive for a personal touch and sense of
humour to increase the comfort level.
Make a point to remembering active students, and talk to them when they come back for
another course. Try to lighten things up if they get frustrated. Even a dry subject can be made
interesting by constant interaction. In the online sessions, there would be more sharing of
information among students because there is less competition. Instead of taking notes and
keeping it to themselves, some students post them online.

Understanding expectations and personal styles of trainees through their e-mails becomes a
form of art for online instructors. You get a sense of students’ personalities. You encounter
attitudes ranging from, “I’ve been in this business for three years and designed more networks
than God,” to “This is my first class and first network—please help me.” This is typical of people
from mixed backgrounds who have used simple networks. A person who is accustomed to one
type of network is naturally biased against anything new, but other students often chime in with
their unique network experience that helps broaden everyone’s knowledge.

Self Assessment

Fill in the blanks:

7. The learner composition in e-learning is highly ……………….
8. Online courses provide the …………….. to connect while traveling and still teach.
9. In the online sessions, there would be more sharing of information among students because
there is less ………………...............

11.3 Baptizing into Online Trainer

E-learning has already made substantial inroads into the markets of traditional training methods.
Trainers should therefore change themselves by embracing this technology-driven revolution
of learning. But unfortunately, there are not many trainers willing to relocate themselves from
traditional training to e-learning business. Many organizations and consultants offer train-the-
trainer programs in delivery methods ranging from web to satellite to video conferencing, and
others. Supporting instructors as they make the switch from classroom trainers to facilitators of

LOVELY PROFESSIONAL UNIVERSITY 191