About EPSS & Technology - Online LearningA disconnect in online learning
Nando Times: Since the dawn of the Internet age, boosters have predicted the end of leafy college campuses as schools go virtual. The miracle of the Internet was supposed to let great teachers reach any student, any time, anywhere. And people all over the world would get the equivalent of a Harvard degree through a computer and a network connection... What a crock. (2001-09-16)Simulation Levels in Software Training
Learning Circuits: Web-based training is a common method for instructing end-users on how to work with software applications effectively. A key aspect to WBT programs is the use of simulations. However, even relatively simple software applications can be extremely complex and require a large range of user interactions. But building a simulation of every application feature makes the training module as complicated as the application. For this reason, instructional designers employ several techniques to simplify simulations for training, including screen capture, point-and-click, data input, multiple paths, and full simulation. (2001-09-16)Re-Learning E-Learning
Darwin Magazine: E-learning's predecessors have been around since Plato, first in the form of instructor-led classroom education and more recently in computer-based training or programmed instruction via audiocassettes, videoconferencing and CD-ROMs. What's different is the shift in thinking from a traditional classroom exercise in learning to the concept of obtaining just the right amount of knowledge, at just the right time and in just the right setting. Next-generation e-learning differs from other forms of education in that it eliminates the barriers of time and distance, and personalizes the user's experience. (2001-09-16)Re-usable Learning Objects (pdf)
Cisco Systems recognizes a need to move from creating and delivering large inflexible training courses, to database driven objects that can be reused, searched, and modified independent of their delivery media. This effort is called the Reusable Information Object Strategy. This document defines the standards and guidelines for designing and developing Reusable Learning Objects (RLOs). (2001-09-16)On Conceptual Learning (pdf)
Our premise is that individuals need possess and command requisite knowledge to be able to act intelligently, be it in learning situations as students or apprentices, or as knowledge workers within an organization. They need to be provided with a combination of conceptual knowledge and detailed factual knowledge. The conceptual knowledge they must have access to within their minds can be complemented with relevant factual knowledge that can be obtained readily whenever specific situations are addressed. (2001-09-16)Web Course Usability
Learning Circuits: Instructors and course developers are well versed in the art of instructional design. Despite this expertise and experience, many Web-based courses suffer from weak Web design and poor usability. Often, learners can't take advantage of good instructional design because the Web environment is too problematic: content is difficult to find, course tools don't work, and navigation is inconsistent. (2001-09-02)Usability, User Experience, and Learner Experience
eLearn Magazine: E-learning still has slow adoption and high dropout rates. Online learning leaves many students frustrated or unenthusiastic. The good news is that concepts and processes for addressing these shortfalls in learner experience can be found in the field of usability. In this paper, I outline ways in which the field of usability, properly understood, can help online learning fulfill its promise. (2001-09-02)Learnability
Felipe Castel: The usability of online learning programs can be broken down into two distinct issues: the usability of an e-college site and the learnability of the course content. The first issue concerns the more usual web site usability questions, such as how easy it is for new visitors to orient themselves and get a good overview of what the e-college offers and what is involved for themselves in e-learning. It is the second issue, that of learnability, that is the more pressing for designers and educators. The basic question is this: What makes the content of a site [or of some resource] learnable? Take any one of the many thousands of online learning courses currently available on the web and ask yourself: Does this course seem difficult to learn? What would improve it? What would the ideal online course in this area look like? These questions all underlie the learnability of the course. (2001-09-02)Learning Management and Knowledge Management: Is the Holy Grail of Integration Close at Hand?
It’s been said that every organization is perfectly aligned to get the results it is getting. The merging of knowledge management (KM) and learning management (LM) is a natural step towards better results. We’ve been watching the confluence of these two fields for a number of years now, and we’re finally seeing evidence that they are beginning to merge. In this report, we try to give some form to the larger vision that is now emerging, which is combining LM and KM into one integrated program, process, philosophy and approach. (2001-09-02)Believe It or Not!
Internet Time Group: The “e” of eLearning is not the important thing. Neither is the “learning.” What’s important is doing. It’s like the tree that falls in the forest not making a sound (because no one hears it.) If somebody learns something but their behavior doesn’t change, they didn’t really learn anything. (2001-08-12)The E-learning Taboo -- High Dropout Rates: Best Practices for Increasing Online Course Completion Rates
New York University Online: Even a highly interactive course with a great instructor can go by the wayside if a company fails to provide sufficient oversight and incentives. Too often, companies dump courses on their employees and then wonder why they don't finish them. Or they expect an external vendor to run everything, but that doesn't work since their employees don't report to the e-learning provider. Company managers must supervise e-Learning the way any other important initiative must be managed. Here are some powerful strategies your company can use to help ensure a high course completion rate. (2001-08-12)Most Learning Objects Aren't
New York University Online: The term "learning objects" is being used in such a broad context that it is rapidly losing any useful meaning. Take for example this description of a learning object from the current IEEE Learning Object Metadata specification: Examples of learning objects include multimedia content, instructional content, instructional software tools that are referenced during technology-supported learning. In a wider sense, learning object could include learning objectives, persons, organization, or events. My sense is that if we keep viewing learning objects in such a "wide sense" they will soon make no sense at all. With that in mind, I have set out to pin point a much narrower definition. We need to understand what learning objects are and what they are not. The goal is to end up with a clearly defined model that is more practical and easier to implement. (2001-08-12)A Vision of E-Learning for America's Workforce
Learning Circuits: Recent technological advances have laid the foundation for a learning revolution that will clearly take place in the years ahead. The Commission on Technology and Adult Learning believes that e-learning will play a vitally important role in equipping workers with the skills they need to succeed in the 21st-century digital economy. Comment: This sounds a little bit like the e-commerce hype of a few years ago. E-learning could quickly go the way of e-commerce if expectations far exceed reality. (2001-08-12)Can an Intranet Teach an Old Dog New Tricks?
Intranet Journal: This article has only scratched the surface on the topic of e-Learning. There is still the issue of whether to build your e-Learning solution on top of your existing intranet infrastructure or hiring someone to build it and house the material externally. Unfortunately, despite the fact that the notion of electronic learning has been around for a while, it is in its infancy. There is still no clear leader or dominant company in this arena, although there are companies that have chosen to adopt these titles by self-proclamation rather than consensus. Whatever you do decide, there is no one perfect solution. In the end, I believe that the most successful e-Learning model may be one that combines the interactivity of a synchronous, instructor-led program and an asynchronous, computer-based program. (2001-08-12)Where Is E-Learning Headed?
e-Learning Advisor: Gartner reports on some of the dominant trends in e-learning -- driving forces that will influence users, vendors, and service providers. Here are the top 10. Among all the other "e" movements, e-learning is one of the fastest growing and universally accepted. In particular, interest is growing in educational and commercial organizations. For example, 80 percent of the top U.S. and European universities will offer global courses by 2004. (2001-08-05)KM and e-learning: a growing partnership
The real value of e-learning lies in its ability to integrate into enterprise business processes and to better leverage intellectual capital. Using e-learning, a company can automate training delivery and offer customized training. New software tools allow knowledge located throughout the enterprise to be more easily captured and distributed as e-learning modules. The differences between training and performance support, between formal and informal learning, are becoming less meaningful. A broader view of “knowledge transfer” is taking hold. No longer relegated to the first few weeks of an employee’s tenure at a company, learning is being incorporated into all stages of an individual’s career. Some tools, such as collaboration software, play a strong role in both e-learning and knowledge management, and are providing an infrastructure where the two can meet. (2001-07-29)Blended or Integrated e-Learning?
IT-Director.com: Blended learning is the mixing and integration of different learning delivery approaches including classroom and e-learning to create a single learning programme. Unlike earlier concepts where e-learning and classroom were seen as mutually exclusive, blended learning is seen as the AND model rather than the OR model. It is about using the best of all worlds to create the strongest integrated offering. It combines the power and effectiveness of the classroom with the flexibility and any-time nature of e-learning and allows learning to be more tailored and more individual, whilst at the same time allowing greater reach and distributed delivery. (2001-07-22)Been There, Done That: Notes on Developing WBT
Implementing e-learning can be a confusing and overwhelming process. Here are lessons learned from someone who's been there. (2001-07-22)Use it or lose it
Online Learning Magazine: How much of your Web-based training (WBT) development budget are you setting aside for usability testing? The odds are that it’s not enough, say experts in the field. Usability testing evaluates not the content of the course, but the navigation, the user interface and other elements that help or hinder a student’s progress through a self-paced e-learning environment. (2001-07-08)The real truth about e-learning’s future
IT Training: The “e” in e-learning will vanish in a couple of years and we will accept that learning will leverage the technology resources of our organisations to increase effectiveness. Talking of which, the use of blended learning is the quiet secret of e-learning. Almost every organisation we visit is doing more blended learning than the industry is talking about. (2001-07-08)Seeing it through
Tactix: You may think you've done enough by the time you've installed the latest learning management system and populated it with shiny new content. You've even launched the system in a blaze of marketing, with the vocal support of your chief exec. Unfortunately you must think again, because seeing it through means much, much more. The dream that organizational learning could be left entirely to the employees, under the control of technology and with never a manager or trainer to be seen, was nice while it lasted, but it's time to wake up. High drop-out rates tell us that learners need more and that e-learning needs careful managing. In this article Clive Shepherd looks at the causes for e-learning drop-outs and takes some advice on how to get completion rates going through the roof. (2001-07-08)eLearning and the Attention Economy:
LineZine: Tom Davenport: We live in an attention economy. At this point in history, capital, labor, and information are all in plentiful supply. Computer processing power increases by leaps and bounds, but the processing power of the human brain stays the same. Telecommunications bandwidth is not a problem; human bandwidth is. The implications for business are dramatic. Through research and simple observation I’ve become convinced that attention is the scarce resource in today’s economy. Education and learning activities, and elearning in particular, are major consumers of attention. How will they compete? And what are the implications for knowledge workers already struggling to divide their attention between their worklife and homelife, while also being told that “anytime, anywhere learning” is the wave of the future? (2001-01-07)21st Century Dilemmas: Balance, Integration, or Learning It All? Hypotheses from the Front Line
In an age where the markets influence our moods, mercies, and marriages, we thought it time to break from the business of learning, per se, to focus on its place in what matters most. Each of us works hard to create time each day, amongst our agendas and emergencies, to learn. We can do so because we’ve both accepted it as a necessity while also making it somewhat of a hobby. Here are the reigning truths that help us through. (2001-07-01)E-Learning Strategy Equals Infrastructure
Learning Circuits: IDC estimates U.S. corporations spent $1.1 billion on e-learning in 1999. Not all of the money was well spent, however. Lessons learned are beginning to emerge: Common among successful organizations is a well documented e-learning strategy that focuses on infrastructure. (2001-07-01)Learning Gets Cool
ASTD @ Work: Hey, fun training isn't an oxymoron! And it's finding new life in electronic media, such as digital games, simulations, and desktop sitcoms. (2001-07-01)Why Online Learners Drop Out
Workforce.com: This articles explores the reasons why the online learning dropout rate can be as high as 50%. One study found finishing the course was dependent on whether managers gave reinforcement on attendance, how important employees were made to feel, and whether employee progress in the course was tracked. Sun Microsystems Inc. found only 25% of employees finish learning content that's strictly self-paced. But 75% finish when given similar assignments and access to tutors through e-mail, phone or threaded discussions. (2001-06-17)Why People Can't Use eLearning
This paper provides eLearning developers with practical examples of usability problems with some eLearning products; a discussion of important usability considerations for eLearning; guidelines on avoiding these problems; and useful resources on usability and accessibility. (2001-06-10)Collaborative E-Learning: The Right Approach
Learning is fundamentally both social and experiential. It is the context of the learning––all of the elements that comprise the experience around the content––that is most important. This paper will lay out the OTTER Group's model for how best to teach and learn online. It will look at many of the elements that must be managed to create e-learning programs where real knowledge is gained, where communities of learning are created, and where high levels of student satisfaction are generated. (2001-06-10)Learning curve
The lack of standards casts a long shadow on the e-learning and learning management systems market. Final LMS standards appear to be a year or two away, and until then there is no guarantee of any possible plug-and-play compatibility among systems. Content providers are slow to comply with budding standards because of costs. They providers have a lot of proprietary software development tools that were built at a time when standards didn't exist. They'll have to throw those away and start using industry-standard development tools. That will cost them money at a time when content profit margins already are fairly competitive. (2001-06-10)Selecting the right e-learning pilot project
IT-director.com: Undertaking a major e-learning programme involves a large investment both in terms of money and of the resources involved. It is also a new and untested world for many organisations. If the initial projects do not deliver the expected results, there often isn’t a second chance, so it is important to ‘get it right first time’. To minimise risk and gain valuable experience, the best course of action is to start with a suitable pilot project. (2001-06-03)E-learning Analysts Recognize Learning Content Management Systems
E-learning: We believe the management of learning objects is the next step in e-learning. Granular information is essential to the delivery of the right information, to the right person, in the right amount, whether it's received on a notebook, a PDA or even over the phone. The careful division and management of data in learning objects allow enterprises to markedly leverage their repositories of data and learning exercises. Learning Content Management Systems enable educators to variously assemble and repurpose information." (2001-05-27)Training in bite-size pieces can save big chunks of time
ZDNet E-Commerce: A new trend in e-learning—developing and delivering courseware in small, easily digestible components—will allow your busy work force to get just the training it needs when it needs it. Learning modules are developed from the ground up, with an eye toward reusability and integration with other modules, or are created by breaking full courses into tasks or competencies. In addition to making learning more accessible in terms of time, client options and cost, learning modules are easier to maintain and update than full-blown courses. (2001-05-13)Creating Online Courses: A Step-by-Step Guide
According to this paper, when designing an online course you should: "Change your teaching style and philosophy. The unexpected advantage of the online environment is that it weans me away from traditional lectures into the more satisfying world of instructional management. Now my goal is not to transmit information from my notes to student notes, but to help students find, digest, assimilate, and apply knowledge." (2001-05-13)Interactivity and MultiMedia Interfaces
David Kirsh, Dept. of Cognitive Science, Univ. California, San Diego: Multimedia technology offers instructional designers an unprecedented opportunity to create richly interactive learning environments. With greater design freedom comes complexity. The standard answer to the problems of too much choice, disorientation, and complex navigation is thought to lie in the way we design the interactivity in a system. Unfortunately, the theory of interactivity is at an early stage of development. I present arguments and observational data to show that humans have several ways of interacting with their environments which...include: preparing the environment, maintaining the environment, and reshaping the cognitive congeniality of the environment. Understanding how these actions simplify the computational complexity of our mental processes is the first step in designing the right sort of resources and scaffolding necessary for tractable learner controlled learning environments. (2001-05-13)Games e-learners play
Perhaps the single, biggest obstacle to the future success of e-learning is just plain boredom. Too many courses deal with abstract concepts rather than real-world practice; they're passive, when learners want to be doing things; they're sterile, when what's required is a little excitement. In other words, they're just plain dull. In this article, Clive Shepherd argues the case for simulations and games as engaging, life-like and highly-interactive learning activities, capable of providing the foundation for second generation e-learning products that really deliver on the hype. (2001-04-08)If You Build It, Will They Come? Overcoming Human Obstacles to E-Learning
ASTD Learning Circuits: Successful implementation of an e-learning initiative is a massive undertaking. The monetary investment is significant, but it has the potential to generate up to a 400 percent ROI and increase a company's competitive advantage. Remember that, ultimately, the success of the system is up to the individuals who use it. Integrating the human element into your e-learning strategy is the most overlooked, and yet the most critical, step for an enterprise-wide solution to fulfill its promise. When individuals succeed at their jobs, organizations realize their business goals. (2001-03-25)E-Commerce: Pushing Ahead With Online Education
New York Times: Corporate trainers and a handful of universities have found a lucrative niche in online education, but companies that have tried to sell so-called e-learning to the average consumer have struggled along with almost every other online publisher that charges for content. (2001-03-18)60 Minutes Online Learning Video
You can view a Microsoft Media Player (streaming) or Realplayer (8.24 MB non-streaming) low-quality video of the 60 Minutes news magazine story about online learning. (2001-03-11)E-Learning: Does It Make the Grade
CIO Magazine: This article describes the what several organizations have learned about using e-learning systems. According to the spokes person for one company: "E-learning is not a panacea," she warns. "An information dump on Microsoft Office is perfect for online. And that frees us to deploy experts at the high end of the spectrum. When we need role-playing, coaching, one-on-one feedback, the benefit of sharing best practices still comes from a real person." (2001-01-21)User-centered Learning
LineZine: According to Judee Humberg: "Too often organizations only replicate a classroom system that is set apart from the flow of everyday life situations. Experts present courseware like pearls of knowledge without offering interaction or practicum experience—that’s not new or better. Technology is used in service of an old education paradigm. Intermixed with the experts’ wisdom is little or no peer-to-peer exchange or exploration of the natural synergies between shared experiences and insights." (2001-01-01)Facilitating Collaborative Learning in Distributed Organizations
Acrobat file: In this paper we describe a system called PHelpS (Peer Help System) that facilitates workers in carrying out such "life long learning". When a worker runs into difficulty in carrying out a task, PHelpS provides a list of other workers who are ready, willing and able to help him or her. The worker then selects a particular helper with PHelpS supporting the subsequent help interaction. The PHelpS system acts as a facilitator to stimulate learning and collaboration, rather than as a directive agent imposing its perspectives on the workers.In order to effectively use modern information technology a worker must possess both lower-level procedural and higher-level problem-solving and judgment skills. On the job performance support (through a good on-line help system or task checklists) can assist workers to overcome many simple impasses. Nevertheless, no matter the degree of training or skill, workers using information technology often need to request just-in-time help from someone in their informal peer-help network. (2001-01-01)
Wireless Learning in Your Palm
This Suite101 article examines the present day realities of the mobile learning (mlearning) vision that: "mLearning is the intersection of mobile computing and elearning: accessible resources wherever you are, strong search capabilities, rich interaction, powerful support for effective learning, and performance-based assessment." (2000-01-01)The Instructional Use of Learning Objects
This is the online version of The Instructional Use of Learning Objects, a new book that tries to go beyond the technological hype and connect learning objects to instruction and learning. You can read the full text of the book here for free.(2000-12-10)Getting IT Support for E-Learning
Tom Barron ASTD Learning Circuits: Training professionals are realizing the value of developing a relationship with in-house IT staff that synchronizes their desire for scalable e-learning with the capabilities--and clout--that their IT people can provide. (2000-12-10)Impacts of Internet on Learning & Teaching
Professor Hossein Arsham: Perhaps the single biggest advantage in online learning programs is interactivity they offer. One of the biggest issues facing universities wading into online learning is interactivity, both in its level and mode, they're willing to accommodate. Just what constitutes 'interactivity' is hardly clear. To some people, it means enabling learners and instructors to share ideas in a virtual chat room; to others, merely posting questions on a bulletin board qualifies as interactivity. (2000-12-10)Web-Based Training
WebTechniques: The specialty of Web-based courseware development thrives at the crossroads of technical complexity and human factors engineering. Its practitioners must be experts in all of the elements of platforms and development tools. They have to know how to apply those tools to achieve the training objectives: to educate a given number of students, within a given period, using vaguely similar or widely different platforms. (2000-12-03)Attitudes to e-learning:a national survey 2000
National Learning Forum: The quality of the learning experience is rated more highly for informal e-learning (58% excellent or good) than for formal methods (45%). However learners rate the amount they learnt during both approaches similarly (78% and 72% learnt a great deal/fair amount respectively). Interestingly, despite these generally positive attitudes among individuals, neither providers nor employers think that individuals have a preference for e-learning over other forms, only 6% and 5% respectively mention this as a benefit of e-learning. (2000-12-03)Personalization in learning solutions
elearningpost.com: "Finding the right kind of information at the right time gets to be a daily struggle. Personalization is a means to narrow down on this flood of information. Companies that deploy personalization engines offer a service to their cutomers by catering to their needs--offering only the information that they are interested in, or might be interested in." (2000-11-26)Web-Based Training
Webtechniques.com: "The specialty of Web-based courseware development thrives at the crossroads of technical complexity and human factors engineering. Its practitioners must be experts in all of the elements of platforms and development tools. They have to know how to apply those tools to achieve the training objectives: to educate a given number of students, within a given period, using vaguely similar or widely different platforms." (2000-11-26)Just-in-Time Education: Learning in the Global Information Age
Wharton: "According to Wind and Reibstein, the new model achieves its goals by moving from standardized to customized content, from discrete time and place to anytime and anyplace delivery, and from passive lecture models to interactive and applied learning. Instead of squeezing managers into the constraints of educational programs, the new model focuses on designing education tailored to the needs of students." (2000-11-19)When using sound with a text or picture is not beneficial for learning
Australian Journal of Educational Technology: "Conventional wisdom tells us that two modalities (visual and auditory) are better than one modality in any instructional message. This paper describes two cases where combining audio explanations with visual instructions has had negative rather than positive or neutral effects. The results were explained as a consequence of working memory overload. Some guiding principles in the design of multimedia instruction are suggested." (2000-11-19)Students' fear of computers stressing them out, study finds
National Post: "A third of all university students suffer technological stress and phobia, many of them because computers leave them feeling uncertain or afraid of failure, an ongoing study has found. The study ... found that anxiety levels were high even among students familiar with using computers for e-mail and word processing." (2000-11-12)Informal Learning Most Effective
Knowledge Management Magazine: "Approximately 75 percent of the skills employees use on the job were learned informally, the study found, through discussions with coworkers, asynchronous self-study (such as e-mail-based coursework), mentoring by managers and supervisors and similar methods. Only 25 percent were gained from formal training methods such as workshops, seminars and synchronous classes." (2000-11-05)Learning suffers when IT hijacks Knowledge Management
HR Zone: "Few of the lessons of even successful teams make it into the “organisational memory”, and new teams repeat many of the mistakes of the past. Organisational learning has been hijacked by IT, in the guise of “knowledge management”, and employers are struggling to address the human issues associated with knowledge creation and exchange." (2000-11-05)E-learning struggling to pass tests, but slowly improving
According to this article by Garrett Wasny of Knight Ridder/Tribune News Service "Despite some overwhelming technology limitations, resource constraints, and ethical questions, e-learning offers many new exciting opportunities for both academic teaching and corporate training. A number of software programs and online services, although still in their infancy, are worth exploring, if only to experiment with interacting and sharing information in an online medium with others who may be scattered over thousands of miles and several time zones." (2000-10-22)Bill Communications' Extraordinary Products Awards
The recipients of the first-ever Bill Communications' Extraordinary Products Awards, showcasing the work of pacesetting suppliers who have produced outstanding — and commercially available — products and services. (2000-10-08)An Irreverent Commentary on the OnLine Learning 2000 Conference
According to this editorial by the Internet Time Group: "Since last year's OnLine Learning in L.A., vendors have invested massive amounts in eLearning. Sadly, the money apparently went primarily for name-changes, signage, and corporate makeovers. Flash, not substance. A few vendors had great things on display but it was hard to cull them out from the sheer clutter of the wannabes." (2000-10-08)Study: Computers Don't Help Kids
Wired News: "Billions of dollars spent on school computers and Internet connections deliver little long-term benefit and could be better spent on more teachers and other improvements, a group critical of technology in the classroom said Tuesday." (2000-09-17)A Smarter Frankenstein: The Merging of E-Learning and Knowledge Management
Learning Circuits: "Take an e-learning course. Chunk it into discrete learning bites. Surround it with technology that assesses a learner's needs and delivers the appropriate learning nuggets. Add collaborative tools that allow learners to share information. What do you get? Something that looks a whole lot like knowledge management." (2000-09-17)Stating the Obvious: Most Training is Boring, Ineffective, or Both
According to this article by Performance Support expert Stan Malcolm "Yup, online training is boring. I’m only surprised that it took a survey to reach that conclusion." Stan contends that" "Virtually all corporate training, regardless of medium, is boring, or ineffective – usually both." (2000-09-10)Report: Online Training 'Boring'
This Wired News article of a study of e-learning reports that: "Many of the managers who responded to Forrester's survey said they were struggling to convince employees to utilize "boring, text-heavy content," and were meeting real resistance from employees who preferred traditional person-to-person training methods." (2000-09-04)Pull the Plug
In this CIO Magazine editorial Clifford Stroll remarks that: "Whenever I point out the dubious value of computers in schools, I hear the comment, "Look, computers are everywhere, so we have to bring them into the classroom." Well, automobiles are everywhere too. They play a damned important part in our society, and it's hard to get a job if you can't drive. But we don't teach "automobile literacy." (2000-08-04)Online Learning: The Competitive Edge
This Information Week article recommends that "E-learning must be integrated into ongoing training processes at companies and viewed as an adjunct to face-to-face classroom instruction." (2000-09-04)Student Use of Course Newsgroups
In a series of four studies, student postings on newsgroups created for their courses at Carleton University were monitored, and opinions were gathered from samples of students and instructors regarding their newsgroup activities. Results show that an overwhelming majority of students never posted messages on newsgroups, nor did their instructors. In addition, a large majority of students rarely read what others had posted. (2000-09-04)Confessions of an E-Dropout
In this Training Super Site article Allison Rossett documents her experience with an online investing class. While she dropped out of the course she concludes that "everyone can learn on the Web. But my experience makes me wonder how many will." (2000-08-20)Iconoclast Says Show, Don't Tell
In this Wired News article about educational technology, Roger Shank, director of the Institute for the Learning Sciences at Northwestern University, says "Your education starts when you start doing things. Let's create everything in a learn-by-doing environment because that's what works." (2000-08-20)The Wonders of Just-in-Time Training
According to this ClickZ article by Trude Diamond "In the adult world, just-in-time training means getting exactly the bit of information or skill practice you need, precisely when you need it – usually just before you have to use it for real." (2000-08-13)Web based Learning Primer
The varieties of web-based learning are usually defined by the technology used, or by the approach to learning that the technology supports. This brief primer describes a number of scales that can be used to characterize and evaluate Integrated On-line Learning Environments on the market. (2000-04-09)Traditional Training Fades In Favor Of E-Learning
"Training is dead--long live e-learning. This might be more than a shift in semantics for some companies that are discovering that training--loosely defined as any enhancement to an employee's skills delivered in a classroom by an instructor--is by and large an antiquated way of looking at how employees acquire knowledge and build skills." (2000-02-13)E-education is the New New Thing
"In the last few years, hundreds of companies have sprung up to compete for their piece of the $740 billion Americans spend annually on education and training. Some companies are using Internet technology to overhaul the way schools procure books and manage their financial records. Others are trying to build nationwide chains of private, for-profit branded schools." (2000-02-06)Learn At A Distance
According to this Information Week article: "Businesses have done the math. They know, for example, that conventional classroom instruction costs hover at about $75 an hour, with full-week programs costing $3,000 to $5,000. Computer-based training, by comparison, costs about half that. What's more, training via the Web can serve up instruction globally--there are no seat restrictions in these classrooms--around-the-clock, and without travel costs." (2000-01-16)Students’ Frustrations with a Web-based Distance Education Course
This article presents a qualitative case study of a web-based distance education course at a major U.S. university. The case data reveal a taboo topic: students' persistent frustrations in a web-based distance education course. In this study, students’ frustrations were found in three interrelated sources: lack of prompt feedback, ambiguous instructions on the web, and technical problems. It is concluded that the students' frustrations in this web-based course inhibited their educational opportunities. (1999-10-10)