The new face of corporate classrooms for technical training [Part-1]

Way back in 2001, the percentage of people using technology to deliver training and people using classroom for delivering training was 11.5 and 76 respectively as per ASTD. But, the recent study says that the percentage will be 50 – 50 in next five years. Even after so much change in the learners’ attitude towards the delivery format and their openness for new forms of learning in the last few years, I am still wondering if the e-learning courses and the packaging of them are as per the audience needs and their new learning styles. Is e-learning changing as fast as its learners?

Before we answer either yes or no, first lets’ do our audience analysis. For the benefit of keeping this blog as short as possible and easy to understand, I am making few assumptions about the learners. My assumptions are:
• The learners have understanding of how to use internet.
• The learners have technical background.
• The learners can be either internal or external customers seeking on the job training.

It is evident from the above assumptions that some of the learners could be learning from different locations on internet such as forums, blogs, twitter, vblogs (video blogs), articles and more learning media on need basis on their own before starting an online course. But, since the learners are learning all by themselves and on need basis, it is possible that they could have gained unstructured learning.

Now, while creating learning solutions for such audience, what kind of learning solutions and what kind of delivery formats would enhance their learning opportunities? Do you think traditional classroom training or an e-learning course or a rapid course can be the best suitable one stop solution for all the learners?

Before I answer this question, I wish to share what I have believed for a couple a years. I believe that the very way we look at the need of classrooms and the online courses would transform over the time. The most efficient use of both the medium will be the face of next generation efficient learning solutions. While thinking about such possibility of a new generation learning solution, I had a model in my mind for a couple of years now. I have tried to explain the same in this blog. Why now if it was in mind for couple of years? Because, now the technology enables us to implement this model, I decided to write about it. The model and explanation is a little too long, so I decided to write this in two installments/parts. However, the same model can be implemented for different audience as well to reap results with the same efficiency.

Let me clear few apprehensions you may have before I go ahead and explain the model. The new classroom that I am talking about is not an all new process or system into your training process. It is only few appropriate changes to the development and delivery process to enhance learning and yield effective results with the existing resources. In fact, you can consider this model as a flavor of blended learning in which you have the online learning and classroom learning in suitable phases of your learning solution to provide a more efficient way of learning.

The diagram below is the pictorial of the model that I foresee for the corporate classrooms delivering on the job training and/or technical training.


The above diagram is a very basic idea/flow chart of the model. This model can be improvised and developed to suit individual organization needs. I would explain the diagram and the model in detail in Part-2 of this post.