E-learning Revolution: from Propositions to Action
E-learning Revolution: from Propositions to Action
Martyn SlomanCIPD, London2001217 pagesISBN 0 85292 873 4£25
Keywords: Training techniques, Learning, Technology
It is tempting to say that training is particularly vulnerable to "flavour of the month" novelty in training techniques. The description itself, I think, harks back to the time when ice cream suppliers tried to encourage the sale of ice cream, particularly in cinemas, by offering each month a new flavour. Baskin-Robbins took a different approach and offered instead a wide variety of flavours all the time. The ice cream analogy could be useful for many trainers in that it suggests an issue to be wary about with regard to any discovery relating to more effective training – and prospectively learning.
"Flavour of the month" should make trainers wary when they consider the successive methods that have been proposed as uniquely effective solutions,especially in management development. In the UK, for example, we have seen the use of syndicates as at least a partial replacement for lectures, T groups,business games, outdoor training and action learning. The case method was used primarily for those training and education institutions which were initially influenced by the United States and which believed there was more depth and stringency in learning from the case method. These methods, to a greater or lesser extent, at least focused on individual learners, and limited frontal assault from successive forms of technology, capable of dealing with apparently the common needs of thousands of people. First it was programmed instruction,then computer-based training, now e-learning.
The first message for trainers in relation to e-learning, therefore, is that they should adopt a reasonable scepticism about the extent to which it really does represent not only a revolution but also a uniquely effective way of helping people to learn. We have heard the claims before. The Baskin-Robbins analogy gives us a more positive message. It suggests that the training and education world provides a large number of different methods, which may be suitable to meet different tastes of different people at different times. (It could be claimed that the analogy begins to fall down because they are, after all, all ice cream, but the substance of the comparison is appropriate.)
The particular power of e-learning, as Sloman very helpfully shows in his book, is that a training technology is linked to a much wider innovation. Though he does not use the phrase, it could be seen as piggy backing on a technology developed for other purposes. Indeed, he with absolute correctness identifies one of the issues about e-learning as being that it is too easy to be seduced by the apparent attractiveness of the technology and of the ways in which it has been used for other purposes, and to assume that it will work successfully in training.
The chapter in which Sloman discusses the broader context of "e" in,for example, business transactions of various forms is excellent. Admirable too is his insistence that it is the learner who should be the focus of the provision. This is an absolutely crucial issue, related to the previous point about an over-dependence on assumptions about the technology. Sloman implies,but does not make fully explicit, a view that I take, which is that e-learning must be driven by people who understand learning, not by people who understand technology. This is implied in his discussion of the three emerging specialisms in the role of the trainer – design, delivery and learner support.
Another major feature of the book is the way in which the author relates training to issues about the learning organisation. The implications of this are not fully worked through, but at least Sloman provides leads to make any thoughtful trainer try and relate a major technological innovation to broader ideas about how an organisation learns. In my view, he runs into some difficulties as a result of this, because of an earlier attempt to distinguish between learning and training. He adopts a view of learning as being about changes in performance, which is far too restrictive – though it might well apply to training.
The author's insistence on the process and eventual results being learner-centred is well backed up by his comments on the utility of identifying learner style preferences. At the time of writing this book, he could only indicate the significance of this area as a general point – there is now available through the CIPD a detailed assessment of the mutual impact, both positive and negative, of different learning styles on e-learning.
The book is greatly helped by the provision of case studies from different organisations on different aspects of e-learning. Together with the more theoretical constructions provided through various figures and charts, this makes the book extremely valuable as a practical workbook. One area for improvement in what will no doubt be subsequent editions for a technology transition would be the provision of some charts or statements comparing the impact of e-learning with other methods of learning. Sloman suggests that 25 per cent of training might be conducted through e-learning – and makes the point that it is much more effective for the acquisition of knowledge and less effective where interpersonal interaction is needed. Although I have a personal interest in this issue of the comparative impact of methods because of my own writing on the subject, I think this particular book could be improved by spelling out more detail on what the 25 per cent would actually contain.
Alan Mumford
