CONVERTING TO A DISTANCE LEARNING FORMAT
We are asked to consider the following scenario: A training manager wants to improve the quality of communication among trainees. He now has face to face training and believes by changing to a blended learning format that the quality of communication will improve. In addition, the training manger is considering putting all of his training material on a server so that the trainees have access to resources and assignments at all times. This sounds good in theory. What I found odd about this week’s assignment was not that the manager wanted to convert to some type of online training, but what was his the logic behind the idea? Online training will automatically improve the quality of communication among trainees.
In my opinion, it takes a lot of planning to create an online distance learning course. Whereas the main focus is communication between instructors, students, and their peers. There are numerous web sites on the Internet that will tell you how to covert classes to online, but should you. Why? Has the training manager given any thought to “pre-planning”? There is a lot of pre-planning that goes into online or blended online training, an example would be gathering the class syllabus, lecture notes, assignment list, quizzes, class project, and any other pertinent information. This is just the starting point.
Patricia
