There is a contentious debate about the need for rapid elearning. On one corner, critics of rapid type of electronic learning point out the limitation...
There is a contentious debate about the need for rapid elearning. On one corner,
critics of rapid type of electronic learning point out the limitations of the user friendly technology and the inefficient way it delivers content, and on the other corner, advocates for rapid learning argue that this kind of technology works to address majority of learners’ needs.
Every corner of the argument is true, of course. While rapid elearning allows even non-tech savvy professors, teachers and corporate trainers to utilize the internet to deliver the content, it is not recommended for every company or academic need. For example, you would not use rapid e learning authoring tools for training pilots of course!
For conventional and simple training of new product introduction or training for new business procedure that does not require too much content, then using rapid learning tools make sense. An added plus is that trainers and managers can easily create new courses as they need it. In the academic field, teachers and professors can create better presentations than mere PowerPoint for their students either in a blended learning class or in an online university type of class.
How does rapid learning differ from more conventional or traditional learning?
Conventional elearning courses are developed by a team of professionals usually including programmers, system’s analysts, graphics designers, web developers, web designers, and the subject matter experts or the educators. The budget is considerably larger and the lead time is longer.
Industries that use traditional courses like these are: airlines or transportation sectors for conducting simulations and flight test; human resource department for major training courses like leadership training, computer scientists or IT professionals for learning programming languages, and so on.
Rapid e learning authoring tools in the meantime are essential for immediate changing content. There is an understandably short development time and lower budget. While conventional learning might have content specifically created for the course, in rapid style electronic learning, content may be sourced from the web or other references. In short, the content is not required to be original. A team from different backgrounds is unnecessary; often the trainer or teacher is the author of the course.
When is it advisable to use rapid style of learning? In an event of new products, new sales or offer, in offering customer support for any problem that might be experienced in using a product, new policies or in updating new procedures, and so on.
In conclusion, rapid elearning has its advantages which are: easy on the budget, user-friendly, immediate edit and publishing, and re-usability. Unfortunately, its limited capability compared to conventional learning also limits its application to industries and learning institutions. But that is not said that rapid learning is useless and unnecessary. The easy technology bridges the gap between mere PowerPoint presentations and more expensive customized ecourses.
Learning to use rapid e learning authoring tools enables trainers to do away with expensive development teams just for a simple training module for product introduction. And teachers can reach distant students by using these authoring tools to upload on the Internet. PowerPoint allows presentations to be translated to flash but without the narration and interactivity that more powerful rapid authoring tools provide, the lessons will be nothing more than just turning pages in an ebook.
