Effective corporate IT training: Bursting the e-learning bubble

Link to article (By Roland Van Liew)
"In the more than half a decade of e-learning availability, one thing has become clear: the Internet is not a good platform for teaching complex technical topics. "

"But with over half a decade of e-learning availability, emerging statistics and studies conducted by a variety of institutions have yielded some interesting results:

• 57% of respondents to one study described their e-learning experience as "frustrating, lonely, and stressful;"
• The best e-learning environment (which includes audio and visual techniques) yields only about 40% retention of the material covered;
• Humans, by nature, learn best through social interaction - a critical element removed by e-learning;
• Much of e-learning course material is simply live lecture material posted to the Internet, resulting in a poor learning experience in which crucial context is removed because there is no human instructor to impart it."

"As the overall online experience becomes richer and more varied with each technological advance, the debate over live training versus e-learning will continue. But at the end of the day, IT training is all about developing competency, not just completing a course or achieving certification. For any IT training participant to achieve true competency and confidence in the skills they are learning, they must take part in a program that provides extensive, hands-on lab exercises where they can practice and hone their newly-developed skills, enabling them to put these skills to immediate use upon return to the workplace. Until the day arrives that e-learning provides an equally rich, personally-interactive experience, the ability to gain true competence in IT training will remain firmly entrenched in the classroom."