Geschreven door Peter van der Reijden | April 10, 2012
Sometimes you use a hammer, sometimes a drill. If you start looking for online training tools for soft skills, it is easy to get overwhelmed. There are many approaches and at least as many providers. So what should you keep in mind when comparing the different online training tools? Here we outline four contrasting approaches to online training. Determine the approach you want to take with your online training and finding the best tool for the job will be infinitely easier.
1. Knowedge & Attitude vs. Skills
2. Passive vs. Active
3. One-to-many vs. One-to-one
4. Asynchronous vs. Synchronous
1. Knowledge and Attitude vs. Skills
Behavior = Knowledge + Attitude + (Sub)Skills
E-Learning courses traditionally focus on the Knowledge and Attitude part of the equation. Through video lectures, example videos, theory and quizzes (“What would you do? A. React angy, etc..”), one could easily build up his knowledge of the subject and, hopefully, change her attitude.
Only recently have online training tools began to really focus on the Skills part of the equation. So, what do you say and how do you say it?
What would you like to focus on in your online training? Some say Knowledge and Attitude should be done online, while skills should always be trained in the classroom. Others, and we, find that people’s individual skills don’t get enough attention in the classroom and online training is a way to offer much more practice time in a safe environment.
2. Passive vs. Active
This distinction is closely related to the first one, but nonetheless worth an individual paragraph. Many e-learning initiatives are rather passive: you watch a lecture, look at examples, read about the latest theories and answer a couple of multiple choice questions. This has many efficiency benefits (you can automatically calculate someone’s progress and score) and for knowledge and attitude this might sometimes be sufficient.
But skills are personal and learned through practice and feedback. This means you have to get out there, try, fail, try again and get to the point that mastery is unconscious. Such a process puts an online training tool in a totally different perspective: simply taking in knowledge is not enough. One has to force the learner to actively work on his or her skills and facilitate the feedback process.
When it comes to skills development, we believe Active is always better than Passive. However, we still see a lot of passive skills trainings advertised, which is particularly sad if you take into account all the promising alternatives new technology offers such as gaming, webcam interaction, Skype, etc.
3. One-to-many vs. One-to-One
How many learners will you serve and how personalized do you want their training to be? There are many shades of gray on this dimension, but it is important to realize if your training is more likely to resemble an individual coaching session or a Massive Open Online Course with 65K participants.
Why? Because the tool needs to support it. Luckily, a lot of tools have a good mix of one-to-many (like a lecture that can be viewed by anyone) and one-on-one coaching features when the situation calls for it. But it’s not the default yet, so check if you can both deliver one message to many people at once and engage personally when needed.
4. Asynchronous vs. Synchronous
In training, you have a trainer and a trainee. Whether they interact synchronously (‘real-time’) or asynchronously has many implications for your training. Synchronous tools (such as Skype or webinars) have the benefit of immediate feedback and direct interaction. However, the trainer and trainee(s) have to be online at the same time: limiting the anywhere, anytime benefits of the Web and requiring people to ‘synchronize’ their calendars.
Asynchronous solutions ask more discipline from the learner and lack immediate feedback, but also allow the learners to self-direct their training. It becomes just-in-time instead of just-in-case. Also, the time lag between the learner’s actions and the trainer’s feedback, enhances self-reflection and spatial learning effects (ie. you retain better in three sessions of an hour than one session of 3 hours).
Both types have there uses and none is better than the other. Just know what you’re choosing for.
Conclusion
There is much to be said about comparing tools (have I even mentioned price or ease of content creation?) but these four dimensions should make it a lot easier. First decide how you want to position your online training. Then chose.
And if you are looking for a tool that focuses on (sub)skills, with an active, asynchronous approach that combines one-to-many and one-on-one, I’m sure you are going to like TrainTool.
