Monday, September 13, 2004

Controlitis: How to Avoid this Debilitating Trainer's Disease

Topics this issue:
1. Loosen up control to muscle up e-learning effectiveness
2. Featured slideshow:
“Four Components of Content“
3. e-Learning Project Costing

1. Loosen up control to muscle up e-learning effectiveness?
Because instructors ultimately control the flow of e-learning information, many of them develop a debilitating disease: "Control-itis."

"Control-itis" arises when the trainer comes to believe wrong-headedly that he or she - not the elearner - dominates the e-learning process.

In fact, elearners ingest information at their own pace. They refuse force-feeding. When expected to ingest irrelevant information, their minds witch off, like those of generations of captive audiences in physical classrooms.

Online learners learn best when they themselves control the e-learning process. To help them function optimally, and to protect e-trainers from "Control-itis" infections:

  • Select training designers who realize that elearners themselves control the speed and depth of their information acquisition.
  • Get rid of long, linear presentations that are only classroom lectures shoe-horned into an online format...required study sequences...videos and slideshows that last more than two minutes...and topic choices dictated by the e-trainer.
  • Avoid misuse of software such as PowerPoint, Flash or Robodemo programs that do not allow the elearner to interact by jumping forward or backward, stopping the presentation exactly, or sensing how long the presentation segment will last.

2. Featured Slideshow: “Four Components of Content“
Planning and choosing what to include in your e-learning content will help you avoid the symptoms of "control-itis".

To see more slideshows, please register and preview Slideshow Gallery at http://www.vignettestraining.com/galleries/trainers/preview/trainers_prev.htm

3. e-Learning Project Costing
In the
Blended e-Learning Workshop you will learn how to cost out your e-learning project the right way. Visit the website for more information http://www.vignettestraining.com/preview-main-ela.htm

Register to the workshop now and own 10 Flash interactivities worth thousands of dollars. To register, click here http://www.vignettestraining.com/preview-main-workshopreg.htm

Hurry, only 12 seats are available for each workshop
http://www.vignettestraining.com/workshops/index.htm


Ray Jimenez, PhD www.vignettestraining.com
"Helping Learners Learn Their Way"