Delivering Engaging Elearning

Delivering engaging e-Learning - an Indian Scenario By: Homz Umrigar India is a vast country with numerous languages and an even more diverse culture & learning patterns. Students often employ the services of an external tutor or an external teacher from early school days. They find this a better way to learn considering that the average batch/class size in a public school or college is 60 to 100 students and the education provided is teacher-centric as opposed to student-centric. With the invasion the of internet into major cities and towns, and with broadband becoming more and more accessible to users, schools, colleges and homes, more and more students are adopting the online route to access their information & learning needs. Be it a project report or an assignment that needs to be submitted, most students visit popular websites or search engines like www.google.com and get their information. However the services of an external tutor are still much sought after. Does this tell us something? Yes it does. Students need a tutor to learn from, and self-study is a religion followed only by a few. Majority of our students visit tutors outside their schools and colleges. Communication and presentation skills are mastered only by a few and so are English Language skills. So can we use technology to our advantage here? Yes we can, most of us already are! Are we e-Learning yet? A broad definition of e-Learning is the use of technology (CD-ROM, Internet, Intranet, wireless and mobile learning) to deliver learning & training programs. The thought that majority of students are now turning to the online medium to get their information and training needs tells us that majority of the students are already studying online in some way or the other. So is India on the brink of an e-Learning revolution? Well, the answer is a yes & no. In a recent survey, I read that “India is leading in e-Learning” but this is as far as development of web-based training (WBT) goes for the western and SE Asian markets. India is a huge hub for outsourced content development, second only to the United States of America. The irony: e-Learning for the domestic market is being developed at a snail pace. Companies are not catering to the huge e-Learning market within India. One reason for this could be the lack of knowledge of this new form of education with the masses. Skeptics among the country/corporate world that feel that e-Learning was invented for a well connected western & SE Asian market and will not work in an Indian scenario where internet / broadband connectivity is not so popular. There are power cuts all across the country so how can we remain connected to a wired world without electricity. This is just one problem. The other is what type of training pedagogy (the strategies, techniques, and approaches that teachers can use to facilitate learning) do we adopt - self-paced, blended or multimodal? Online courses sold today are not much different from the courses developed in the early days of computer based training (CBT). There are certain standards like AICC, SCORM, IMS, QTI, LRN etc. that we comply to. The student is given a learning objective followed by pages of interactive information and occasionally a question or two is provided with the assumption that it will engage the learner. At the end of the learning module or course the learner is given a formal test or assignment to check what they have learned. Great courses are different. They create a world around the learner where the learner becomes so involved and engaged in the learning that he/she looses track of time. Such courses employ simulations, avatars, role playing and use a wide variety of media-rich objects (Video or Flash) making the content fun and addictive. How do we lead the way in this scenario? For starters, we need to develop content based in an Indian scenario with Indian avatars and make it an integral part of the entire training process. We also need to deliver the same in a controlled environment (Reliance Cyber Café or Sify Cyber Café) where the bandwidth and electricity are

controlled. We need to develop light content considering that most of India is connected on dial-up connections, it’s only the major cities that have access to broadband connections. Finally, we need to device a multimodal training pedagogy to deliver training to the masses. What is this multimodal training pedagogy that we need to device? Multimodal is a very simple term used for self-paced learning, classroom-based training, and distant tutor support all neatly packaged in a nice training program delivered via the internet. Vital Components 1. Self Paced Training (WBT / VBT / Simulations / Podcasts / Audio Lesson) 2. Classroom Training (Virtual Classroom / Physical Classroom) 3. Distant Tutor Support {Online Chat (Text/Voice), Phone, E-mail, Discussion Board} Application Develop e-Learning courses that are object-oriented. A training program needs to be split up on a weekly basis with a live tutor interaction at the end of every week and a bi-weekly evaluation to check student performance and feedback on whether the student has applied what was learnt on-the-job. The same can happen over a virtual classroom. Add to this distant tutor support, as the best teachers are in short supply. The e-Training cycle It usually starts off with the trainer specifying a learning object for the learner/trainee to be completed within a given time frame. The trainee then gets online to access learning material in the form of Video-based lessons, Audio-based lessons, Web simulations, Podcasts, e-Books etc. He/she also participates in Live sessions to interact in real time with a virtual faculty. At the end of the week, the trainee is evaluated on whatever he/she has learnt and assimilated during the course of the week. If the performance is deemed satisfactory, the trainee moves on to the next level, whereby the entire cycle is repeated again. This continues until all the learning objects have been met with. A final word Like any other big idea, e-Learning in India is bound to catch on. Not just that, owing to India’s inherent diversity, e-Learning will be found more than just useful in the effective dissemination of new ideas. Also, small towns and villages which are far-flung from the major centres of learning (read metros), and where the majority of India resides, will benefit in a big way from e-Learning. Students will now be able to pursue their education from home base, without having to physically move to these metro destinations. Corporate India, too, will be able to optimise its manpower resources by opting for training delivered via the eLearning mode. As of now, e-Learning is beginning to make its presence felt - slowly but surely. It won’t be long before it becomes the favoured mode of learning and training in India.