Corporate implementation of eLearning has surpassed critical mass.
As the rate of deployment for corporate eLearning gains velocity, the need to communicate effectively accelerates in tandem. With 65 percent of organizations using one or more Learning Management Systems (LMS) and 83.8 million registered eLearners online as of 2010, the importance of corporate communication with and for eLearning has reached and surpassed critical mass.
Purposes
Learning requirements for cost-effective, real-time employee skill sets are increasing.
Communications related to corporate eLearning gain import as the training requirements for cost-effective, real-time employee skill sets increase. ELearning courseware and tools enable you to communicate effectively with broad or target audiences.
Course content associated with particular audiences such as new hires, contractors and departments necessitate targeted communications. More general eLearning content for a whole organization or department may encompass human resources policies, financial and expense practices, emergency procedures and first-responder requirements.
Additionally, corporate news and announcements, department updates and performance support can be accomplished via eLearning. For example, online meetings for training and mentoring connections mesh well with eLearning along with tools that include Learning Management Systems and Web 2.0 tools.
Learning Management Systems (LMS)
Professional instructional designers augment eLearning with tools and plug-ins.
Two early LMS market entries, BlackBoard and Moodle, have been joined by numerous entries that now, as of 2010, include Joomla LMS, Saikai and Inquisiq R3.
Communication functionality in LMS’s invariably includes email notifications to registered users that encompass course registration and scheduling announcements, course content availability, testing and grading results, and course certification/completion. Discussion boards are available for comments and interactions between instructors and users along with surveys, polls and file-sharing that can be enabled.
While the range of functionality offered by LMS’s varies, with professional instructional design, limitations can be overcome by utilizing tools and plug-ins to augment your LMS.
ELearning 2.0 Tools and Social Media
Web 2.0 tools such as blogs, wikis and RSS feeds enhance eLearning results.
Blogs, wikis, instant messaging and RSS feeds expand communications options internally and externally for corporations. Your internal communications benefit from eLearning blogs that notify of an event and provide corporate training information relevant to the event. For example, you might blog an announcement of a community lecture on customer service quality, containing custom training content, that defines customer service mission and goals for your corporation and includes a RSS feed link from the speaker’s website. Then instant messaging, texting and social media, such as Twitter, allow participants to send important content during the lecture. Finally, wikis provide a followup to the lecture where attendees impart information learned.
ELearning and SOA
Real-time eLearning dashboards with dynamic data enable instructional excellence geared to learning and responding to live business scenarios.
The advent of service-oriented architecture (SOA) enabled connecting large chunks of business information together in ways that improve business processes and activities. This real-time content springs training from outdated examples to real-life eLearning dashboards with real-time dynamic data that enables instructional excellence geared to learning and responding to live business scenarios.
ELearning and Audio
While some eLearning courses may effectively communicate content via text delivery, there are others that require voice instruction, typically involving the expense of professional recording and rerecording as business changes. With constant business shifting, text-to-speech tools have become popular for communicating audio content. Text-to-speech keeps narrated instruction continuously updated and speeds course development while lowering cost.
Tags: Learning Management, Learning Management Systems, Management Systems, along with, business scenarios, communicate effectively