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Cisco Top 15 Questions about Elearning Notes

I can't believe I lost the link and the article wasn't really profound enough for me to go beyond my just 10 minute search. So here are my notes on the guys who are calling themselves the world leaders in redesigning how people learn. I hope that's not true. They have some good "techy" stuff but for the most part they are just taking your 8th grade textbook and putting XML all over it. That's not going to momentously change anything.

1. "Elearning is accesibly information" - where does the learning come into play - people aren't smart enough, or I should progressively thought processed enough to make use of alien cold information that is presented like a toxicology report. Preparing people for use of vocabulary should be a high initiative. Synthesized learning through actual tasks.
   
2. "How does elearning benefit business" - retention of involved employees, smarter people, happier employees, flexibility in volatile markets.
   
3. "Oppurtunities that elearning provides" - a life long ambition of learning and evolving, change in socio-economic oppurtunities.
   
4. "What are some elearning challenges" - students - change mindset, understanding of life long learning, want to change and grow / providers - fun, retention, mediums, organic to each user
   
5. Elearning vs EDt - Elearning is how to work properly using all tools and to handle specific tasks. Sidenote - using the same mediums that you deliver elearning on to deliver everything else, intranet, meeting agendas, email, etc... Elearning is not what I'm after if it has to do with these definitions. I would like to encompass it and make it a dominant medium but personal interaction with mentors and a social infrastructure are vital at the early stages. You need to figure out a pattern using real people before you can give it a digital feel. Come on people haven't we learned anything from the early 90's. This just sound like the Matrix and people getting plugged in and learning Kung Fu....what hooey
   
6. Elearning vs. Classroom training - EL - documented, interactive, customizable / CT - variable instruction, passive, one for all
   
7. "Is there a lack of interaction in elearning?" - elearning doesn't, or shouldn't mean total absence of human interaction with a digital stage. Tim's node theory, fellow peers, communities, a bunch of other words that probably won't work because it takes a while for people to start talking to each other. But, when they do, and the internet has definately expanded our communication customs, nodes and peers and mentors could work.
   
8. "How is elearning more strategic?" - 24 hours, multiple mediums, more control over information (or at least disinformation or useless info), specified, scalable, faster, trackable
   
9. "What is the cost of no elearning" - employees will become antiquated as fast as your hardware. Instructor led training is damn costly.
   
10. "How did Cisco get such a high elearning initative really rolling?" -
    1. Non-threatening with anonymous scoring (focus is helping not judging)
       
    2. Help aids for those who fail
       
    3. Track their abilities with a focus on a trophy like system
       
    4. Monetary incentives for training
       
    5. Mandatory for everyone
    
    
11. "Why did Cisco need an elearning process?" - They had an inability to scale classroom training.
    
12. Start-up advice - What business problems do you need solving? Effective and flexible elearning message. Vendors and demos.
    
13. ROI of elearning - a bunch of facts and numbers...basically it's like warm honey
    
14. RLO (reusable learning object) strategy - DB driven learning objects that can be reused, searched, and modified independant of the learning media.
    

Sidenote - I got a feeling with all these white papers and new tangential focus that Cisco is looking to make a bigger play than just "showing you the way" in the elearning realm. They are really branding this RLO thing and even IEEE gave it authnetication. That kind of scares me and excites me. Wait a second that's only 14...hmm

Link posted by JVMM : 7:55 AM