The Concise Oxford Dictionary defines a tutorial as “a period of teaching or instruction given by a tutor to an individual or small group.” This hardly sounds like an efficient way of bringing about learning! By way of contrast, in this article Clive Shepherd explores the emerging yet unsung virtues of e-learning self-study materials designed to be delivered in user-friendly fifteen-minute chunks….
There are two criteria which any trainer is going to bear in mind when determining how to allocate their scarce resources – not least their own time. One is the size of the audience for the required training; the other is the potential shelf-life of any solution.
Typically, trainers will dedicate the majority of their resources to meeting the needs of large audiences over long periods, as this justifies the effort they will have to put in designing appropriate solutions. This is particularly true of e-learning, where high development costs and long development cycles make delivery to small audiences uneconomic. A pity, perhaps, because many of the needs an organisation has are short-term and localised – and sometimes these needs are much more important to business performance than the long-term and generalised.
Full story: TRaining Foundation
