Some thoughts.... I work for the MoD and the most glaringly obvious point to come out of my recent dealings with a world leader (apparently) in training was that they didn't understand our business and were always going to struggle to deliver it more effectively and efficiently than we did, despite the promise of e'learning huge swathes of our courses. The complexity of translating our requirement into their systems and therefore producing content was immense. What it has highlighted in my mind is that when asking questions of whether elearning professionals need to have educational qualifications I would suggest no, but they do need a background in it. A few of my current cadre of instructional staff have a Cert Ed but the remainder have a three week train the trainer course behind them. I am now attempting to justify the upskilling of these instructors in order deliver in a modernised context. The key point here is that they have Subject Matter Experts in their subject, they have taught / instructed in some way shape or form and now we are going to convert them into 'learning facilitators', but the skills they require are readily lifted from the educational world. I have previously referred to reflection as a dirty word in the MoD but I value my instructors being able to do it. Truth is the greatest challenge for us is to get the instructor to give up the all knowing position they currently hold and become more facilitative in their approach. Instructional Designers need to understand the art of the possible, the content specialists deliver the media and the instructor deploys it as appropriate. The Mentor role remains unchanged here except for the fact that some of the communications methods are text based rather than face to face. Lastly, on the Japanese model, the system producer is where I see myself sitting. Putting it (the system) in, and making it grow and develop from a management perspective.
No comments:
Post a Comment