Selling e-learning format - sometimes a challenge.

hey everyone

Ive had this conversation this his internal customer about learning format (Please excuse the vocabulary, i'm french and sometimes lack elegance in the way i express myself in english.

Anyway, having this discussion about learning format. The situation? Initial traing in classroom, need for a 0.5 day refresher based on existing initial training. 500 ppl to train in about 6 weeks, 10ppl per class (so we are looking at 50 sessions in 6 weeks) thoughout the province (Quebec is a big province.)

So given these conditions, i suggest to my internal customer to develop an elearning capsule for the refresher. They've had the classroom initial training, the material already exists - developpement wil be very quick, the diffusion span is very short and sending the trainer all around for 6 weeks (all for a half day refresher class) seems costly.

But the internal customer doesnt want elearning. Given on past experience, he finds elearning ineffective, linear, passive and lacking in human interaction and retroaction. Dehumanized, he says. Not worth the savings (classroom delivery = 50 000$ vs elearning = 5000$)

Well i've heard ll that. And i know that up untill a couple years ago, a lot of ppl called e-learning Powerpoint on steroids and considered interactivity the fact the the learner would decide to change slide themselves instead of the trainer.

Time have changed, i told him. Ppl are more knowledgeable. Developpement tools are better (thanks to articulate and such). Tutors exist and can accompany learners who have questions and difficulties. Don't accuse the technology to be inefficient. Desigin of a course is the designers' job, the the technology behind it. A classroom course can be as inefficiant. We can do amazing things.

But no. E-learning is a financially based decision to him and is a sacrifice to efficiency.

So i share today my desolation at the misconceptions around elearning and how difficult sometimes it is to change a user's conception.