Many organizations have embraced web-based and blended training. The cost of paying instructors, renting training rooms, and the travel costs associated with getting 30 people in the same room is just too much to handle in today’s downsized environment.
I heard that! What’s that shiver that’s climbing up your spine? Is it the boredom that you felt in working through your last web-based training program. The sound of flipping through display after display. Don’t feel bad! We all know how you felt. I felt it, too. Web-based instruction can be a boring experience. It can feel like a 6-hour flight in a small seat, with nothing to do except watch a bad movie.
Let’s step back for a moment and consider some activities that can add the excitement and human element to web-based training.
A Friendly Style
Elementary school English teachers ruined us. They taught us to think too much when we’re writing. We think about verbs, subjects, predicates, and who knows what else. If you are one of the lucky ones who can still scribble down a few words, they probably have as much punch as Casper, the Friendly Ghost.
Yoda, the lovable curmudgeon from Star Wars declared “Don’t Think! Do!” Instead of thinking about writing, just write. Not the contrived way your English teacher taught you, but just the way you speak. It’s O.K. to place a preposition at the end of a sentence. It’s even all right to start a sentence with “because,” or to write one that isn’t exactly complete. As long as your writing style is clear, simple, friendly, informative, and of course warm.
Hopscotch Branching
There was a wonderful book written by Julio Cortazar in the mid 60s called Hopscotch in which the chapters had no titles, just numbers, and you could read them in any order you wanted. It told a different story each time. How’s about we look at our web-based training in the same way. Each and every student does not have to complete each and every module. And within each module, not every person needs to be taught in the same way. Some folks may wish to go directly to the test and see what they test out of. Others may wish to do some practice and only work on the stuff that they got wrong. Still others may want to review a few example. And finally, a few may want to follow the more traditional path of instruction by reading some rules.
Different Types of Practice
Practice is more than answering those silly little yes/no questions. Here are some other types of valuable practice exercises.
Evaluating or repairing someone else’s work (Critique/Repair). Example: Repair each of the objectives in Question 1 by rewriting them in the spaces provided.
Drawing or labeling a graphic or flowchart (Draw/Design/Label) Example: Below is an unlabeled diagram of the sequence of operations of a residential air conditioning unit. Label each box with its corresponding operation.
Simulating a real-world experience Example: Watch each of the 10 crime situations and mark the number corresponding to those situations in which it would be appropriate to daw your pistol.
A Touch of Media
Sitting in a quiet room for four to eight hours is not most people’s idea of a good time. Folks are social animals and like to interact with others. As statistics on the number of hours that an average person spends watching television, surfing the internet, or playing video games indicate, this type of social interaction does not need to involve real people; simulations or diminished sensory input will do just fine.
Entertaining audio or video scenarios add a story to web-based training instruction. Stories that introduce people to characters much like themselves, who have encountered and risen about situations which they themselves will encounter, are a real pick-me-up. I find that this is the only way that I personally tolerate web-based instruction. I can’t wait to get to the following section to see if Jimmy finally sells the Pacemaker 5000 and who is the next oddball character that walks into Wild Wally’s Zoo Supplies.
I have also used media segments not just to introduce information, but to provide simulate practice. The learner watches a scenario until the main character, Danny, reaches a decision point. Then the learner identifies what her or she would do next if they were Danny.
Well, I hope that you enjoyed some of these ideas for injecting excitement into web-based and blended training. Try it. You may like it.
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