When you think of the best way to learn about the newest technology, what do you think of? Chances are, the first thing you’ll do is to engage in informal e-learning, which is to say that you’ll do a Google search and read articles, white papers, advertising, customer testimonials, and commercial promotions in order to familiarize yourself.
This post was made to accompany a presentation which you can download here:
http://www.beyondutopia.net/presentations/nash-2010-10-20.pdf
Accompanying Podcast:
http://www.beyondutopia.net/podcasts/tech-transfer.mp3
What do you do, however, when you need your training to be a bit more systematic? Where do you turn to when you want to learn from an expert? How do you satisfy licensing, certification, and academic qualification requirements?
While face-to-face instruction continues to be a solid segment of the training and education community, it’s important to realize that e-learning has come a long way in the last five years, primarily due to connectivity and access, as well as advances in mobile devices. The notion of any time, any place is truly a reality.
I remember sitting at a workstation at the local internet provider’s office in Chimoio Province in northwest Mozambique near the Zimbabwe border. I was teaching an online course, and I loved the juxtaposition – the high-tech office which sat squarely across the street from mud huts with grass roofs.
That was five years ago. If I were to be in the same situation today, I would not necessarily need to go to the internet cafe. Instead, I’d be able to use my smartphone to participate in online learning. Mobile learning has become important — even when people want to be able to work on laptops in addition to their mobile devices.
Here’s the podcast:
http://www.beyondutopia.net/podcasts/tech-transfer.mp3
Here’s a pdf of the presentation:
http://www.beyondutopia.net/presentations/nash-2010-10-20.pdf
For the full script, please visit:
http://elearnqueen.blogspot.com/2010/10/effective-e-learning-for-technology.html