My definition of distance learning is based on what I observed during my first year of college. When I think back to my first experience with distance learning, I remember sitting in summer school taking an art course. I remember seeing students in another city on a television screen in the classroom as they listened to the instructor's lecture. At the time, distant learning was foreign to me; all I knew was in-person classroom style learning.
'The growth of online distance learning (e-learning) is explosive in almost all sectors, and in many developed and developing countries' (Huett et al., 70). Working in a corporate training environment the past five years has exposed me to the changing world of distant learning and how it is used to provide training to employees throughout an organization. I remember attending orientation training with local human resource representatives present to welcome newly hired employees and guide us though the process of completing required paperwork when I began working for my current employer. That was over 10 years ago and the process for orienting newly hired employees has changed. Today, a blended approach using e-learning activities and in-person training has been established to bring new employees on board.
It appears that corporations are being motivated to move to e-learning in order to limit the impact to their bottom line. Corporate training environments are embracing the use of technology to deliver training to employees. The use of technology offsets the cost of a facilitator traveling to various training sites and reduces the loss of productivity that is often incurred when an employee is away from their work environment. Delivering training through e-learning activities provides employees with immediate access; however questions often surface in regards to effectiveness of the information being delivered (Huett et al., 70).
Producing and implementing e-learning training for employees to access virtually is a benefit corporations are embracing. However, evaluation of the effectiveness of the training and if it is meeting the need of the learners often goes unaddressed. Designing and implementing instruction is sometimes reactive to a request for training without an assessment of the audience's needs. "Training often is judged solely by the number of learner hours logged or by pure appearance" (Huett et al, 71). Being able to look beyond the training numbers and evaluate the effectiveness of the training can help ensure that learners are receiving the information needed to perform their job.
As distant learning continues to evolve, I believe more corporations and educational institutions will look to deliver instruction using this delivery method. Distant learning offers an option of self-pace learning and flexibility that may appeal to those in the corporate sector looking to provide training to employees without having to leave their desk. As this approach for delivering instruction evolves, instructional designers (ID) will need to change and expand their skill sets in e-learning design in order to meet the growing field of distant learning.
References
Moller, L., Foshay, W., & Huett, J. (2008). The evolution of distance education: Implications for instructional design on the potential of the web (Part 1: Training and development). TechTrends, 52(3), 70–75.
