There is no question that the way we learn has changed dramatically over the last several years. Our own experience in working with training and development has taken us on a journey into the unknown – online learning. Even though I have taught online courses for Bellevue University for 11 years, I wasn’t ready to give up the “platform”, and the face-to-face interaction that comes with that, when it came to my corporate clients. Meeting others, hearing their ideas, watching their responses to topics and solutions were a major part of the experience. It also challenged me as an instructor to keep everyone engaged, answer objections and give reinforcement to those having those “ah-ha” moments.
 
More and more clients were exploring alternatives to curriculum development and training delivery for off-the-shelf courses, as well as meeting the specialized needs of their employees. So what else could we do but dive into the depths of online learning? Two major influences, in my opinion, have been the catalyst for having to “thinking outside the classroom”. (By the way, thanks to Taco Bell for giving us the option to “think outside the bun” a play on words with thinking outside the box. This has been one of those ah-ha jingles for me. I am not sure most people know what the “box” is but we expect them to think outside it. But we certainly know what it means to think outside the bun.)

Back to the two influences – the first has to be the availability of information on almost any topic that is available to us on the Web. The other is the younger generation who has grown up with technology and forced the rest of us to get on board with the unending list of benefits. My own journey has taken me from pre-historic days of playing PacMan to learning to use a TiVo remote control from a nine year old grandson to writing blogs for our website.

We have had amazing feedback from our clients when they learn we have entered the age of technology when it comes to offering them solutions to their needs. We aren’t alone in trying new approaches. A high school in Vail, Arizona, recently eliminated textbooks and issued students iBooks. In an interview with students, most seemed to like the idea of not having to schlep textbooks from class to class and carry weight-laden backpacks home and back each day. For more on this “no textbook” approach, see the following link: http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2005/08/68578

Bill Gates recently spoke at the Techonomy conference in Lake Tahoe, California, where he stated that colleges should be less place-based and technology is the only way to bring education back under control and expand it. Gates said, “It will be better than any single university.” For more on Gates views see the following link: http://techcrunch.com/2010/08/06/bill-gates-education/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Techcrunch+%28TechCrunch%29

So as we continue to explore innovative ways of training and developing our employees and increasing our personal knowledge, perhaps we should begin to “think outside the classroom”.

Posted by Sheryl Stephen, Management Training Systems, Inc. www.trainingperformance.com