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Monday, August 9, 2010

Will instructor-led corporate training become extinct?

Until a generation ago, instructor-led training was the only form of training. Now, it is one of the many forms of training available. The other forms include a variety of methods –most of which can be encompassed by the term e-learning. With the world becoming more and more technology driven, will there be a point when instructor-led training becomes extinct ?

I firmly believe the answer is NO.

My reasoning for this conclusion:

• Some skills simply cannot be mastered by self-study or by e-learning. For example, a course of effective presentation skills would be effective only in a live, instructor led session. Trying to learn good presentation skills by watching multimedia would be no more effective than trying to learn swimming that way.

• Practically everyone has started his/her education in an instructor-led environment at school. Consequently, at a subliminal level, our mind associates learning or training with a teacher (a person as opposed to a set of CD’s or webpages). This is a very powerful association in our mind, and cannot be brushed away simply because instructor-led training could be more expensive or time-consuming. Ignoring this very real need for a live instructor will lead to ineffective training that wastes real dollars.

This white paper (web link below) has some excellent thoughts on why adopting e-learning may not be as easy as it sounds.

http://www.e-learningguru.com/articles/adopting_elearning.pdf

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