In this chapter, we will look at the current situation of telelearning in vocational training. What kind of solutions have been realised? And what kind of applications are there on the market? And again, we will look at small companies and large companies separately.
If we look at the introduction of Information Technology (IT) in the corporate world, we can see that there is no consensus about the productivity gains of it. The benefits and gains were disappointing and difficult to quantify. The same situation can be applied to education (including vocational training): The main trend is that the consumption of IT is growing, but there is no clear consensus about the benefits.
Let's take a closer look on the interaction between technology and vocational training. We can identify three main descriptors, which we will look into by turn: educational content, access means and pedagogical method.
Another import issue concerned with creating content is standardization. This way, courses can be used at different levels and for a longer time. For small companies that could mean that courses can be made specifically for internal use, or can be bought from other companies. Large companies have the same possibilities, but standardization enables them to use courses company-wide. For both small and large companies it also means that an important factor, costs, can be kept at a minimum.
4.1.2 Access means
Traditionally, vocational training was on a same time, same place basis (the traditional classroom: TLC). Tutors learned one or more pupils certain skills. But the advance in telecommunication networks has made it possible to give access to content in more than one way:
Employees can be trained:
Synchronous
Same time - Same place
(tradiotional)
|
Asynchronous
Diffent time - Same place
|
Same time - Different place
|
Diffent time - Different place
(Material on demand)
|
Illustration 1: How employees can be trained.
Technologies that support content access in these ways are:
1. Modem (over POTS), cable modem, ISDN, LAN and WAN.
2. E-mail, web browser
3. CD-ROM
4. Application sharing and related groupware
5. Encryption and secure access techniques.
Especially on the side of groupware there have been interesting advances lately, that offer new possibilities. These will be explained later in this chapter.
4.1.3 Pedagogical methods
Teaching and learning methods have a great impact on the success or failure of training. The main categories of pedagogical methods include:
1. Consultative, reference
2. Lecture, tutorial
3. Exploratory
4. Apprenticeship
5. Collaborative, group-oriented
We can translate these 5 pedagogical methods into requirements for technology. These requirements are:
1. Telepresence for near real-life distance education
2. Collaborative learning
3. Productivity and performance support
4. Hands-on instruction
5. Group formation support
6. Accurate simulations for supervised and unsupervised exploratory learning
4.2 Realised solutions
A form of distance training used for decades already is transmission of printed documents, and occasionally audio-visual (videotape) and software materials, to the learner by mail begun decades ago by companies and open universities. The student learns alone with his "training kit" and has minimum support of a tutor and low interactivity.
With the booming of internet and its media-oriented component called the World Wide Web, teleconferencing and e-mail became possible. This gave way for synchronous and asynchronous learning and feedback. Existing teleconferencing applications are Netmeeting (from Microsoft) and ProShare (Intel). The first, Netmeeting, makes a connection through the internet, and thus is usually unreliable and slow. Through its youthness and rapid expansion, internet lacks a good infrastructure with high bandwidth. The second application, ProShare, uses ISDN or LAN/WAN and sets up a connection in a way that bandwith of a connection is guaranteed. Both provide application sharing (for collaborative working) and file transfer capabilities. To be able to get full motion video and audio, two B-channels (aka two lines) of an ISDN line are required. This drives up the costs of a session.
Other means of training are Computer Based Training (CBT) or Computer Based Instruction (CAI). With the rapid expansion and impact of computers and especially software on business processes, there was a need for means of training people how to use the computers and software. This is were CBT and CAI come in. A CBT program simulates the application: It precisely duplicates the screens and functions being learned, so that when you work with actual application, the look and feel remains the same as experienced with the particular CBT module. The users are guided through exercises that require them to complete functions exactly as they would when working in the actual application. The Help-function in Microsoft Office '97 is a good example of CBT. A restriction is that CBT does not provide interaction with other students or an instructor. On the other hand, students progress at their own pace through exercises and self-assessments.
As pointed out before, life-long learning is an upcoming concept that asks for easy to access direct information on any time at any place. To keep track of performance and costs, there is a need for course / classroom management (CMS). CMS deals with the educational process, it can handle a strategy for deployment and training that will facilitate the creation and management of simple to sophisticated WWW-based asynchronous and synchronous teaching and learning environments.
It is just very recently that applications are available that can accommodate the above solutions and requirements. Additional criteria are that the products must be open standards-based, easy to use and to maintain, portable, replicable, scalable, affordable and has a high probability of success with a long- term cost effectiveness. We will look into two packages that can meet these criteria and requirements: Lotus "Learningspace" and WBT Systems "TopClass".
4.2.1 Lotus LearningSpace
Lotus' LearningSpace combines the anytime, anywhere convenience of distance learning with the face-to-face classroom benefits of a rich, collaborative, instructor-facilitated environment. LearningSpace provides course creation and management tools to create a place where people can train and learn together. The strength of LearningSpace is that it is learner centered and supports the most effective learning model, that of a collaborative learning team in distributed environment. It is team centred, because students collaborate in problem-solving activities, discussions and exercises that result in the creation of new knowledge.
Learningspace is built upon existing technology from Lotus, namely Notes and Domino Server. Notes is one of the oldest and biggest groupware packages. It provides communication (e-mail, discussion groups), workflow management (personal task management, calendaring) and data archiving and sharing (databases).
LearningSpace runs on the Domino Web Server, so it provides flexibility, security and scalability. Lotus Domino server software is a messaging, groupware and commerce platform for the internet, intranets and extranets. Students can access courses via a browser like Netscape Navigator and Microsoft Internet Explorer, or via Lotus Notes client. Notes client access is required for administrative, course development and certain instructor activities.
Learningspace consists of five Notes based databases:
Lotus LearningSpace is thus a collaborative learning application primarily based on existing technology, incorporating some new (synchronous collaboration) technology and strong integration with the internet. It is very complete package, that meets the six requirements mentioned above and has a CMS.
4.2.2 TopClass
Although LearningSpace delivers courses via the web, course management and development has to be done with Notes technology. From that point of view it is not open standards. WBT Systems' TopClass is: It is totally web-based and facilitates the development, management and delivery of web-based teaching/learning environments . Access is by username with password. Participants can access courses in the same way as with LearningSpace: Through a web browser. Courses can be created with any HTML editor (this means any document editor, thus even Notepad). It is also possible to add a variety of other tools vendors, like CUSeeMe, Timbuktu, Netshow etc.
Unlike LearningSpace, which is restricted to six sections, TopClass has 'Unit Learning Modules' that can be a syllabus, lecture, exercise, examination. Files can uploaded to the server. On the next page is a screenshot of the homepage of a participant, directly after login. As you can see, a user can:
Some of the other features of TopClass are:
A further study has to decide which one of the two is better. They seem to be close match, with much of the same features. TopClass is currently used at State University of New York (SUNY), for actually delevering courses to students. The students were quite happy about it, primarily because they could plan their time in a better way.
For a screenshot of TopClass click here
