Features

Published September 2003

The Next Generation of Live Learning

Sanjay Dalal

One gap arises from the passive training approach taken by current-generation capabilities. Whereas today's online classrooms focus on "learning by viewing," next-generation live learning focuses on "learning by doing." By actively engaging in course activities throughout the session, learners experience a heightened sense of fulfillment with next-generation learning systems. Instructors benefit, too, by being able to engage learners in more interactive, dynamic sessions.

Today's online classrooms also impose a limited, one-to-many mode of delivering training (one instructor to many learners), where the role of the instructor is rigidly assigned to a single individual. Next-generation live learning systems provide a many-to-many mode of delivering training, where possibly many instructors instruct many learners and where roles can be changed dynamically. This mimics a common classroom circumstance where one or more students change roles and become instructors in order to convey information to the class, such as a summary of their breakout session.

Let us examine how the next generation of live learning may create a multi-way, active, dynamic, "learning by doing" environment with more emphasis on the learners and learning process.

The Next Generation of Live Learning
There is one simple formula in the next generation of live learning: the learner. What will a learner do in the online classroom? How will the learner proactively participate? How will the learner react? How will the learner stay engaged? How will the learner get a hands-on experience and really learn by doing, by interacting and even by role-playing? How will the learner communicate with fellow learners? How will the learner communicate with the instructor? Above all, how well will the learners learn in the online classroom so that they will excel and even look forward to their next live learning session? And finally, can the learning continue beyond the live learning?

The next generation of live learning should focus on the learner. Very simply, the goal of next-generation live learning is to create the most compelling experience for the learner. And if the learners are enjoying the experience and learning, so will the instructors.

Keep It Simple
It is very easy for a vendor to get caught up in the competitive-features game and add lots of bells and whistles to its online classroom offerings. What the vendor ends up with is a system that is utterly complex for instructors to comprehend and worse yet, downright scary for learners. Very soon the vendors will have to offer courses for instructors, and maybe even for learners, so they can learn the online classroom solution. It kind of defeats the purpose if instructors and learners need to be trained to use the online classroom.

The next-generation online classroom should strive to keep things as simple as possible for the learners. If the designers make the base assumption that these learners have never participated in a live learning session and are averse to technology, perhaps they can come up with a system that anyone can understand intuitively and use. This is not to say that the more advanced learner cannot use the additional powers of the classroom and maximize their learning experience through personalized interfaces, but that for the layman, the classroom should be as simple as using an Internet browser.

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