The Business Case for E-Learning

Introduction

Effective e-Learning courses

What works well

What doesn't work well

Case Studies and Examples

Summary

What makes an effective E-Learning course?

The last thing a learner enjoys is finding that an e-Learning course is nothing more than page after page of text. Let's face it, a text-only course turns a web browser into an electronic page turner. If it's boring for the student, it will not be effective.

Other that selecting a reasonable topic, and you can present many topics on-line, the course design is the most important element in developing an e-Learning course.

• In the classroom, an experienced instructor often compensates for course design problems, equipment issues, and learning differences among the students.

• The e-Learning instructor's role changes considerably. Many classroom factors that instructors instinctively compensate for must be anticipated and designed into good e-Learning courses.

• Besides use of a web browser to access e-Learning courses, the other key design element is interactivity. Designing good interaction requires careful planning to ensure that the interaction is relevant to the subject, engaging and effective for the learner, and available for all learners given the assumptions made about their computer's capabilities, Internet access, computer knowledge, etc.

Click here to look at examples of topics that work well and don't work well for e-Learning delivery.