'Little's Britain': Rapid - vapid but valuable

Letter from UK

'Little's Britain': Rapid - vapid but valuable

London (UK), April 2009 - (by Bob Little) At the eLearning Network meeting, held in London, William Ward, formerly of Cable & Wireless but now an independent consultant, examined the rise of "rapid eLearning". Dating the rise of rapid eLearning to 2003 with the arrival of tools such as Qarbon, Breeze and ToolBook, Ward stated that these rapid application tools posed significant competition to the bespoke eLearning world. They had not only changed buying patterns within the industry but also ideas about why and where to use eLearning.

Today's rapid eLearning tools and tool exponents include Atlantic Link, articulate, Mohive, Lectora, Adobe Connect and Adobe Captivate, said Ward, while champions of the rapid application approach include not just Ward but also Kineo. Ward said that these rapid eLearning tools can be grouped into three broad areas:

Desktop: Lectora, articulate (all costing, typically, less than £1,000)
System: Qarbon, Camtasia Studio, Adobe
Server based: Atlantic Link, Mohive

"Detractors of the 'DIY eLearning' approach accuse it of being PowerPoint on steroids. They say that there is no instructional design, no 'learning' and so it is no good," said Ward. "Rapid eLearning can be seen as somewhere near the bottom of the 'quality continuum' - with goal-based, scenario-driven eLearning towards the top."

He argued that, nonetheless, rapid eLearning had a valid part to play in corporate learning because:

DIY (rapid) eLearning can produce fast and cheap eLearning materials
It is only a matter of time before, with the development of web 2.0 and the blending of collaborative learning, we get 'rapid scenario-based' eLearning

There's no doubt that 'cheap and cheerful' has a place in every industry - so why not in eLearning? While purists sneer that eLearning produced via 'rapid' tools may lack 'quality' in terms of adhering to instructional design principles and may just be 'brain dumps' by subject matters experts, if such eLearning materials make knowledge available at the point of need to improve workers' performance, who can really criticise their place in the learning and development armoury?

This merely adds further pressure to the already beleaguered 'traditional' bespoke eLearning content producers who are finding their cost structures increasingly outmoded in today's increasingly cost-conscious and expenditure-averse times.

For over 20 years, Bob Little has specialised in writing about, and commentating on, corporate learning - especially elearning - and technology-related subjects. His work has been published in the UK, Continental Europe, the USA and Australia.
You can contact Bob.