We often think of eLearning as a very new advancement, popularized only in the 2000s. In fact, the birth of what we now call eLearning was in the 1950s, when noted Harvard professor BF Skinner invented what was called his “teaching machine”. Even way back then, before the Internet or the personal computer, Skinner’s teaching machine allowed colleges and universities to teach students on a mass scale using computers. The first totally computerized training programs were rolled out in 1960.
Today, eLearning has advanced tremendously, adding the amazing accessibility of the Internet, but also the ability to go beyond mere text-based educational materials. eLearning allows training developers to utilize a wide variety of multimedia methods to facilitate learning. Whether you’re offering basic employee orientation, diversity training, or in-depth, highly technical training on specific work processes, eLearning gives you the ability to simultaneously employ text, photos and illustrations, video and audio, as well as interactive training tools into a single class or training program. This gives your company the edge when it comes to educating employees with vastly different learning styles, including your left-brained engineers and techies, who need that logic-based hands-on learning, as well as your creative right-brained thinkers, who might learn best with audio learning and text-based materials.
By definition, eLearning is training that is conducted via electronic media. Today, this is most often done using the Internet, but it can also be done via intranet or even using isolated local machines. eLearning utilizes multimedia and other electronic technologies to access educational courses and programs. Often interactive, eLearning can not only successfully train your global workforce, but can be delivered live and in real time, or as a prerecorded lecture. It is a tried and true method of training employees, including those in your overseas branches.
So what value does eLearning bring to your organization?
eLearning Supports Your Business Goals 
eLearning helps organizations meet their training goals with better cost-effectiveness, decreased travel costs for trainers and trainees, and increases productivity levels. One of the many benefits of a solid eLearning program is that once it’s developed, it can easily be translated and interpreted into any languages your global workforce happens to speak via language services. eLearning also allows for full reporting of progress, scores, and completion rates, so you can easily monitor the progress of students across the organization, both individually and collectively.
eLearning Allows You to Stay Abreast of All the Latest Training Methods
One of the strongest trends in eLearning is the ability to use gamification in your training programs. Research conducted at the University of Colorado found that trainees learned more and retained more of the information presented when they were allowed to actively participate in the training through game-like interaction. Interactive elements induce better knowledge retention, and eLearning provides just that. Better knowledge retention means more productive workers once they get on the job. In addition, eLearning provides real-time access to training and certification programs at a time and place that is convenient for them. This flexibility allows the employee to complete the material at their own pace while not falling behind at work. The employee feels like they can exercise some control over their learning, which empowers them. This helps boost employee morale.
Ease of Sharing With Your Global Workforce
Because eLearning is done via multimedia, usually online, it is much easier to disseminate to your global workforce. Once your training programs are developed and translated into the various languages your employees speak, distributing it to your entire cross-global network is fast, easy, secure, and convenient, not to mention far cheaper than sending trainers armed with scads of printed materials to your various locations around the world.
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