Imagination goes walkabout online

By VICKI JAYNE

How do you create a space in which minds can play while they learn, curiosity is uncaged, and imagination can go walkabout?

These are the sort of questions that dance in the mind of Cheryl Regan, founder of Learning Curve - an Auckland-based company whose multimedia training packages are being used by several large local companies, and are attracting interest from overseas.

The former Canadian - now an enthusiastic New Zealander - has a long background in education and instructional design.

She started the company with an eye to teaching the basics of instructional design and selling corporates the software tools that would enable them to make their own training programmes.

"But nobody wanted to know because companies were too busy being busy - so we did it ourselves."

She admits to being a little naive about the amount of input that would involve - instructional designers, graphic artists, animators, multimedia skills.

"It was a huge commitment of revenue and a big gamble."

Now the company is so busy doing turnkey projects that there's little time to research and develop other computer-based training (CBT) products.

"Online learning can be approached in so many different ways. With what we're doing here, we can teach products and systems to people in their own space and at their own pace."

Examples include teaching Woolworths' employees how to use a mouse and browser to navigate their new intranet, providing a virtual classroom for 1700 Air New Zealand flight attendants to teach them to use a new onboard terminal, delivering induction in a user-friendly package, and giving Telecom call centre operators a better understanding of their company's internet service.

It is also possible to teach soft skills, says Mrs Regan.

"You might use a video in which a manager is giving an employee constructive feedback about their work. It could include a range of questions or comments from which to choose, and they press a button to get the employee's response. You can actually show this in a way that helps teach active listening skills or good interview techniques."

She emphasises that CBT must come with a human touch - coaching, mentoring, face-to-face and classroom training. Although not always enough on its own, it can level the playing field, bringing everyone up to speed in a non-threatening way.

"It can help bring them to the same level before they get into a classroom."

The ability of CBT to close learning gaps gives it an ethical edge, says Mrs Regan.

"Where you're working with diverse cultures or people with different levels of education, online training can be geared to individual learning pace. So someone might get it straight away, but others may need to go through the same programme four or five times. That doesn't matter."

Creating CBT programmes involves chunking knowledge into an instructional pattern that is accessible, logical and fun. It has to be customised to the end user - so in-depth audience analysis is an important first step in the design.

"If you're teaching in a classroom, you need to know your audience and that is even more important in a technology environment. We go into a company and find out what the audience likes - books, music and so on, so we can specifically pitch the programme for them. Each company is different, depending on the culture and the roles people play."

The objectives for the programme, how the design will look and feel, and what it will cost are all clearly mapped out.

It is important for companies to have a clear educational mission and stick with that, rather than treat the programme as a portmanteau for company data or philosophy, says Mrs Regan.

The approach is broadly show me, tell me, let me do it. Information is clearly presented and followed up with tests, games or quizzes that check users have absorbed it before they can move on. Media types and means of delivery depend on end-use technology.

Online training programmes can be copied onto CDs and dispatched around the country, hosted on a company intranet, or accessed via the internet from home computers.

"Many companies don't realise their employees are already going online to take courses that add to their skill base. People are curious, they get a buzz out of learning and this type of technology provides a bunch of ways for them to do that."

All knowledge can be broken into accessible, bite-sized chunks. That's the beauty of instructional design, says Mrs Regan.

She sees a future for her company as a learning portal - a sort of electronic help desk on steroids, able to help people harness the data-collecting power of the internet.

"There's a lot of content out there. But it's just so much data; you have to know how to use and apply it to create a real knowledge age."

Although a lot of companies have innovation as a key value, not all allow internet access, or the time to play and learn, she laments.

"They may also have integrity and honesty as values but take employees off the net in case they waste time. Maybe they need to performance-manage the few people that are not honest and let the rest, who are, use it to be innovative.

"Everyone plays here. You can't have an innovative company without that."

* vjayne@iconz.co.nz