It’s All in the Blend

I’ve been an online learning guy for nearly 10 years and I’ve seen several organizations develop online learning strategies. Often, they focus on the latest toy – whether that’s the laptop computer, the internet, PDAs, or the latest 4-G phone. The good news is that excitement for the newest technology often ignites excitement for how it can be used to promote organizational learning. The bad news is that these technologies are seldom used effectively because they become the focus of new programs instead of being used as part of the blend.

Blended learning is a popular term these days. It usually refers to the blending of online learning with more traditional face-to-face experiences, but can easily expand to include personal communication devices – or whatever the next great toy might be.

So what’s the smoothest blend?

Well, to a great extent that depends on your organization, but there are some basic guidelines:

• Basic knowledge, such as product information, industry standards, software tutorials, or organizational procedures, can usually be effectively taught in a self-paced, online environment.
  
• Soft skills, such as leadership, personnel management or salesmanship, are often best presented in a face-to-face environment where the importance of personal behaviors and motivation can be stressed and demonstrated.
  
• Constantly changing or evolving information, or complex step-by-step information that must be readily at hand, can be effectively delivered using the new generation of phones, or network-enabled PDAs.

The best solution will effectively blend these options into a complete program that continually reevaluates the organization’s needs and environment and sweetens the blend accordingly. Variety is the spice of life – in training this means it’s all in the blend.