What We Need is Top-End Content
While important, the bottom-up creation of content is not everything, says Clive Shepherd. The British e-learning expert and consultant fully supports the Web 2.0 principle but sees an important continuing role for top-quality, top-down content that complements user-generated content and 'rapid content' produced by subject experts. The complementary roles of centralised and democratised content is a topic he is highly interested in at the moment, and he will discuss the various aspects of this phenomenon - among others - at OEB 2008.
A paradoxical need for less democracy
When students and employees contribute their thoughts and research to the broader learning community through wikis and blogs, they shift the emphasis away from content as an input to content as an output of the learning process – an output that will benefit future as well as current learners. This new way of giving a voice to students and other stakeholders is a great step forward, says the e-learning expert Clive Shepherd. The democratisation of content creation provides learners with a powerful voice but also enables content to be produced for much smaller audiences and for more esoteric needs. However, he also experiences a paradoxical need for less democracy.
For Shepherd, the Web currently represents a pyramid of content, which has to be well-balanced. At the top of the pyramid is what Shepherd sees at as “Hollywood Content”, the very best content produced by the very best professionals on a centralised basis; in the middle is rapid content produced by teachers, trainers and subject experts, which is much simpler and can be produced more quickly. And lastly, at the bottom one finds the user-generated content. The pyramid shape is significant, because, as this model evolves, there will be much more user-generated content than rapid, and only a small amount of top-end content aimed at the largest audiences. “Sometimes you need to centralise the effort and bring your very best resources to bear on the problem,” is the conclusion Shepherd draws here. He also requires more money to be spent on high-end experts to produce “fantastic content” that help make learning occur for millions of learners around the world.
Opportunities which have to be taken
Shepherd is also looking at the impact of the economic downturn on learning and development in the workplace, providing both major opportunities and devastating threats. In the UK, e-learning developers are currently enjoying a very strong market, while their classroom colleagues struggle. Due to high travel expenses and environmental considerations he sees great opportunities for advancement in the use of learning technologies – in Shepherd’s view quite rare opportunities that simply have to be taken. If learning and development people fail to respond to these threats and take advantage of the opportunities for change, many traditional training departments will find themselves marginalised or even closed down, unable to respond to the problems being faced by their organisations.
Shepherd also sees a tendency towards training being produced and delivered much more quickly. Organisations are less inclined to comply with traditional training timetables, demanding a highly-relevant response available in weeks and delivered in hours. If learning and development professionals do not take advantage of technology to help meet these challenges, they will simply be told to do so by their clients, users and managers – or simply by-passed.
Demands of Generation Y
While economic challenges may be the most pressing, organisations are also having to respond to the demands of the next generation of learners, the so-called Generation Y. New entrants will have little patience with highly-structured, didactic approaches that allow little room for choice, for discussion and for play. It is not that organisations need to conduct all of their learning with the aid of computers, but they do need to become more aware of how technology can help, how it can be blended with existing methods in order to become more responsive and relevant to the next generation of learners. Those working in learning and development who are not engaged with technology will find themselves at a big disadvantage when resources become tight and the inevitable cuts have to be made.
At OEB 2008, Clive Shepherd will also make this coming “make or break time” for corporate training and development a subject of discussion. He will discuss with Donald Clark and Ton Zijlstra on Thursday, December 4th, 17:45 - 19:15, Plenary Session "Generation Y: More of the Same or a Whole New Species of Learner?"
September 30, 2008
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