Summary of E-Learning

Although E-Learning is convenient, efficient, and has many advantages, it is still unacceptable to some business leaders because of the lack of face-to-face communication; thus, in many enterprises, it is still only regarded as an effective supplement to traditional education. Those interpersonal communication (soft skills), management training, customer service and marketing training topics, which are rich in body language and subtle emotions, still need to be taught face-to-face.

So industry insiders say, E-Learning is suitable for those who have the demand, the computer network conditions are ripe for large and medium-sized enterprises, although the market acceptance is not high, but with the increase in the importance of corporate training, it will gradually will be recognized by the business acceptance.

Domestic IT enterprises, communications enterprises, financial enterprises, accounting and auditing, consulting enterprises and manufacturing enterprises, has been in the process of recognition and acceptance of ....... 1. Value Orientation

Values are the core of a nation's cultural traditions, which as a kind of precipitation in people's deep psychological structure to measure things in the basic yardstick, y affecting people's views on the purpose of education, the status of the role of education, the role of the content, as well as the way, method, and thus the education of a nation's value orientation is reflected in every aspect of the value orientation.

The United States is an "individualistic" country, its education theory is completely determined by the individualistic way of thinking, educational policies and regulations stand in the position of maintaining students' personal power and interests, educational institutions to develop students' thoughts and actions in the spirit of individualism as the goal. On the other hand, the traditional Chinese culture is based on ethics, which is the link between social relations, embodied in the society that "emphasizes the collective over the individual", and in the life that "the order of respect and inferiority", "the supremacy of power", and advocates warmth, goodness and respect. In life, they emphasize "order of respect and inferiority" and "supremacy of power", and advocate the principle of "kindness, goodness, respect, thrift and concession". In education, they emphasize the "dignity of the teacher".

2. The way of thinking

The way of thinking is the structure and methodological principles of the elements of thinking that reflect the cognitive ability and characteristics of a certain class of people. "

In the view of some scholars, Westerners are good at abstract thinking, formal thinking and logical thinking, especially the Americans, they are good at seeking the scope of the problem, revealing the law, they are good at breaking through the overall sense of the problem of the study of the parts and elements of the study, to achieve a concrete understanding of things, and in the process of pursuing a precise understanding of things. Chinese people are good at discursive thinking, holistic thinking, harmonious thinking and intuitive thinking are the distinctive features of traditional Chinese thinking.

The different ways of thinking bring about a different understanding of education. On the contrary, the American Educational Communication and Technology Association's definition of e-Learning shows that Americans do not emphasize too much on the content and nature of digital learning when defining the concept of digital learning, but rather, they start from the elements of digital learning, and describe them in a straight-forward manner. They also do not argue too much about the superficiality of the definition, but rather focus on exploring it through practice. On the other hand, we Chinese think differently, we have to name everything first, and we like to debate on concepts, but we don't pay much attention to in-depth practical exploration and summarization. Therefore, in terms of digital learning research in China, there are many theoretical articles published, but few cases of practical application. Digital learning is student-centered, problem-centered learning, students should actively participate in learning objectives and learning plan development, actively participate in discussions, and seek ways to solve problems. Americans are influenced by individualistic thinking, their classroom has always been student-centered, they are better at logical thinking, rigorous thinking, so American students can determine their own practical learning goals and learning plans. Therefore, the learning style advocated by digital learning is easier to promote in the United States.

The author believes that, first of all, the promotion of e- Learning should take into full consideration the influence of our cultural traditions. Culture is the foundation of education, any educational activities are inseparable from the shadow of culture, in China to promote the concept of digital learning, we can not copy the United States e- Learning theory and practice mode, but to actively explore effective forms suitable for the current situation of education in our country, from the material culture, the institutional culture and the spiritual culture of the three levels of digital learning, digital learning theories of countries around the world to selectively absorb the transformation at the same time. While selectively absorbing and transforming the digital learning theories of the world, we should construct a digital learning theory and practice framework with Chinese characteristics. Secondly, we should actively build a reasonable physical platform for e-learning. Although some people criticize that high investment does not bring high efficiency, from the development trend of informatization all over the world, all countries are committed to the construction of education informatization, and seize the commanding heights of education. China's informatization infrastructure needs to be strengthened, and a lot of money needs to be invested to improve the conditions of information technology and the digital learning environment. Again, we need to create a digital learning system with Chinese characteristics. In the digital era, digital learning is bound to become an important form of learning. Based on the material conditions of our country and the difference between the rich and the poor in the east and west, based on the current education system and people's customs, based on people's value orientation and way of thinking, we need to explore the theory and practice mode of digital learning suitable for cultural traditions. More practice, less talk, to improve the quality of teaching and training of innovative talents well combined, to refine a practical digital learning theory system. Finally, we need to explore the e- Learning realization mode in line with China's practice. China's digital learning can not be copied from the United States, the same in China between different regions can not be copied between the models of others, we must encourage the majority of educators to carry out experimental research in conjunction with the specific local practices, especially based on regional and school-based experimental exploration. Today's enterprises are in a fiercely competitive business environment, the flow of information has become more rapid, the means of obtaining information has become more convenient, the enterprise strategy can be easily known by competitors, the newly launched products and services can be imitated very quickly, the secrets between enterprises are becoming less and less, the importance of the traditional production resources is diminishing, and the employees, as a kind of special production resources, have gained unprecedented status and high level. The importance of traditional production resources is diminishing, and the employee as a special production resource has gained unprecedented status and height. Enterprises need to constantly innovate their products and even their business models in order to be able to grow rapidly in the face of competition, and all of this will depend on their employees. All companies realize that investing in talent development is a must, but the question is how to do it in a way that makes learning and training more effective.

Although e-Learning (e-learning) has gained rapid development in foreign countries, and has become an important part of enterprise learning and training planning, but in the domestic practice of the enterprise is struggling, almost all of the HR managers and training specialists realize that through the application of network technology to carry out enterprise e-learning and training work will bring many benefits to the enterprise: Such as a significant reduction in training costs, learning and training behavior becomes more flexible, more employees have been included in the scope of corporate training, etc., but these benefits are not enough to impress them. In the process of introducing e-Learning programs, they often appear to be hesitant, or even simple and rude refusal, they can not confirm that such learning and training will bring what kind of real value to the enterprise, after all, the enterprise is required to measure and calculate the ratio of output to input, just rely on simple concepts is difficult to persuade the decision makers to pay for it.

If we recognize the importance of e-Learning in reducing costs and improving flexibility, we should think about how to make the implementation of e-Learning more meaningful and valuable. In fact, so that e-Learning to become a corporate learning and training booster so as to achieve talent development, this is not an unusually large project, does not require superhuman ability, in the premise of serious thinking and preparation, we can be lower investment prying greater benefits. A well-planned and designed e-Learning program can always create extraordinary value for an organization.

Step 1: Identify the needs and make a plan

What needs to be emphasized is that e-Learning in a narrow sense, as a kind of information technology means of learning and training, is an important prerequisite for success, which is to plan for the learning and training of the enterprise. So the starting point of an e-Learning program should actually be based on an understanding of the needs of the enterprise.

First of all, it is the understanding of the business model and development strategy of the enterprise, which helps us to find out which talents are the key talents for the enterprise to realize the strategic goals, and which training contents can effectively support the strategic development. For example, in a chain-type enterprise, the ability to quickly train excellent store managers determines the speed of expansion, but also determines whether the business objectives can be accomplished, the effective training of store managers has become the focus of chain-type enterprise training. For a company implementing an internationalization strategy, the culture and language of overseas target markets should be an important part of employee learning.

Rapidly establish an understanding of the training needs of the enterprise, key performance indicators is a very important factor, the analysis and study of key performance indicators to help find the key factors affecting the performance of the enterprise, these key factors can often show us clearly with the performance of the enterprise performance closely related to the knowledge, behavior, or skills, to do a good job of such a work can make the training of employees more targeted, can focus on improving the impact on the performance of the chain. This can lead to a more targeted approach to employee development, which can focus on improving the behaviors that affect employee performance. Research has found that a commitment to training employees in the key performance behaviors that affect them-as well as ensuring that employees repeatedly practice these training elements in the real world-will change the usual diminishing learning curve, which generally assumes that the effects of learning will diminish over time. diminish over time.

Based on the identification of the needs of the company, we need to plan the learning and training of the company, which includes the mode of training, the curriculum, the participants of different training programs and so on.

Step 2: Choose the right software platform

There is no doubt that an excellent e-learning software platform is an important vehicle for effective training, and it is important to note that "excellent" here is not in terms of technology and functionality. Any one of the vitality of the software product is a "thought", the idea or from the theoretical knowledge of the model, or from the actual operation of the enterprise experience tooling, and not just a pile of functional modules. For enterprise applications, technological sophistication is never the most critical, the key is the idea behind the technology, so the complexity of the function must not be the first criterion for selection.

If you only want to provide an online learning platform for a small number of employees, purchasing a SAAS service is a good choice, as this requires less personalization, and the SAAS service provider has a wealth of general course resources, a mature e-learning platform, and a comprehensive service system, and the payment method is more flexible and does not create a large financial pressure. However, if you need to provide an online learning platform for the majority of employees, and at the same time need more personalized services, then the enterprise needs to purchase an independent e-learning platform, and often need to carry out secondary development of the platform to adapt to the actual needs of the enterprise. This approach is more conducive to the majority of employees into the e-learning and training, while realizing the accumulation and management of intangible knowledge and experience.

Of course, the interactivity and convenience of the software platform is also an important factor in the selection, which is conducive to the faster acceptance and effective use of the software platform by employees.

Step 3: Develop courses from the company itself

HR managers who have introduced e-Learning training programs often find that online learning has become a chicken ribs - tasteless and unappealing, even though companies have repeatedly emphasized the importance of courses when introducing e-Learning programs, and have also introduced a large number of courses. Although enterprises repeatedly emphasize the importance of courses when introducing e-Learning programs and have introduced a large number of courses, the actual situation is that employees are drowsy in the face of video lectures and well-produced Flash courseware by many famous teachers. Content providers tend to emphasize the authority and professionalism of the course content as well as the fun and interactivity of the course form - content providers hire university professors to establish the theoretical system of the course, and develop the course scripts through professionals, and finally standardize the course by technically-savvy personnel, however, this kind of production technology perspective of the However, this business model from the perspective of production technology ignores the actual needs of learners and enterprises. In the face of such course content, employees often lose the motivation to learn, and the effect is even more impossible to talk about. Unless some kind of long-tail effect can be realized - even though a generic course is offered, there is always enough content to meet the actual needs of the organization, just as you can always find your favorite song on the Internet, even if the provider doesn't know your preferences.

In fact, the successful implementation of e-Learning in large foreign enterprises tells us that only the content of the study is closely linked to the actual needs of the enterprise, is the solution to the study of motivation and learning effect of the fundamental method, the usual ratio of 80%: 20%, that is, the enterprise itself related to the course accounted for 80% of the proportion, and the general-purpose courses accounted for 20%.

If an e-Learning service provider is viewed as a solution provider, the success of the project does not lie solely in whether the software platform is functioning properly, but more importantly in the development of the internal course experience to achieve a two-way flow of experience, which requires long-term, in-depth cooperation between the two parties. From a certain point of view, this is a consulting service rather than a simple sale of knowledge and software products, and technology is only a means of realization.

Step 4: Develop an Effective Operation Mechanism

When an organization develops a learning and training plan, purchases a software platform, and selects appropriate content, the e-Learning program needs a unique operation mechanism to be successful. Such a mechanism is in line with the process of training to generate value: to gain knowledge → change behavior → develop habits → improve performance. More importantly, such a mechanism enables knowledge management and experience sharing within the enterprise, and encourages the enterprise to grow into a learning organization.

Another purpose of establishing an effective operation mechanism is to transform the traditional Training into real Learning, which is more mandatory, while Learning emphasizes the initiative. How to "want me to learn" into "I want to learn" is the need to carefully design, through a variety of incentive-based, constraints as a complementary means and methods, to encourage employees to take the initiative to acquire knowledge, change behavior, and at the same time, through certain mandatory requirements to be constrained. These incentives and constraints are equally important components of an effective operating mechanism.

More important is the operation of the mechanism so as to create a cultural atmosphere, in such an atmosphere, *** enjoyment and sharing is a mainstream awareness, each employee is willing to contribute their knowledge and experience to form the overall experience of the organization, the staff because of such behavior is encouraged - both spiritually and materially, which helps and material, which helps to reinforce and affirm the sharing spirit of employees. For the enterprise, it realizes the manifestation, systematization, and eventual solidification of invisible knowledge into one of the core competencies of the enterprise, which will help the enterprise to gain a greater competitive advantage in this business society full of rapid replication. ADL: Advanced Distributed Learning Sponsor

The ADL, a division of the U.S. government, is responsible for creating SCORM (Sharable Content Object Reference Model), an interoperable blueprint for learning object-based e-learning systems.
The SCORM specification was first developed to ensure interoperability of government training materials. The SCORM specification was first developed primarily to ensure interoperability of government training materials, but has since attracted interest from the corporate sector and global e-Learning providers. This initial specification defines a particular type of learning object, called a ***Shared Content Object (SCO), that can be aggregated and published as a stable content package and distributed via a Web browser under the control of a Learning Management System.Rather than creating specifications from scratch, the SCORM technical working group has tried to reuse existing specifications such as the AICC and parts of the IMS specifications as much as possible. Collaboration with CLEO and IEEE LTSC is also underway, and SCORM has been instrumental in the development of e-learning modules for the government and military. And the U.S. military is preparing to launch an even more ambitious program based on it, bringing together hundreds of universities and research institutions across the U.S. to participate in this new program. So the ADL specification is important for e-Learning providers worldwide.

The IMS Global Learning Consortium

The IMS Global Learning Consortium is a group of educational, commercial, and governmental organizations*** that develops and promotes open specifications for structuring online learning activities. This working group has clarified how e-Learning content can be validated and labeled, and how some common parameters (e.g., student progress information) can be tracked during the learning process. Other specifications discussed in this consortium include enterprise descriptions, content packaging, learner profiles, learning design, storage, competitiveness definition objects, and questions and testing mechanisms. Through collaboration with other working organizations, IMS has become a major contributor to a draft metadata standard whose work is under final review by the IEEE LTSC. This metadata standard will be able to identify tokens of categorical information that learning objects have, such as the title, author, publisher, and format of a course. This work is likely to be the first recognized standard in e-Learning.

CLEO: Personalized Learning Experiences Online Lab

The CLEO Lab is a one-year-old collaborative research lab comprised of companies, researchers, and ADLs*** interested in e-Learning. The lab is sponsored by Cisco, Click2Learn, IBM, Microsoft, and NETg*** and is dedicated to conducting research on SCORM-related applications.

IEEE Learning Standards Committee

There are more than 20 different working groups within the IEEE Learning Standards Committee that are creating different but interrelated e-Learning standards. Topics covered include learning object metadata, student profiles, course sequences, computer-managed instruction, and content packaging, etc. The IEEE has a great deal of influence because virtually every initial working group on e-Learning around the world has agreed to follow the standards recognition process developed in IEEE LTSC P1484. The IEEE LTSC accepts the specifications developed by these organizations and ultimately approves them as certified standards.

AICC: Aerospace Industry Computer-Assisted Training Committee

AICC is an international organization of training professionals formed to standardize instructional materials for the aerospace manufacturing industry and purchasers. However, as a pioneer in the standards movement, the AICC essentially became a trendsetter for an extended period of time across the entire spectrum of e-Learning at the time.The AICC's specifications cover nine major areas, ranging from learning objects to learning management systems. It was very typical that if a company claimed to be compliant with an AICC specification, it meant that it was compliant with at least one or more of the specification guidelines.The AICC operated a specification recognition program available to e-Learning developers so that they could confirm the compatibility of their products. This is a very important feature in today's marketplace because the AICC provides a very independent check.

What is of interest is that the AICC is essentially an industry working group whose primary purpose is to serve the aerospace industry and its suppliers. The broader exploration of e-Learning standards is still embodied in the IMS Global Learning Consortium.

SIF School Interoperability Framework

(SIF) is a draft industry specification with the goal of developing an open specification for instructional and management software for schools, allowing different software to work together more efficiently. SIF defines a set of specifications for communication data between applications in schools and designs communication patterns that enable applications from a variety of different developers to interoperate in a single application environment.SIF is a blueprint for ensuring that different applications can seamlessly interact and ****enjoy data.

XrML

XrML - Extensible Copyright Markup Language - is the digital copyright language of choice. XrML provides a universal way to securely specify and manage copyright conditions for any digital content and services, and will facilitate the distribution of digital content and the development of web services regardless of technology platform, business model, and media type, media format, provider, etc.

Open eBook OEB

Open eBook is an industry standard organization formed by Microsoft, Adobe, and a number of vendors from the publishing industry*** with the goal of defining a universally exchangeable eBook format in the era of e-publishing, OEB, which defines a book's content and descriptive data in terms of XML, so that any e-books can be recognized and represented in compatible e-book distribution, circulation and reading systems. Online learning has become an important foothold for learning in many organizations. Did you know about the e-learning trend?

Shawn Englund, CEO of LearnLive Technologies, looks at seven trends in elearning:

1. Courses that are effective in driving sales will go mainstream. Organizations that are competitive and keep their employees well-trained will have more opportunities to increase sales and expand their brand value. And proven learning strategies that effectively enhance internal expertise whenever and wherever it is needed will drive sales and productivity growth.

2. e-Learning will gain wider acceptance. Organizations will continue to utilize e-Learning as a learning method to reduce expenses and lower travel costs.

3. Integrated services/unified learning platforms. Enterprises will look more to a single central database to manage their e-Learning systems, advancing a standardized, cross-organizational, streaming learning culture.

4. Smaller, single-content providers will be sidelined. Single offerings must adapt to an open architecture and must be AICC or SCORM compliant to survive in the marketplace.

5. Regionalized and specialized enterprises will be the ears of the training services. With the maturity of professional products and services in various fields of e-Learning, more targeted regionalization and specialization of the service provider will become the darling of the market. Traditional large-scale systems need to recruit specialized staff to maintain and train, while these small specialized products are short, compact, close to the enterprise application, easier to deploy, and easier to match the limited budget of the enterprise.

6. Learning strategies will become more streamlined and internationalized. The single-center, open architecture of the integrated services for the enterprise branches around the world to provide a unified learning platform, but also for the global *** to enjoy a unified standardized learning content to provide the possibility. On top of that, the ability to fine-tune the learning content to meet the different needs of each location will become indispensable.

7. e-Learning will serve as a platform to help companies effectively expand their brand influence among existing and potential customers, thus promoting sales. The current Chinese enterprise E-Learning market is still in the primary stage, characterized by the following features.

1. Industry scale and development speed is lower than expected

According to Said Media statistics, as early as 2001, Chinese enterprises for training costs reached 10 billion yuan, based on E-Learning remote training investment also accounted for 0.1% of the overall investment, is expected to 2005, this proportion will rapidly increase to 30%. But it is already 2005, and the whole enterprise E-Learning industry has not broken through the reality of the scale of 100 million yuan mark, the proportion of less than 1% of the investment in corporate training, the pace of development is much slower than expected.

The main reason for this phenomenon is not that the enterprise E-Learning industry itself does not have development prospects, but because enterprise E-Learning and e-commerce bubble economy at the same time at the same time, inevitably by the frenzied impact of the e-commerce era at that time. At that time, there was a one-sided tendency to regard E-Learning as the "all-purpose weapon" for solving corporate training and learning problems, so the industry overestimated the scale and speed of the development of China's E-Learning industry.

Another important reason is that the original expectation is compared to the United States and other developed countries of the enterprise E-Learning industry development scale and speed, and did not take into account the scale of Chinese enterprises, infrastructure platform construction, the degree of acceptance of E-Learning, the investment in training, quality of personnel and other aspects of the reason, so overestimated the development speed of China's enterprise E-Learning industry. Learning industry's development speed.

2. Basically at the stage of E-Training

Chinese enterprise E-Learning is basically at the stage of E-Training (electronic training). With the United States as the representative of the developed countries with "E-Learning" (e-learning) this term, in addition to traditionally have more emphasis on "teaching" in the "learning" of this traditional In addition, it also indicates that the learning organization has been widely accepted and established in the enterprise.

Most Chinese companies have not yet established a comprehensive training system, and the concept of establishing a learning organization, although widely accepted, has not been effectively implemented. Therefore, enterprise E-Learning in China is more "E-Training", that is, the use of information technology to replace or partially replace the traditional face-to-face training.

3. Huge differences in the regional market

By regional distribution, the enterprise E-Learning market can be divided into a primary market (Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Guangzhou and other large cities), the secondary market (Shenyang, Wuhan, Qingdao, Dalian, Chengdu and other medium-sized cities), and the tertiary market (the provinces and regions of the small cities). Currently, about 85%-90% of the market share of enterprise E-Learning is occupied by the primary market, the secondary market share is only about 10%-15%, and the tertiary market share is almost zero.

The reason why the regional market for enterprise E-Learning is concentrated in large cities is that most of the enterprises implementing E-Learning are large enterprises, which are located in large cities. Of course, some companies that have implemented E-Learning are located in small and medium-sized cities, such as insurance and banking, but the deployment of their E-Learning platforms and the distribution of content are also concentrated in large cities.

4. Huge industry differences

Enterprises that have implemented E-Learning show very large differences in industry distribution. According to the collection and analysis of the customer lists of major E-Learning enterprises in this report, it is found that "IT/Communications/Electronics", "Finance/Business", "Education/Training It is found that "IT/Communications/Electronics", "Finance/Business", "Education/Training", "Government/Institutions" account for a higher proportion of E-Learning customers, while "Catering/Retail/Commerce", "Transportation/Construction "The proportion of enterprises in the "Restaurant/Retail/Commerce", "Transportation/Construction", and "Energy/Chemical" categories is very small.

The reason for this is that companies that implement E-Learning more often have better IT facilities, IT skills, and concepts of using IT than other companies, which suggests that corporate E-Learning is subject to these factors.

The combination of traditional enterprise training is not close enterprise E-Learning in China should belong to a kind of enterprise training, but engaged in the E-Learning industry, mostly from IT companies, the lack of enterprise training background, more by the influence of technical thinking is included in the scope of enterprise information systems, so the implementation of enterprise E-Learning has been detached from the training of enterprises. Therefore, in the implementation of E-Learning, there is a tendency to be detached from enterprise training. As a new type of training tools, but also as an enterprise information system, enterprise E-Learning has dual attributes, but the attribute of training has not been fully emphasized, there is a tendency to stray from enterprise training. But this phenomenon has changed, enterprise E-Learning from the original emphasis on technical means, and gradually changed to emphasize the effect of training.