Interactive learning goes beyond content

Tech Talk. By Tom Savel, MD, amednews contributor. May 13, 2002.

TECH TALK

A column about putting technology into practice

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There are three main aspects of what we call e-learning: the content, the tools, and the delivery system.

Content in an e-learning product (e.g., online CME) is critical.

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Clearly, without high-quality content to teach, you have nothing. This e-learning content will vary greatly, depending on the audience and the goals of the instructor or trainer.

Raw content by itself is of relatively little value. It is like a disorganized box of photos, without any labels or organization. A beautiful photo is very nice to look at, but once you are given additional information about that photo, it can then provide you with much greater meaning, and actually teach you something.

E-learning tools provide structure to the content. They allow content to be shaped to meet the specific needs of the learners. In addition, e-learning tools allow learning progress to be monitored and can improve communication between instructors and students.

The final component of e-learning, the delivery system, lets structured e-learning content reach its audience and allows students to experience e-learning the way the instructors intended. In addition, in many cases the delivery system can let learners make adjustments to meet their momentary needs (e.g., letting learners press the stop or pause button when they want to take a break in the learning).

The delivery system can also provide useful data for instructors to help them better educate their students.

Before the advent of the personal computer, television was the main tool for distance learning. Clearly, the main disadvantage of television is its minimal interactivity with the learner. Although television is still used for educational purposes, its role is relatively small when compared to the computer-based training industry.

Personal computers became much more widespread in the 1980s and early 1990s and thus allowed for rapid growth of computer-based training.

During this period, content expanded from text-only to a combination of text, graphics, video, animations and sound. There were problems with this type of training; most importantly, information had to be physically distributed to the users on media such as CD-ROM and was thus quite difficult to update quickly.

During the mid- and late 1990s, the Internet rapidly became a powerful tool for computer-based training. As features of the Internet were able to be integrated into educational tools, the term Web-based training was then developed.

One of the main challenges during this period was the problem of low bandwidth. But the past few years have seen a rapid advancement not only in improved bandwidth but also in improved collaboration and tracking tools.

Although technology already allows content to be built for a specific audience and then smoothly delivered over the Internet, the e-learning industry is in the process of bringing e-learning technology to the next level.

Instead of creating and then distributing one course to a group of learners, new technologies are allowing courses to be built dynamically and customized to a learner's unique need. This next generation of e-learning has created innovative tools and concepts that include, for example, learning content management systems and knowledge objects.

Dr. Savel is president and co-founder of Cedar Cove Technologies, a clinical software development company. He can be reached by email (tsavel@cedarcovetech.com)