Rapid E-Learning: reality or just buzz?

We all aspire to produce more with less. There is nothing new about the desire for grater productivity and its related rewards. In e-learning is by nature a path to higher productivity. Instructors and learners no longer have to spend time getting to the class location, instead, they can login and proceed to concentrate on what relevant. Learners no longer have to sit listening to inefficient lectures. E-learning instructors no longer have to repeat lecture every time the class is offered. Still, in spite of all this we are seeking more from e-learning, in part because we became frustrated with its long development time which contradicts the “E” nature of e-learning.

As a result we are now seeking to speed up that development time via Rapid E-Learning. There are a number of ways we are seeking to do this. We are looking at acquisition tools, we are looking a simpler development or delivery tools. But is this a reality of is “Rapid E-learning” only the latest buzz word or craze?

After conducting some tests I can affirm that Rapid E-Learning is real! Products that use to take me months to acquire now take less than that to acquire, produce, QA, and publish. What used to take 6 to 9 months was recently done in 3 with only the use of some Rapid E-Learning approaches and a lot more to test.

The use of templates to focus the subject matter experts (SMEs) had the greatest impact together with the use of well defined learning objectives embedded in the template sections. Templates helped focus the SMEs in terms of structure/format. No longer were they sitting in front of a blank screen overwhelmed and wondering... The template told him/her what to do, and how to do it. The learning object structure made it feel manageable prompting action. The focus provided by an embedded learning objective drove the energy toward meeting a very specific instructional goal. The result was a dramatic improvement in acquisition time.