Technology is evolving at a faster pace than ever. It has revolutionized the way work is done in most of the industries. The eLearning technology has enabled the growth of the education sector across the globe. Learners can take courses along with their full-time job. They can learn at a convenient time and a place of their choice. The students save a significant time in traveling as well. Also, online courses are far cheaper than the traditional classroom programs. On the other hand, the service providers or the trainers get an excellent opportunity to scale their business beyond geographies, and they can do it without spending a fortune. Online training providers can quickly scale their operations and increase their intake capacity by just upgrading their hosting infrastructure. Thus, there is a win-win situation for both – service providers as well as the learners. And this is one of the reasons behind the rapid growth of the eLearning industry.
Online IT Training has exploded in the past few years. Almost all the IT courses are available on the internet. Since programming languages and other IT related courses are complex, the service providers must follow a unique approach to transfer the knowledge to the students. eLearning may not have the advantages of peer discussions and face-to-face teacher-student interactions. However, minor changes in the courses can make the knowledge transfer highly efficient.
Here are five tips to improve knowledge transfer through online IT training programs:
Step by Step Learning
Students grasp the concept more efficiently when they start from basic and gradually reach to an advanced level of concept. Most of the traditional courses are divided into several chapters. However, an eLearning course should be divided into small bite-sized videos based on ideas.
An entire IT course can be divided into three to four levels based on its ease of understanding and real-life application. The first level of the course can have all the basics concepts and its implementation in real life. The next level (or step) of the course will be harder than the previous one.
No one can be an expert in a programming language by learning just the concepts or syntax of the language. They must enhance their analytical abilities so that they can analyze real world problems and suggest unique and original solutions. A traditional training program enhances the analytical skills very well as the students form study groups and discuss various concepts and challenges among themselves as well as a supervisor. An eLearning course can also facilitate community learning through an active forum. As a part of the curriculum, the students must participate in an online forum. The experienced trainers should supervise the forum as a moderator.
Encourage More Practice
There are very few eLearning courses in the IT industry that has made practicing as a necessary activity to pass the course. To improve the effectiveness of a course, more than half of the course must involve participation from the students. The students must be encouraged to solve practical questions before they learn a related concept. This will enhance the critical thinking abilities of the learners. They will find out more concepts proactively and participate in forums to improve their problem-solving skills.
Real-World Situations to Teach Concepts
When we learn a new concept in IT programming, very few of us know when and how it will be applied until we face the challenges at the workplace. Online courses can simulate real life situations to explain theories. For instance, the trainers can use the example of location-based taxi services Apps such as Uber to explain various location related concepts of Android like geocoder, getFromLocation(), getLastLocation(), etc. This will help students innovate and develop different Apps.
Feedback, Assessment and Evaluation
The online training providers should actively seek feedback from learners. They must take each feedback seriously and implement it in the next module or the course. Service providers must initiate the feedback mechanism, and the process must encourage students to share their ideas openly.
Periodical assessment and evaluation is a must to guide students about where they stand and what they need to do to accomplish their learning goals. The service providers should develop development metrics with parameters that explicitly measure various dimensions of learnings. Regular assessments also make learning more exciting, fun and competitive. Thus, it is a must to engage students throughout the course.
The objective of trainers should be to enable students to learn something on their own. At the end of a course, the learners should know how to learn new concepts and apply them to the real-world challenges. The trainers act as an enabler for students.
The course material should be focused more towards the challenges that this world is facing rather than academic theories and principles. Moreover, the service providers must evolve their courses along with the rapid change in technology. They should develop an internal framework to check if their programs are meeting intended objectives. The continuous improvement is the only way to keep their business relevant in the long run.
Writers Bio: David Harred is a technology writer and trainer with an extensive experience in online IT training. He is passionate technology and seeks to solve business challenges using technology. He shares his thoughts on GogoTraining Blog