One of the key mistakes organisations make in starting down the road to online learning and training is to overvalue the technology and undervalue the role of learning design, leading to the question: does the technology serve the learning or master it?

We may be winning the battle against the luddites, and slowly enticing the technology-timid to change with the times, but are we really doing this right?

It’s worth asking yourself a few questions, before getting out the purchase order:

Why do you need an all-singing all-dancing learning management system (LMS)? What are you going to do with all those features? How do they enable, enhance, support the learning?

What is it you actually want to achieve with your learning programme? What are the best approaches, methods, tools to meet those expectations?  Is it possible that a smorgasmord of “old” or relatively bland technologies might do the job better?

Who is leading the project? Is it technology-led? Or is there a true collaboration between stakeholders?

Keep up on trends by all means, and try out the ones that seem to have promise, but remain flexible and adaptable and don’t have your head turned by every shiny new gadget that crosses your path.

And, above all, make sure you start the planning with expertise in learning design and strategy, before you purchase a big, expensive white elephant that looks pretty but doesn’t actually fit your needs.

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It’s easy to lose learners in an online course for a variety of reasons. However, I’ve found in my own experience that some common factors can be mitigated by good planning and learning design.

Feelings of isolation
In any form of distance learning, it is too easy to feel alone and disconnected from others on the same course. Morale slips and the feeling of purpose that drives a learner on can be eroded. Providing collaborative activities, good peer support networks and casual communication links between learners can help keep them on track.

Uncertainty or anxiety about what is expected of them
Whether a course is online or face-to-face, you still need to make sure learning objectives, expectations, requirements, etc, are clearly laid out at appropriate times throughout the course.

Dull learning design
Without the kinds of stimulation provided by group dynamics in a live atmosphere, learning content that isn’t inherently lively and interesting in an online course can be deadly dull. It is vital to be creative in the way that content is presented and the design of activities in which the learners engage.

Lack of communication with tutors
Regular feedback about progress is absolutely crucial in online courses. Tutors/facilitators need to be seen to be engaged in online spaces and responsive to individual queries. This need not be too demanding provided enough attention has been paid in the planning stage to setting out a range of support mechanisms.

Lack of attention to individual learning needs
Learning is ideally an iterative and cyclical process — not just a matter of handing out standardised content and waiting for the correct responses to come back. The most engaging online courses allow learners the space to take responsibility for their own learning and contribute to and shape the course for future learners. In addition, there are diagnostic and adaptive learning tools that can help direct learners to the areas where they need improvement.

Technical problems
Last but not least, learners can drop out due to big frustrations caused by basic technical problems. These might be caused by their own inadequate equipment or internet connection, an unreliable or overly complex learning management system or through lack of training and support. It is important when planning online learning to take into account the likely technical setup of the learners (which may be limited by regional or international situations) and do everything reasonable to help them take part.

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Sometimes, despite all attempts to engage them, learners drop out due to personal, family or work problems that make it difficult to devote the time and attention to online learning.  All we can do is try to help, show care and support and finally accept their decision.

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“Why didn’t our online discussion work?”

This is a depressingly common question in schools/universities and workplaces, when attempts are made to get people using online systems for collaboration and conversation. The idea is a good one: online environments offer great opportunities for people to get connected almost anywhere and any time to get ideas talked through and work accomplished. We’ve been hearing for years about the wonderful future that allows us to sit comfortably in our homes or cafes, engaging online instead of having to commute every day to an office or classroom and deal with other people face-to-face (often to have meetings cancelled because someone can’t be there). Moreover, hundreds of millions of us worldwide are already doing this every day through email, Twitter, Facebook and more. What could be more natural than tapping into our current social practice and harnessing some of it to new work practices?

Should be a doddle … so why is it so hard?

There’s no one reason for the difficulty in getting people who happily use social networking on a daily basis to use the same practices for business or education just as happily. It’s more likely that a range of factors all add together to provide big blockers and either bring online discussions grinding to a halt or never getting going in the first place.

What do we mean by “online discussion”?

An online discussion historically refers to a forum where there’s an initial comment or question followed by responses, which either pile up in a long chronological block or are “threaded” to create more targeted replies to earlier responses. This form of online engagement has been around for two decades and provides a useful system for particular needs. It’s very well suited for specific questions, such as as “How can I filter spam from my website contact form?” A question like that in the right website (e.g., one that appeals to people who care about this issue and have probably experienced it themselves) will lead to a number of suggestions, including a few disagreements, and will probably peter out when the person who asked finds a solution.

In addition, there are the more snippet-based communications that make up most of the traffic in Twitter and Facebook, based on comments thrown out by people, which may or may not get a direct response by other people throwing out their own comments. This browsing, grazing and flitting around provides a completely different and more chaotic engagement. This needs to be saved for another post.

Then there’s email, which takes on some elements of both, but is designed primarily as an updated form of the letter: one-to-one communication which goes out into the world and lands in your space, ostensibly addressed to you personally. Again, not for this post.

Who’s at fault when it just doesn’t work? We are.

There are of course occasions when a participant goes off the deep end and flames out in offensiveness, anger and aggression in a discussion without warning. There is also always a percentage of people who just won’t engage. You can even imagine a scenario when all the participants are suddenly and without any foreseeable reason unable to get online. These aside, it’s invariably our own fault when an online discussion fails, and we have to take it on the chin.

Plan, design and prepare

Here are some things to consider before initiating an online discussion for business or education:

1. The purpose

First it’s vitally important to know and to articulate to your prospective participants why you want to have this discussion, and why it should be conducted online. If this purpose is not personally shared by the participants, it must at least make sense to them. Only the most obliging person will go along with you if they don’t understand why they should. This also includes making sure the participants know what is expected of them, for how long, and what the outcomes will be. Be realistic, don’t expect miracles, and don’t run discussions indefinitely.

2. Access

Once you have everyone on board with the purpose for the discussion, you need to make every possible arrangement for them to have online access and the ability to engage often enough to fulfill their requirement. To some extent you can require the participant to have a certain type of connection, level of access and/or equipment (depending on circumstances), but you need be aware of this issue and do everything you can to minimise problems. You also need an environment that is easy to use and technically reliable.

3. Training & support

Training and technical support are often ignored and consequently deeply regretted.  It should go without saying that you won’t have a good chance of a successful discusson without making sure your participants know how to use the environment and have somewhere to turn if they need help. This doesn’t always require a lot of time or effort, but don’t take it for granted that everyone will just figure it out on their own.

4. Rules of engagement

It’s always a good idea to articulate a list of dos and don’ts of participation, especially for anyone new to group or to the idea of online discussion. It can be useful to have the group create these themselves collaboratively (with facilitation — see no 6 below) as an initial icebreaker and warm-up exercise that is of real value.  If participants feel responsible for creating the rules and have a stake in the success of the discussion, they will be far less likely to break them.

5. The prompt

Online discussions fail most often when the “prompt” (the question or initial comment to get the discussion going) is ill-suited for the task, such as being too:

• closed-ended (“yes or no” questions or those which have one obvious correct answer)
• fuzzy and ill-defined (not understood or much too broad to find common ground)
• boring and purposeless (lacking vitality or without an obvious reason — see no 1 above)
• opinion-based (leading to seperate opinions based on personal experience without the ability to extrapolate lessons or general connections between them)
• biased (fishing for agreement or argument without a clear educational goal)

In general, an online discussion works best when the initial question is targeted and designed to elicit a range of fairly specific, discursive answers, some of which will themselves spin off into mini-discussions and enrich the overall range of knowledge, finally ending when the discussion has exhausted itself and conclusions can be drawn.

6. Facilitation (moderation)

Last but at the top in terms of importance, a good online discussion requires the facilitation (sometimes called moderation) of either the person who designed it or someone experienced in facilitating online activities.  Ideally, he or she will also have expertise in the subject of the discussion, but (maybe surprisingly) this is less important than general facilitation skills. Facilitation involves being aware when the discussion loses steam prematurely or goes off-course and when questions or substantial comments are left dangling. Skillful facilitation will get things back on track, smooth rough edges, elicit quality contributions from shy members and draw out conclusions and shared knowledge.  Even in successful adhoc forums not designed for a specific educational or business purpose (such as the website contact form example above), you’ll find that a forum owner or experienced super-user is active and engaged.

This is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to effective online learning or collaboration, but I’ve offered a few key areas that will help you avoid common pitfalls.

For more on related online learning practice: What research has to say for practice, a series of short articles based on research.

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Nancy Weitz

Nancy is Director at Architela and specialises in internet strategy, collaborative learning and user-centred design

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