Can you come up with a great idea of improving the employees’ training that would be effective and exciting at the same time? In my opinion, there is nothing better for the achievement of this purpose than engaging people in an online course. Modern technologies pervade every sphere of people’s activity and development. With their help, people gain access to information and can communicate with their friends, teachers make the educational process more interesting, and scientists create fantastic innovative tools for life and healthcare. All this said, the idea of incorporating online courses for training people at work seems a rather productive one.
The major reason for this kind of innovation is the growing number of enrollments in online courses by people in various areas of work and education (Allen & Seaman, 2010). People want the opportunity to be flexible, and online courses give them this possibility. The employees will be able to choose the time and place of their studies, and there is nothing better than being the master of one’s own time. Over 75% of public colleges and universities consider online courses a significant element of their long-term strategic growth plans (Allen & Seaman, 2010). Thus, doing an online course is rapidly becoming a rather appealing idea not only for the students but also for educators.
The most frequently expressed position against online education is that students feel the lack of social presence and insufficient interaction with their peers and professors. Such a state of things usually causes the feeling of isolation (Rovai & Downey, 2010; Stodel, Thompson, & McDonald, 2006).
However, it is possible to deal with this issue in a number of ways. First of all, regular meetings could be organized where the employees could share their impressions and discuss their achievements. Secondly, you could organize a monthly sum-up session that would presuppose the meeting and exchange of ideas between your employees and students of the local institution of higher education. In this way, people will not feel isolated as they will know that in a certain period of time, they will meet their peers and discuss the problems they have while mastering the course or share their ideas.
Furthermore, with the increased demand for online programs, educational institutions meet the challenge of having to organize courses with small budgets (Allen & Seaman, 2010). Usually, such a situation may lead to increased class size, which is bad both for students and professors. However, I do not think that this is the case with your organization. The need for funding will be considered only at the initial stage, and later it will be possible to use the already existing materials and experience and expand the courses without having to spend a lot of resources.
The experience shows that it is quite possible to ensure the employees’ satisfaction and engagement with the training and also guarantee the completion of the course. The Internet has evolved into an interactive communication tool with continuing improvement of technologies such as social networking, digital media, Web 2.0 tools, social communication, and streaming media. These enhancements increase its potential to provide students with a highly interactive, personal, and engaging learning experience in the online classroom (Bull, Hammond, & Ferster, 2008).
All in all, engaging the employees in online courses is a fantastic idea for the development of their professional skills and knowledge, enhancement of social communication skills, and the increase of responsibility.
References
Allen, I. E., & Seaman, J. (2010). Class differences: Online education in the United States. Babson Park, MA: Babson Survey Research Group. Web.
Bull, G., Hammond, T., & Ferster, B. (2008). Developing Web 2.0 tools for support of historical inquiry in social studies. Computers in the Schools, 25(3-4), 275-287. Web.
Rovai, A. P., &. Downey, J. R. (2010). Why some distance education programs fail while others succeed in a global environment. Internet and Higher Education, 13(3), 141-147. Web.
Stodel, E. J., Thompson, T. L., & MacDonald, C. J. (2006). Learners’ perspectives on what is missing from online learning: Interpretations through the community of inquiry framework. The International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, 7(3), n.p. Web.