Designing Web-Based Training: How to Teach Anyone Anything Anywhere Anytime

3.6. IN CONCLUSION ...

3.6.1. Summary

• Many types of WBT courses are possible, depending on a few fundamental choices. Consider where your course should fall along each of these scales:

  Pure instructor-led to Pure learner-led

  Pure synchronous to Pure asynchronous

  Large class to Class of one

• Specify where learners should take the course. Then design it for where they will really take it.

• Pure WBT may not be the best approach to training. Consider alternating WBT and classroom sessions, having instructors lead learners through WBT, or using WBT materials in a classroom.

• Also consider mixing elements of disk-based CBT and WBT, perhaps using disks to store multimedia and using the Web for dynamic content and collaboration.

• Specify what technologies can be used in your course. Prefer technologies that are reliable, available to many, and fully supported by their vendors.

• Consider a metaphor to organize the course, unify its parts, and add interest and appeal for learners. Pick a metaphor familiar to learners and express it in labels and images.

3.6.2. For more ...

The International Society for Performance Improvement (www.ispi.org/) publishes papers and holds conferences with lots of discussion on the proper modes for training and plenty of block diagrams showing correct sequences.

Margaret Driscoll, in her book Web-Based Training, classifies WBT into four distinct categories: Web/Computer-Based Training (W/CBT), Web/Electronic Performance Support Systems (W/EPSS), Web/Virtual Asynchronous ...