e-Learning What, Why,

How, When and Where

(4W & 1H )?
While meeting various organizations, educational institutes and
various educationalists, I came across different questions, viewpoints
on e-Learning. Most of the questions were related to their
understanding of e-learning, feasibility, when to do and not to do the
e-learning. Most of the questions can be summarized using the 4W
and 1H. In this post I have tried to answer those to best of my ability.
You are welcome to post your critical comments, suggestions that
may improve our understanding of whole scenario.

Authors,

Mr. Nilesh Dhande (Director) &

Mr. Shwetank Upadhyaya (CEO)

e-Learning What, Why, How, When and Where (4W & 1H )?

What?
There are many definitions of e-learning defined by several authors, the
term have many annotations associated with it. But, there is agreement
between most of the authors regarding “E” of e-learning. The most
common and acceptable meaning for “E” is electronic. The electronic
(digital) media can be anything from television, radio, computer and any
form of audio video etc. The e-learning pioneer Mr. Bernard Luskin
suggests that if e-Learning is to be effective the "E" should be interpreted
to mean exciting, energetic, enthusiastic, emotional, extended, excellent,
and educational in addition to "electronic" which is most commonly used
interpretation.

The objective of e-learning is to augment/ facilitate/ enhance teaching and learning. In the world where
population is expanding and so does the need for skills, flow of information is ever increasing and
knowledge is crossing the physical and geographical boundaries, learning and teaching also has to
evolve to the next level where learning should not only be bound by the knowledge of his/her teachers.
But teachers now have to act more like facilitator/ mentor/ guide to gain more knowledge collectively.
As it is understood that no one can learn as much as all of us. Looking at the scenario it is imperative the
learning and teaching makes use of technology tools. While the collaborative platforms and internet are
making headways in the everyday personal life the same is bound to happen in the world of pedagogy.

While the definition of e-learning will keep evolving viz a viz technology the current meaning for e-
learning for an enterprise may be defined as learning and teaching enabled with effective use of
technology tools to facilitate knowledge distribution and assimilation for all the participants.

Why?
The question may be answered partially in earlier section. But can be answered more simply as since it is
more convenient, cheaper and can be made more effective both for the students as well as institutions.

For the knowledge enterprises the right uses of technology can help immensely. Typically, all the
knowledge enterprises are bound by three major factors.

1. Availability of teacher’s time.

2. Availability of infrastructure
3. Availability of good quality course content.

And if we analyze these factors more closely one can quickly

figure out if these resources are available in abundance then the growth potential of the institute is
virtually limitless. But as in the real world we are bound by whatever is available to us and the problem
of scarcity. The teacher student ratio hovers officially around 1:74. The scarcity has happened due to

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e-Learning What, Why, How, When and Where (4W & 1H )?

a. Increase in population and hence increase in demand for teachers as well as infrastructure
b. The rising prices of infrastructure
c. Increase in competition
d. Brain drain of good teachers towards industry
e. Information explosion resulted in situation where there is “Too Much Information, But Too Little
Knowledge”.

And, these realities are not going to improve but will worsen over the period of time. Hence it becomes
a necessity to look around for the alternatives to optimize on the current resources available. Also, in
capitalistic world profitability in every activity is critical to the very survival of enterprises. Need is the
mother of all inventions and so is and will be the case with education. Most of us have realized or are in
the process of realizing that we will need technological aid to support us in the cause of imparting
quality education.

With the use of information technology, it is very much possible to optimize the most critical resources
for an enterprise.

 Teacher’s time availability can be addressed by

o Cutting down physical travel
o Virtualizing teacher
o Opening up convenient and easy communication channels between students and
teachers
o Improve time availability by cutting down mundane jobs like
 Student progress tracking & reporting
 Assessments
 Giving /getting feedbacks etc.
 Infrastructure needs can be addressed by
o Virtualizing classrooms
o Distance but personalized education
 Quality content can be ensured using
o Getting quality resources at one place
o Digitizing and indexing so that effective searching of content can be done
o Content references of subject matter experts.

How?
Just typed e-learning in Google search it gave more than 11 million hits. Like any other popular word e-
learning word is used and over-used. Same is the case with e-learning tools and techniques, you search
for tools and you will get different tools doing different things each claiming it is next best thing. While
we visited one of the leading coaching institute which provides coaching for MBA entrance examination.
The institute director said “I am just too baffled looking at all these tools and not sure whether these will
be useful in our context, our way of teaching. We are confident about our teaching but we are afraid

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e-Learning What, Why, How, When and Where (4W & 1H )?

that we may be left behind in the race if we do not do anything. But how do we make sure that we use
correct tools, and make the change happen in the organization. My professors are too reluctant to use
any new tools”. These are the apprehensions of most of the institutes when they look at changing
scenario; people are anxious, little bit scared and skeptical about the usage of e-learning. Few years back
when people started implementing ERPs in the organizations similar apprehensions were there. While
everybody accepts change is the way of life, but most of them resist it. The other day we were talking to
a leading educational institute which gives training to cream in Indian government the IAS officers. They
said that we implemented learning content management system, we invested money and it is up and
running but nobody uses that. It is too much of effort to come out of comfort zone. The hindrances are
many and one of the most critical hindrances is MIND-SET. But with right strategy, training and by
facilitating more participation from people the correct results can be obtained.

So, it becomes important for educational enterprise to have right strategy in place to adapt to such
change. While implementing e-learning it is important to have

1. Correct e-learning strategy

a. Selection of right e-learning tools  The e-learning tools can be categorized mainly into
two
i. Computer Based  Computer based tools are mainly trainings developed to be
run in offline mode without need of internet. These are rampantly used in the
scenario where internet is not available or one have to provide rich end user
experience having heavy contents like high definition multimedia movies/
content or simulations etc. The development of such tools is typically costly and
need high level of expertise in instructional design since there is no person to
person interaction. One of the drawback of CBT is, it is not possible to track the
usage, and hence nearly impossible to receive and give feedback about student
understanding of the concept.
ii. Web-based  Web-based training are the training which are delivered over
internet or intranet using web-technologies like Learning Content Management
System (LCMS) e.g. Moodle, aTutor etc, web-conferencing solutions e.g.
DimDim, web-ex, Spontania etc. These tools are really gaining rapid acceptance
because of availability of cheap or free solutions and ease of use. The web-
based training can deliver highly interactive training where each training can be
tailor made or personalize to individual student which increases effectiveness of
the training. Student progress tracking, reporting, feedback and course
corrections are possible with virtually no or very less administrative overheads.
And unlike CBTs where person to person interaction is zero or very less, one can
configure these tools to facilitate the teacher-student, student-student and
teacher-teacher interaction. This make these systems highly attractive to the
educational institutes who want to conduct courses without limitation of
geography or who wants to add value to existing student base. The only

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e-Learning What, Why, How, When and Where (4W & 1H )?

limitation of such kind of system when delivered over internet is the internet
availability.
b. Selection of correct courses  the selection of courses for e-learning can be tricky
business. One has to make right choice of courses that can be taught online or to which
e-learning can augment without causing too much of overheads.
The other day we were talking to one of the leading textile research organization who
give training to corporate as well as students about textile testing and machinery
involved. The Director of the institute said they are contemplating the e-learning
solutions for multitude of courses they are conducting but not sure how to select the
best one. Now, one of the course they were running which were about textile testing
machinery, she said it was virtually impossible to say if the student have understood the
concept unless they g et hands on experience in working with the machines. Since
nothing is impossible it is actually possible to simulate working of the machine and
demonstrate the usage to students. But when the cost benefit analysis is done it was
easy to figure out the creating simulations was too much expensive that giving hands on
experience.
When doing the selection process we need to figure out answers to the questions below
i. What is objective of this training?
ii. What should be the outcome?
iii. How am I going to evaluate whether student have understood the concept?
iv. What would be level of interaction that is needed between various stakeholders
who are involved?
v. Is it cost effective to deliver this content through e-learning format?
c. Correct designing of e-learning content  picture can speak thousand words and
correctly designed content can actually speak hundreds of thousands. But, while
designing the content it is extremely critical that you take in to account the
idiosyncrasies of the target audience/ student group. The design of the content needs to
take into account the nature, culture, level of understanding and in some cases
willingness as well. The degree of multimedia/ interaction may vary based on the above
parameters. Take an example of the person who is seriously preparing for some
entrance examination which will get him through some renowned institute with bright
career prospect. Through content design it is unnecessary to motivate her to read
further gain knowledge further so a simple and effective design will work here. But,
consider a case of school drop-out who has little willingness to learn. It is critical that we
keep him engaged through content/ course design we give him quick wins motivate
further to read on. Although end-use experience is critical in the course design the levels
of interactivity/ attractiveness can be decided on case to case basis and optimizations
are very much possible to do just enough and not more or not less.
2. Organizational processes in place  unless and until we gear up the organization to accept the
change and work towards success of the initiative; none of the initiatives really sees the light of
the day. There is absolutely nothing different about e-learning. Involving, engaging the key

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e-Learning What, Why, How, When and Where (4W & 1H )?

stakeholders like management, teachers, content creator/ designers and administrators holds
the key to success of this initiative. Following are some of the key processes that needs to be
designed and enhanced continuously
a. Admission, induction, scheduling and certification in e-learning context
b. Content development/ updates and the frequency
c. Teacher-student, student-student interactions
d. Evaluation/ Assessment and feedback

When?
ELearning is an initiative and results can be seen after a long enough time. Immediate results cannot be
expected in most of the cases. So e-Learning is more associated with institute’s vision and future
predictions. If you see infrastructure shrinking and cost of delivery increasing for your courses, that’s
the right time to take your first step in this direction. First step can be as simple as just creating CBTs for
your few critical courses. But initiation is important to test out your internal processes and change the
existing mind set. Beta is always recommended, which you should be able to launch. The internal
training and seminars needs to be conducted to raise the e-learning awareness and more importantly
the benefits of using the same. All the stake holders from the institute should be aware of all limitations
and strengths of new medium and technology and delivering the education.

Where?
Technology is already impacting our everyday life and it will be and it is in the case of education.
Whether the institute is teaching fine arts or professional training or just focusing on increasing the
employability of the students it is being impacted and will be impacted with the changing world. The
most agile and adaptable institute will stay ahead in the race.

Where is explained in the context of demography in the following paragraph. The education delivery
mechanisms will need to adapt to the demography of the students and teachers. E.g. In metropolitan
cities where the internet connection is widely available the content can be delivered over internet. In
case of tier2/3 cities where internet connectivity is question mark the same course delivery can happen
in the form of CBTs. In case of rural areas where availability of computer itself I question mark we need
to find some other means like videos to be playable on the video CDs, television, radio and in most of
the cases printed material. Question may arise using printed material is this a form of e-learning. I would
say yes as the material which we will be producing will directly come from the professor who will use
electronic means such as LCMS or different editors to produce the same content over various mediums.

Hence, it becomes critical to understand the demography of your student base to deliver the courses
through various means where reach and effectiveness is maximum.

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e-Learning What, Why, How, When and Where (4W & 1H )?

Conclusion
It can be said that when an enterprise thinks about e-learning it asks the all these questions what, why,
how, when and where to itself in the light of knowledge gained and come up with the correct e-learning
vision and then strategy implement and reap benefits of the technology solutions that are available.

While we tried a little to answer the queries in broader context by looking at all encompassing scenario,
it is not possible to cover all aspects and every facets of e-learning. Each of the questions can become
research paper in itself. Please feel free to send us your critical comments or suggestions or questions
related to this article to [email protected] or [email protected]. We would be
more than happy to answer any of the queries you may have or incorporate your suggestions in our
further work.

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