When I am working with organizations, I often hear two recurring themes. The first one is “We love the idea of adding eLearning to our training offerings, but we don’t know where to start.” The second theme is “We offer some online training, but we want to do more.”

For the first group there is an “analysis by paralysis” that sets in – overwhelmed by a sea of choices, they don’t start at all.

For the second group, they think they need more staff or a huge budget to get them to the next level. They keep doing things the same way while desperately hoping to see different results.

Often times, organizations that fall into either group aren’t lacking resources – they’re simply lacking a strategy.

In this series, we’ll discuss how you can help take your organization to the next level in its eLearning strategy. Here’s what we will cover:

• Explore the lifecycle of an eLearning strategy as it relates to your organization. Where’s your organization in its eLearning lifecycle? Are you a sprout, a young sapling, or a mature tree?
• Identify ways your organizations can utilize existing resources to develop engaging online learning for your members; and
• How to develop an eLearning strategy for your organization

Let’s start off by discussing what we mean when we say “eLearning”.  I use the terms “eLearning” and “online learning” interchangeably.  eLearning isn’t one-dimensional – it’s one of those terms that can mean a whole lot of different things to different people.  My definition is pretty broad and includes things like:

• Instructor led trainings Presentations/webinars
• Online/self-paced courses
• Videos, podcasts, gaming, and scenario-based learning

eLearning is essentially any learning that occurs over the internet.  We’ll talk more about the different types of eLearning in later posts.

Organization eLearning Lifecycle

There are 3 main stages of an eLearning strategy:

1. Sprout
2. Young Sapling
3. Mature Tree