Trainers Talk Tech

I've noticed a trend on the social networking groups, and when I talk to people at the conferences I present at: trainers and instructional designers are freaking out again. I mean nervous, edgy, freak outs about eLearning. In 2000, training and development people were losing their minds because they believe that the sky was falling and eLearning was going to steal their jobs. They were convinced that they would be replaced by a screen and a mouse. Nothing was further from the truth, as eLearning has grown into a tool that is used as a part of an overall training strategy.

Most of the eLearning in 2000 was awful, text driven stuff created by tech people who didn't care about how people learn. They wanted to exploit this new technology and throw everything up against the wall and see what stuck. We have developed best practices we are using today because of all the crazy things developers tried early on, myself included.

But, that has changed. Good eLearning is hard to create, not always from a programming perspective, but from the design perspective. Tools have been created to rapidly develop, but the amazing, interactive custom stuff still takes lots of time to plan, design and build. Which brings me back to my first question : why are people freaking out?

Follow up:

In the past two months, I've spoken at a mini-conference in front of 300 people and delivered six webinar courses on eLearning technologies. People have said over and over "I feel so far behind." On the social networking sites, I am a member of lots of eLearning groups and traditional HR/Training groups and people are asking "How do I get started in eLearning?" Why the sudden interest?

Is the downturn in the economy driving people to the skill set? Is there a belief that people need eLearning experience to be a better training and development professional? Are people losing their training jobs and thinking that eLearning development is where its at? I'm not sure...I'm noodling it as I write this.

30% of my business is eLearning. 30% is regular old web design. 40% is the stand up training I design and deliver, on technology as well as Leadership Development and HR "soft skills". Its always been that way. Usually these numbers don't move much, and 2009 is not going to be any different. Should I be moving my efforts into eLearning specific efforts during this downturn?

I don't know the answers to these questions, but the reason I started this blog was because of the sudden change in my peers and colleagues I talk with, meet with and work next to. People seem to think that they are missing something HUGE as a trainer because they don't do eLearning. I've always viewed it as a unique skill set - some people are great trainers, some are great instructional designers and some are great eLearning developers. Its rare to find someone who can do all three.

While I am at the ASTD TK 09 in Vegas the week of the 25th, I'll be asking some of these questions to the attendees. In my sessions, I'll be bringing it up and I'll be sure to write the responses here on this site. The eLearning "freak out factor" has returned, and there are many, many people clamoring to get the eLearning development experience under their belt.