Corporate Digital Learning

My experiences I'd like to share are privately and at the same time linked to our business. Currently I'm participating in another online training that focuses on the design of blended learning environments and everything related to it.

Successes:
I made some progress and so did the managers who participate in our courses when it comes to media competence. We offered courses to clarify some concepts, some often used words etc.
- We offered first trainings (on visual design) to a friendly user group and collected their feedback. Mostly my colleagues, sometimes me, participated in the trainings to educate ourself and build up some competence.
- We also implemented a tool for our on-site training that offers collective learning in a community center (specific function). Currently we are in the role out and tested the tool in 3 courses with very mixed feedback - but we iterate and improve.
- Another important step is the qualification course for blended learning that all of my colleagues had to take to get a common level of understanding and competence as a solid basis for further development. In this course we use WebEx and moodle for our online parts, contentwise we focus on didactics, learning concepts, design concepts and I feel that we get a good impression of blended learning in total. In addition I hope that this course will help me to dive deeper in digital learning.
- a used TED videos and udacity before, but not frequent and now it's very time consuming to step up

Challenges:
- In the company and also in our team notw everyone was totally open to new learning (digital, blended,...) concepts
- Feedback is key in collective learning and therefore it needed and still needs a culture shift
- we had to get accross some boundaries like rsistance from our current trainers, cost negotiations, data security questions, an old LMS and new requirements - overall the strategic approach to digital learning was new and as usual, if you are on such an endavour you sometimes risk a "bloody nose"
- right now we understand more and more, that the change from 90% on-site trainings and events to a more digital nportfolio means a lot of work, especially on our training concepts
- still we need to consider the needs and wishes of our customers (the managers participating in our seminars) and their already tight agenda - a good training, like this one, combines several learning elements (reading, listening, assignments, discussions, live events,...) and this might lead to an overload if you have no experience so far in this kind of learning
- our company is rather traditional, but some units are extremely modern and use online learning tools for quite a while now; we need to make sure, that we onboard and commit everyone and don't loose anyone
- we have no considerable IT competence on our side - therefore we needed to hire someone and the needed competencies in our team of program managers needs to evolve

Learnings:
- start with small sample (friendly user group) groups definitely helps to gather feedback and improve step by step instead of a company-wide roll out
- learning to work with the tools is key and this needs some time, therefore we integrated WebEx and other tools in our frequent meeting structure
- sparring partners in the company (one of my colleagues founded a "new learing cycle") and outside the company helps to share ideas and discuss best practices; also convention/exhibitions can deliver interesting ideas
- you need to invest in the first place in hardware and software to start on a certain level - if the IT doesn't work, you will lose everyone in a sudden
- some units in the company don't share the passion for the topic, it seems obvious, but this can also really hinder your progress
- many companies are ahead of us, but many are behind and that was suprising and might be a problem in their future, because yet, they haven'T really thought about a digital learning strategy
- tests are not always appreciated
- it needs a lot of time to reach a certain level of quality, but you should invest in different media and excercises to make it the most valuable for everyone

Recommendations:
Some recommendations I already wrote in the learnings section - additionally I guess that TED is a platform we integrate a lot, transparency really helps to commit the users - especially if something fails. Training yourself in the basic concepts is helpful and even though you're not an expert within days/weeks you can understand many things better. So integrating tools, IT, etc. in your daily life definitely helps. We work together with different providers with a profound knowledge and experience in the area - this way, we can learn a lot and we definitely save a lot of time.

I hope this sums it up, I would appreciate every feedback, idea, comment...
Cheers
Christian