Hello,

Relying on your trainers for developing content that will meet the objective is taking too much of a risk. Your trainers at most can be utilised as SME and let the ID deal with the treatment to be given to meet the objectives of the course.

cheers!!!

Thanks for all the great responses so far!!!

As I read more about ID, I am getting more convinced about it. But let me put forth this line of thinking and maybe someone out there can explain the risks:

1. In IT technical training, unlike soft skills, the learning path or order of introducing topics and setting up practice exercises is pretty standard, in that, there aren't too many ways of doing it. So we will depend on teaching expereince of instructors and required reading materials to give us the topics and the order in which they have to be covered.

2. An LMS (like moodle) will give us the structure to divide the course into weekly buckets and give all the required infrastructure for elearning.

3. The content in the LMS is what we need to create and for that we are thinking that trainers will provide us with their notes/material. If there is a cost for creation of the material that will be contracted as requried.

So, just for instructor notes in the LMS do we really need ID is the question?

First, let me say that following the path of most standard technical training may not be the best way to go, especially if you are trying to build a training business. Most technical training is abysmal. It is product-centric rather than user-centric, and focuses on revealing the features of the technology rather than focusing on what the user wants the technology to accomplish. If you want to differentiate your training business, do not go the route of simply conveying the contents of the manual...

That said, if all you want to do is put the notes of your technical instructors online in modules, then of course you do not need instructional designers. Just don't try to sell it as "training".

ID is often over-rated, at least in its classic form which seeks to pre-ordain the learning path and lead learners through a relatively fixed 'ideal' learning process. Today's learning can be a lot more organic than that, thanks largely to the ability to network SMEs and learners. But it requires a willingness to let go of the need to control the learning content, and an ability to facilitate the learning engagement.

This informal learning is how most of us gain our expertise in a work environment, but it does not map easily to traditional management modes of planning, organizing and controlling, so it kind of gets dismissed as somehow not important.

Godfrey Parkin