I saw the term "rapid e-learning" on this board for the first time. Apparently, a way to test the waters with e-learning...to see if your employees (100 or less) respond to it. Are employees going to be impressed with a powerpoint presentation on a website? I wouldn't be...

E-learning... the oxymoron for the ages. Rapid or otherwise, it generally is still extremely shoddy. What passes for "e-learning" today is no better than what it was 10 years ago. Sad, really.

thanks fanatic for that little blast..
didjaever, in a real answer to your question, I think where the term comes from is that "traditional eLearning" has taken a lot of time and a specialized team to develop. In the recent times there are tools that are appearing which allow eLearning to be developed in "days" oer hour of finsihed eLearning versus the traditional weeks (or months) per hour of finsihed eLearning . Much the same as happened with stand up. tools like PPT allowed stand up to be create much more quickly and could have been termed "rapid Instructor led development." To fanatic's point.. yes there clearly is some very poorly developed eLearning. But then again there is some very poorly developed and delivered "facilitaed learning" also. Both have this terrible fault that "peopel" are involved.. therefore both have a tendency to be "less than perfect from time to time" note alos there is some really Great eLearning out there.. steve

"Rapid elearning" is usually used to refer to a type of online delivery that is produced quickly and is intended mainly for info dissemination, not in-depth instruction.

It's called "rapid" because it usually takes less time to produce than a more thoroughly designed and interactive project. This rapidity helps the training budget, but it's not clear to me that it always benefits the business.

If the goal is to get information out there, it could be just as quick but possibly more effective to produce structured on-the-job references and on-demand mini-interactions that learners could use for practice if necessary. This could be delivered through the corporate intranet so it's always available and searchable and is easy to update.

Hi, rapid e-learning does not mean powerpoint online. It still requires learning design but rapid tools do mean that you can deliver faster and cost-effectively. We are about to put some of our developments with Articulate, a powerpoint based tool, online. Have a look at this draft module we have been developing on rapid elearning, developed with Articulate http://www.kineo.co.uk/demos/60min/player.html.

Rapid also means different processes and design techniques, see our free resources at http://www.kineo.co.uk/rapid-e-learning/rapid-e-learning.html

Be good to have a debate around the potential of rapid elearning. Potential advantages are:

- faster delivery - time on your side
- able to say yes more often
- lower cost, get more for less
- rapid protoyping leading to better communication and stakeholder input

Though it does still require good learning design.


Steve