Learning revolution
June 1st 2008 The spread of the internet has increased the potential for education with on-line learning. Safety Media has been providing health and safety training via e-learning for the last five years and believes it solves issues of travel, location and language
Open University transformed the
way people thought about
education, and the distance
learning format which it pioneered brought
higher education within reach of anyone.
Thirty years on the computer age has
sparked another revolution in learning,
driven by inexpensive technology and
popular access to the internet with the
potential to reach everyone in every walk
and at every stage of life.
By 2006, nearly 3.5 million students were
participating in on-line learning at
institutions of higher education in the
United States, and a survey of academic
leaders there indicated that students
appeared at least as satisfied with their online
classes as they were with traditional
ones. Online education covers basic primary
learning to doctorate programs, with
responsive software reacting to student's
specific mistakes and adapting to their level
of comprehension.
E-Learning boom
In the UK, recent research from the
Chartered Institute of Personnel and
Development (CIPD) indicated that more
than half of organisations (54%) already use
e-learning, and the CIPD estimates that it
now delivers up to 10% of all current
vocational training by time. One of the main
e-Learning specialists in health and safety
training is Safety Media, which entered the
market 5 years ago. E-Learning now
represents 50% of Safety Media's business
and is forecast to account for up to two
thirds in the next 18 months.
More recently the e-learning boom has
been stimulated by changing economic and
environmental conditions. Travel has never
been more expensive, and moving
learners and trainers around the
country to training venues is now
financially prohibitive for many
organisations. There is also
pressure on all
organisations to reduce
their carbon footprint.
Training in remote
locations or locations
with little or no PC
access can be an obstacle
to an E-Learning solution. Safety
Media has developed an offline training
solution which enables businesses to
conduct E-Learning on laptops and then
pass the data back at a later date to the
central system. This provides a solution for
implementing an E-Learning system for
warehouse and factory staff.
Native language training
Multilingual migrant and immigrant labour
has created a huge range of first languages
in training rooms and classrooms, and elearning
can facilitate versions in many
different languages at very little cost. By
training staff in their first language, trainers
are ensuring that they have understood the
information, and an end of course test
conducted in the appropriate language
measures retention without language issues
influencing the results. Safety Media offers a
range of health and safety courses in 30
languages. This simplifies the process and
ensures that employees can identify the
health and safety terms they may hear in
the workplace.
Legislation has also played a part. Under
the Corporate Manslaughter and Homicide
Act 2007, employing organisations can face
unlimited fines and other penalties if gross
failures in their management of health and
safety result in a death. The government's
principal aim was to make it easier to
convict organisations for deaths caused by
negligence by reducing the need to prove
manslaughter by one of the 'controlling
minds' within an organisation's senior
management. All aspects of the company's
health and safety would be combed through
in full public view during such a trial,
including the senior management's
approach to and
understanding of health
and safety.
E-learning need not be a
solitary experience, and the
overhead projectors and flip
charts of 1980's training rooms
have given way to a wide range of
new technology for individual and
group learners. One new e-learning
solution for groups involves
communicating with the trainer through
interactive handsets, which give the trainer
instant feedback throughout the course and
lead to discussions and user feedback. After
a question is answered by the group, a
statistical graph will show how the entire
group answered, and at the end of training
each user must complete a checklist and
self test by answering questions with their
handsets. The checklist and self test
questions are recorded against individual
training records.
Safety Media started out by offering
safety booklets and videos, but has grown
into one of the largest e-learning health and
safety providers. It now offers self-paced,
group learning, multi-lingual, off-line and
bespoke e-learning services, with courses
peppered with 'mini quizzes' to test and
challenge the trainee, and interactive and
bespoke content which relates to health
and safety in the trainees own working
environment. At the end of each training
course there is a self test that will check the
knowledge that they have acquired. At the
end of the process, a personalised
'Certificate of Excellence' is printed off.
Despite trends away from the classroom,
traditional training will always have a place.
But many subjects and courses currently
taught face to face are suitable for elearning
presentation; just as in any other
area of teaching, the more interesting,
interactive and engaging the course
presentation becomes the more effective it
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