The rapid expansion of Technology has tremendously transformed the workplace. Thus technology has become an inevitable part of employee training program. There are ample opportunities now that can guide and motivate the employees by adapting to these new developments. Let’s have a look at the points that describes these in detail:
1. Web-conferencing:– a technique by which the trainer conducts live trainings and presentations via the internet. Web-conferencing helps the participants to come up with their questions and participate in polls. Common tools of web-conferencing are Webex and Adobe Connect.
2. Social Network:– An online platform where group of people can develop friendship based on professional connections, shared common interest and gather knowledge and information. Both the trainer and participants form communities through social sites and then post links to articles, webinars, and on-the-job examples before, during and after the training session.
3. Podcast: It’s a type of online media delivery that allows users to download files via a feed onto a computer or a MP3 player. The trainer creates the course material podcasts for the learners to download and listen on their MP3 Player, mobiles or laptop. This allows the participants to access training at timings best suits them as per their work pressure and availability.
4. Blog: website through which an author can share opinions, reflections and initiate discussions on industry relevant topics in the form of online journals. Training and development programs can incorporate blogs to provide a detail about the course information and updates on the course in relevance to industry. Herein the participants get the opportunity to discuss in this space.
5. Microblogs: It’s a type of tool or platform to share knowledge and resources with one another. At the beginning the trainer would create a community for a course and thereafter post tips and other information related to the course. Participants can use microblogs to exchange information. The most popular microblogs are Twitter and Yammer.
6. Social Bookmarking: a system by which the users can collect and store bookmarks online, tag with keywords, share those bookmarks and tags with anyone. The trainer can thus develop course reading lists which the participants can access by subscribing to a particular tag or keywords related to their course.
7. Media Sharing: This allows the users to search for photos, videos and other media for uses in presentations or coursework. Trainer can record workshops and upload them to an online network. Common media sharing tools are: YouTube, Flickr.
8. Mobile learning (M-learning): Here the focuses on learning across contexts and locations by means of mobile devices like laptops, cell phones, MP3players, personal digital assistant and ebooks etc. These devices can be used to access online courses and resources and generate collaboration among individuals, conduct assessments and evaluation and provide an access to performance support.
The above mentioned points are few factors that helps in conducting training program. There are more and constant technological innovations that can be used for effective training. We will discuss in the next articles further on this points. This is indeed an effective way of training beyond classroom.
