3 barriers to developing online training

OK so you have decided to develop some online training. Or more likely, your boss has decided for you and he needs it by the end of the week also…

How to get started?

Well you have three main problems to overcome. (And also remember that people have what marketers call “consumer level expectations” and free services like facebook and twitter constantly raise the bar…)

Firstly, subject matter knowledge

What do you know about the subject?

If you work in pig farming - what do you know well enough that you can confidently put in front of people wanting to learn? Have you any experience of teaching or training?

Or, more importantly, what do you know and in what format is it in?

Even if you have the Phd thesis from the worlds leading expert in pig farming, if it is on 3000 sheets of paper  - it is no use because the second barrier will affect you which is

Development time

Assuming you have enough subject matter, it will take time to spell check it, grammar check it (British or American English) and edit it for screen use. If you move from one software to another - each will use it’s own spell checking engine and of course - you know what happens when computers talk to each other - they sometimes forget things.. Which can lead to untold problems.

If you want to add games and other interaction - no one wants a game that doesn’t work, so they will all need testing too.

(Just don’t be too angry when you spot a typo right after the final publish).

Software Mastery

Some of the software you will need us expensive (maybe even very expensive) and/or has a steep learning curve to use it. Yes there is free software out there but it produces output that looks like it was produced on free software. Of course, you get someone else to produce the material but the risks are high - you risk letting them lose on your server or walking away with the source files.

Why not buy ready made online training - straight from the experts?

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