The Internet provides us with access to an incredible amount of formal and informal content. What it doesn’t give us is more time in which to learn about and process this information. For this week’s newsletter I had a chat with Sam Paddock of Getsmarter – the specialist Internet based training company – about how they approach structuring their courses in a way that makes learning effective for professionals.

eLearning makes quite a few things possible. Podcasts, videocasts and online tools like Moodle make it possible to disperse all kinds of content. Some alternative uses include lecturers giving classes inside the virtual world Second Life. MIT have even made all their courseware available for free online (so that you can follow the course structure even if you can’t necessarily attain the degree).

The challenge in adult professional education, according to Sam, is to use Internet resources in a way that takes advantage of their benefits – flexibility and lower costs, while still implementing the best of what we know about traditional learning; this being the importance of personal support and the enforcing of deadlines. Specialist knowledge is already broadly available. In order to really learn a subject however, Sam pointed out that in his experience adult students require the same kind of support young university students do.

Getsmarter partners with a number of different institutions, including UCT and Quirk itself in order to source content. They then provide the infrastructure required through their customer relationship management software and constant online support.

Students can post a question online that will be attended to as quickly as possible – often immediately. Quizzes that give instant feedback and even online profiles of other students mean that there is a lot of human connection and support possible. Their staff also follow up proactively to make sure that students know their progress is being monitored. Something as simple as setting unavoidable deadlines, for example, means that “the course is taken seriously” and even the CEO can’t get out of it.

While this may sound like a huge plug for Getsmarter (what can I say, we like them) the point being made is that distance learning via the Internet works better when the course managers follow up individually on your progress.

I’d be interested to know if you have a process for learning – even if it’s just the way you read blogs – or if your company has an internal training policy.

At Quirk we have weekly information sharing sessions – where different departments present on their tactics in order to keep us all informed. Thanks to video these can be shared with our offices in London and Johannesburg. What kind of training does your company offer or encourage and what has worked for you? Do you feel like you can structure learning on your own?

Also check out:

• The eMarketing Distance Learning Course
• Branding in the Digital Age
• 4 Tips to Make Idea Sharing and Collaboration Possible