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eLearning for RTOsA guide to delivering successful eLearning
Contents
Introduction 1
1. Getting started with eLearning 2
2. Selecting a Learning Management System 7
3. Engage your learners with rich learning support material 9
4. Bite-sized learning 10
5. Designing a flexible learning strategy 12
Introduction
Whether your Registered Training Organisation (RTO) is just starting out with eLearning or extending your online learning capabilities – it’s important to define what eLearning means to your RTO. To help you through this process – we’ve developed this eBook - a guide to what RTO’s need to consider in order to deliver successful eLearning.
In this eBook you’ll learn about:
What your RTO should consider before getting started with eLearning
The Learning Management System features every RTO needs
How to engage your learners with rich learning support material
What bite-sized learning is & how your RTO can create a guided learning experience
How to design a flexible learning strategy
1. Getting started with eLearning
If you are new to eLearning it can be difficult to know where to begin. Developing a plan to navigate this process can help your RTO shorten the time to successfully launch your eLearning.
Here are a few key questions to consider as you start on your RTO’s eLearning journey.
1. Are you clear on what eLearning means for your RTO?
The very first step for an RTO embarking on eLearning should be determining its eLearning business goals. To do this, ask yourselves questions like:
Is your goal to save money by delivering online?
Do you want to increase training flexibility options for students?
Will eLearning enable your RTO to expand your offering and deliver more courses with
less overheads?
Will eLearning standardise the quality of your training delivery?
Will online delivery enable you to reach remote students?
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The answers to these questions will determine what kind of features you need for your Learning Management System (LMS). For example, will your LMS be used for:
Distance only learning for remote students?
If so, you’ll need to consider how learning content and assessment tools will support this.
Flipped classroom to standardise training delivery?
Flipped classroom delivery requires comprehensive content so students can review materials prior to class and use the face-to-face time for skill practise or assessment.
Blended learning?
To successfully deliver blended learning you may need hard copy resources that align to your online resources to support this combination.
Online assessment submission for increased flexibility?
To do this you’ll need a comprehensive set of assessment tools mapped to performance criteria, elements, performance evidence and knowledge evidence .
Understanding how your RTO will use eLearning for training delivery can help in identifying the features you need to select the right Learning Management System for your RTO.
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2. How do we select the right Learning Management System for our RTO?
In addition to understanding how your RTO will use eLearning, the next most important question when considering Learning Management Systems (LMS) is: What are the technical capabilities of your organisation? The answer to this question narrows your search as it determines whether you require a fully hosted and supported system or if you have the capability to manage your own LMS.
Next your RTO should consider the four C’s: Content, Compliance, Customisation & Contextualisation.
Content
Do we need a library of content to support individual units of competency or do we need tools and skills to create this?
Compliance
What reporting functionality and data do we require to meet audit requirements?
Customisation
What customisation options are available? Can we style & brand it to look like our RTO’s own? Can we have a custom URL?
Contextualisation
If you are using managed content, can you edit and adapt assessment tools to meet your contextualisation requirements?
And lastly – but importantly: What is the pricing model? Is it a licence model or subscription model? Is the price for the LMS only or does it include online resources and assessment tools? If it includes resources are they regularly updated? Or is the LMS free and you pay per enrolment for resources?
Make sure the pricing model of your chosen LMS is right for your RTO. Whatever LMS you choose, it should provide you with an affordable and scalable system to help your online training grow.
3. Should our RTO produce our own content or source managed online resources?
The major benefit of producing your own content is the flexibility and control over the creation of these resources. The downside is resourcing this and the time and costs involved in developing and updating them. If you plan on producing your own content, you’ll also need to consider what content authoring tools your chosen LMS supports.
The alternative is to source managed online resources. This is where an LMS will have a library of learning content and assessment tools ready for enrolment. When reviewing your managed content options consider:
» Does the learning content cover the topic comprehensively?
» Are the assessments mapped?
» Are you able to edit the assessment materials?
» Is it easy to show student and trainer activity for audit requirements?
» Are training package updates taken care of? Is this complementary or are there charges for this?
» If you have chosen an LMS – do the resources you’ve selected integrate seamlessly? Can you use parts of the resources to mix with other resource components?
The benefits of managed content means your RTO doesn’t need to worry about content authoring tools, writing and ongoing updates to content and assessments or how to turn these materials into engaging online experiences.
»Learn more about Catapult’s managed content here
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4. How can we minimise administration of student data?
Data is king for RTOs and ensuring the accurate capture and transfer of your data into and out of your LMS is crucial for compliance.
This is where Student Management System (SMS) integration with your LMS is important. Integration is where two or more systems cooperate automatically. Integration between your RTO’s LMS and SMS means you no longer need to manage large amounts of information across multiple systems. It also guarantees accuracy across systems by removing input errors.
We’ll expand more on Student Management System integration in the “Selecting a Learning Management System” section of this book.
5. What training and support does my RTO need for eLearning?
LMS training for your RTO’s staff will ensure your RTO gets traction with eLearning.
When selecting an LMS provider look at what training and support they provide for each user type – for example administrators (creating the students and enrolling them into courses) or your trainers (so that they can support students whilst undertaking the training).
Support materials like videos and manuals make up-skilling your staff and learners simple. Access to real people via phone support also ensures your team have the back up they need to provide an enjoyable online learning experience to your learners.
2. Selecting a Learning Management System
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After determining what eLearning will mean for your RTO – hopefully you’ll have a list of criteria to help begin selecting an LMS. To add to this, consider our shortlist of LMS features that every RTO needs for successful eLearning.
1. Data is king - SMS integration
If any organisation knows how important data is - it’s an RTO. The need for accurate and timely reports is a “must have” for RTOs in order to meet their compliance obligations.
Most RTOs manage this data via their Student Management System (SMS); the system that contains student and enrolment information. Learning Management Systems (LMS) however contain the information related to a student’s learning and provides them access to learning content and assessment tasks.
While each system has a separate function – there is overlap with student data. This is where integration across systems is important. Integration means student enrolment data and training results can be captured in one system and then imported seamlessly to the next.
Selecting an LMS that supports SMS integration is crucial for data accuracy. Accurate data means accurate reports for compliance. It also has the added bonus of saving time by removing the double handling of data from manually transferring it from one system to the next.
2. Live in the clouds
Often cloud hosting is a feature that is overlooked when selecting an LMS. But as boring as it might seem – where your LMS lives could be your RTO’s most important LMS decision.
A hosted LMS means that it lives in the cloud – on a server somewhere and is managed for you by your LMS vendor. You’ll access your system by typing in the unique URL provided – such as http://elearnlogin.YOURRTO.com and enter by typing in your login details.
Why is this important? Well it means all the tech is managed for you. You don’t have to worry about finding your own servers and dealing with software upgrades. You also don’t need to recruit or manage people with the technical know-how to manage any of this. Best of all it saves you money. Managing your own system is costly – so having this taken care of not only saves time and expertise, but money too.
»Watch our Snapshot webinar on eLearning and integration
3. An LMS full of possibility (…We mean content + assessments)
Selecting an LMS is only one part of an eLearning strategy. A key component for RTOs getting started with eLearning is content – and most importantly for RTOs – assessment tools.
If you choose an empty LMS – which means an LMS without any content and assessment library - you’ll need to develop a plan to design and develop your online resources. A critical part of writing and developing these online resources will be the mapping of assessments tools back to the Performance Criteria, Elements, Performance Evidence and Knowledge Evidence.
Alternatively your RTO can select an LMS that comes with managed content – a library of learning materials and assessment tools. Here you’ll need to review whether the content comes with assessment tools, whether it has the units of competency you require, and whether the assessment tools can be edited and adapted to meet your RTO’s contextualisation requirements.
4. Slice, dice and serve – bite-sized learning with LTI integration
Bite-sized learning is a great way of creating a guided learning experience for your learners. This is where learning content and assessments can be “sliced and diced” to meet the needs of your learning cohort.
For example, you could deliver sections of
the learning content based on completion of related activities or provide parts of the resources on a week-by-week basis.
Having an LMS that can do this means you have flexibility to slice and serve content and assessments as bite-sized portions.
We’ll expand more on this in “Bite-sized learning”.
5. Contextualised learning and assessments
There are two reasons contextualisation is important; one is it achieves better training outcomes and two it’s an Australian Skills Quality Authority (ASQA) requirement (and you can’t get around that).
Contextualisation is a way of making learning and the assessment of what has been learnt, relevant to a person’s current or future workplace. It might include:
» Packaging units of competency together to make the qualification tailored to a particular job role
» Adapting the assessments to meet the needs of a particular learning cohort
» Making changes to assessments based on recommendations from assessment validation activities The ability to edit and adapt assessment tools is crucial to meet both compliance and learner requirements. When selecting an LMS make sure you have the ability to edit, adapt and contextualise assessment tools to meet your compliance obligations.
8»Watch our Snapshot webinar on contextualising assessments
3. Engage your learners with rich learning support material
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Learner engagement is now more important than ever. Learners are seeking training that holds their attention, tests their knowledge and ultimately motivates them to gain new skills.
To do this, your LMS should support learner engagement with features like dynamic learning content, videos and quizzes to test knowledge.
Dynamic learning content
Animated content is a way of breaking this monotony by creating dynamic experiences on screen.
Whether you are creating your own content or looking for managed content, ensure it has a level of interactivity with dynamic animated content to engage your learners.
Video
Selecting an LMS that supports your RTO’s video content is a great way to increase learner engagement. By producing videos your RTO can provide a supplement or enhancement to in-class training sessions - where learners can access and review videos anytime, anywhere.
Learning prompts to help learners test their knowledge
Quizzes that test knowledge are an excellent tool to accelerate the learning process. In addition to increasing knowledge retention, quizzes provide quick feedback to a learner about their progress, which can motivate and guide their learning activities. They are also a fun and informal way of helping learners check if they are on the right track!
4. Bite-sized learning
Bite-sized learning is a great way of creating a guided learning experience for your learners. This is where learning content and assessments can be “sliced and diced” to meet the needs of your learning cohort.
Why is bite-sized learning important for RTOs?
Studies have shown that learners respond to smaller “nuggets” of information when learning.
These content nuggets can be spaced out and provided to the learner in a particular order – essentially guiding a learner through content and building on their learning as they make their way through their training.
Bite-sized learning is a very flexible style of delivery. You can tweak each of the individual nuggets as needed without having to edit the complete learning program. It can also be used to implement high-quality “just-in-time training” meaning you can reduce the span of time between the student being trained and then utilising their training.
What would bite-sized learning look like for an RTO?
First you’ll need to establish your Training and Assessment Strategy to determine the structure of the unit, qualification or skill set you are training.
Next you’ll need to determine what makes a “nugget” - such as a performance criteria or element – and develop your learning plan accordingly. From here your RTO can establish the content delivery schedule for training, which might include delivering sections of the learning content based on completion of related activities or by providing certain content or assessment tools on a week-by-week basis.
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Watch our Snapshot webinar »
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Creating bite-sized learning within an LMS.
If the LMS you use doesn’t contain a content library and is not Learning Tool Interoperablility (LTI) enabled - then you’ll need to write and develop your content and assessment tools from scratch according to your bite-sized strategy.
If your RTO is using managed online resource within an LTI enabled Learning Management System you’ll have the ability to “slice, dice and serve” these resources to meet your delivery plan using a process called Custom Parameters.
This process means online resources and assessment tools can be made part of your strategy with minimal effort and no disruption to your current eLearning processes. These customised bite-sized resources “live” inside your RTOs existing LMS meaning students simply sign in to their existing LMS once to begin their learning.
»Watch our LTI video here
5. Designing a flexible learning strategy
Don’t just think distance with eLearning, think flipped and blended learning for flexible training options.
Traditionally eLearning has been used for distance training – the need to reach students who couldn’t otherwise attend workshops or classroom based training.
A growing trend in eLearning for RTOs is using online resources to support other delivery modes. For example flipped classroom delivery or blended learning offer students a more tailored and flexible learning environment.
Come out on top with flipped learning
Flipped learning is where assessment elements and content delivery are reversed. This is when learning support material for a unit of competency is reviewed by students before the class session and class time is devoted to working on exercises, projects, or practising the skills learnt.
The benefits of the flipped learning mode of delivery is it maximises the students time with their trainers – where they can use this time to ask questions relevant to them in their context
(like how does this apply to their workplace). It also provides the opportunity to perfect their skills under the watchful eye of their trainer/ assessor.
The perfect blend for supported learning
Blended learning is a powerful way to combine the flexibility of eLearning with the benefits of your other existing training methods.
The combinations for blended learning are endless. Blended learning programs bring elements of traditional instructor led training with eLearning tools and resources. For example, a blended learning program might contain consolidated face-to-face workshops that utilise eLearning course materials. This allows your learners the flexibility to conduct their learning at home or at work and communicate with their trainer/ assessor in both an online and face-to-face setting.
Blended learning might also combine certain resource formats in more flexible ways – for example using hard copy books with the ability to submit assessments online. There are numerous ways your RTO can pair traditional training approaches with online learning to create a flexible and supported learning experience for your students.
To discuss your RTO’s eLearning needs and discover how Catapult eLearning can help you, call us on 08 8275 9333 12
