Technology Tool Selection

Our company has just acquired a new automated staff information system, and I have been put in charge of the training sessions for this program. Unfortunately, not everyone can meet at the same time, so I have to organize distance learning that will meet the needs of the learner and adhere to the guidelines set up by the company. In this scenario, the company has stressed that the employees need to be able to share information through documents and screen shots and need to be able to collaborate.

Picking the best course management system (CMS) for the project takes knowledge of the company’s desires as well as the learners’ needs. Most of the students will probably have average familiarity with technology. However, I do not want to overwhelm the learner since all or most of this learning will be done asynchronously. I want to make sure that all parties leave feeling fulfilled after this training. I do not want learners to feel lonely and overwhelmed, and I do not want the providers or me to feel as if the results are not meeting the desire (Moller, Foshay, & Huett, May/June 2008). Therefore, I have to take what the company wants into consideration first. The company wants the employees to share information and collaborate. Then, I want to take the learner’s needs into consideration. The learner wants this to be quick and efficient. After consideration, I will use CourseSites to host my learning sessions. CourseSites is user-friendly on both ends of the communication spectrum, with not much technology “noise” in between (Simonson, Smaldino, Albright, & Zvacek, 2009). In this format, students can collaborate in virtual classrooms. They can also show what they know through Dropbox assignments. Finally, they can easily share documents. In the arena of CourseSites, I will be able to provide virtual learning linked to that site as well. Using something like Second Life or Active Worlds, I could create virtual tutorials of what the students would need to do in real life (Simonson, Smaldino, Albright, & Zvacek, 2009). Also, Podcasting the steps of the new system could also be beneficial to learners. CourseSites is easily customizable to fit the exact needs of the students.

Besides being user-friendly, another advantage of CourseSites is that it is free. Therefore, the company can save money on this training while still reaching its educational goals. The Podcasting can also be free depending on who does it. If I make and produce it myself, then it is essentially free. However, the idea of using Second Life and Active Worlds is where the financial burden comes in. These sites cost money to get into the good bracket of tools. If I really wanted to do virtual tours of the new information system and the company did not want to pay for the interactive sites, then I could produce my own live action tutorial and post as a video. Second Life and Active Worlds are just another way to get through to a younger audience if that is what my audience turns out to be.

CourseSites will be the perfect fit to support all of the technology tools I want to use to create the best learning environment for this situation.

Moller, L., Foshay, W., & Huett, J. (2008). The evolution of distance education: Implications for instructional design on the potential of the web (Part 1: Training and development). TechTrends, 52(3), 70–75.

Simonson, M., Smaldino, S., Albright, M., & Zvacek, S. (2009). Teaching and learning at a distance: Foundations of distance education (4th ed.) Boston, MA: Pearson.