As President of the US-based Campbell training organization, I I'd like to make some summary comments on my completion of the recent Online Trainer course.
This Online Trainer course gave participants the skills to lead (tutor) interactive e-learning training courses. As President of the US-based Campbell training organization, I was impressed with the ability to engage, communicate and connect through the Internet in a meaningful way.
Over the last 12 months we have enrolled 90% of our tutors on the Abacus OLT (Online Trainer) course. We are now in the process of developing a number of collaborative learning courses that will be delivered worldwide to our clients who are multinational companies in the oil and gas industry.
My mind was opened to the need to incorporate interpersonal and basic tutor skills to facilitate effective e-learning. This course taught many such techniques. The Abacus collaborative learning course taught our experienced classroom instructors new techniques and insights, e.g. how to monitor the progress of a greater proportion of the attendees.
I found asynchronous learning was a key and impressive feature of this course. Asynchronous means the course can be followed in the evenings, early mornings or other times convenient to the participant. Checking-in frequently for short periods helps to keep current. I was able to follow the course while traveling in the US, The Netherlands and the UK. My laptop computer crashed while traveling and I was able to keep up by borrowing other computers and also by accessing the Abacus course web-browser using Internet cafes. All this while I was working with other course participants, some of whom were similarly engaged in heavy international travel.
John M. Campbell & Compnay have carefully investigated collaborative learning and this form of blended collaborative learning looks like a promising avenue. One application is for a class where participants are spread around the world and need access to specialized training without leaving their workplace.
For example, what happens when you have some folks in Europe, three in Asia, etc., and they need training - they can participate without travel and have access to high level training by top experts.
Learning is a social activity. We found it was possible to build a strong "learning community" on-line using collaborative learning - this is so important in effective training by any medium.
John M. Campbell and Company is a go-ahead organization. We intend to be at the cutting edge of teaching technology. JMC are already actively pushing ahead delivering e-learning for major international oil companies. Hence the drive to have all of our instructors trained in collaborative e-learning techniques.
Gerry, may I thank you and your colleagues for this interesting and beneficial course.
John Morgan
President
John M. Campbell & Company
1215 Crossroads Blvd.
Norman, Oklahoma 73072 USA
(405) 321-1383 Telephone
(405) 321-4533 Fax
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