Print version Recommend this page Press release
06/ 2004
Bonn, 26.02.2004
The future belongs to e-learning - Internet-based e-learning!
In the future, E-learning products in the vocational training field will increasingly be offered on an online basis and make use of the Internet and intranets for providing instruction. The focus here will be less on learning on an individual, autonomous basis. Instead, centre stage will be given to virtualizing instruction. Specialized instructors will play a central role in this connection. The reason: Learning through the Internet - e-learning - that involves a demanding curriculum and extends over a longer period of time must be flanked and supervised by instruction personnel if it is to be lasting and successful. By comparison, there will be a decline in the use of e-learning products that utilize storage media (e.g., diskettes or CD-ROMs) as in the case of computer-based training (CBT) or web-based training (WBT). This shift away from conventional forms of e-learning will have enormous implications for many companies because this trend brings their respective learning cultures and learning organizations face-to-face with an entirely new situation. For this reason, providers wanting to introduce and implement new, Internet-based forms of learning also need an education management system to recognize, analyze and professionally structure and steer the extent of these changes.
These are the findings of a study on Netzbasiertes Lernen in der beruflichen Praxis: Zur Bedeutung des Bildungspersonals (Internet-based learning in professional practice: On the importance of educational personnel) which the Federal Institute for Vocational Training ("BIBB") conducted together with Dr. Behrend IMK Consulting in the summer of 2003. The aim of the study - which involved 39 companies and training providers that use e-learning - was to delineate basic forms of supervised, Internet-aided learning used in the vocational training field and, in the process, gain insight into the various functions and roles of instruction personnel.
The findings from this survey are detailed in the study Netzbasiertes Lernen in der beruflichen Praxis: Zur Bedeutung des Bildungspersonals. Ergebnisse einer qualitativen empirischen Erhebung which BIBB has published in its Wissenschaftliche Diskussionspapiere (scientific discussion papers). This study:
- Categorizes the various forms of Internet-aided training programmes that could be found;
- Discusses the role that instruction personnel play in these forms of learning;
- Discusses the training needs of instruction personnel working in these new learning worlds, and
- Outlines the necessary framework and future prospects for supervised, Internet-based forms of learning.
The German-language study Netzbasiertes Lernen in der beruflichen Praxis: Zur Bedeutung des Bildungspersonals. Ergebnisse einer qualitativen empirischen Erhebung by Erich Behrendt, Philipp Ulmer and Wolfgang Müller-Tamke can be downloaded in pdf form from http://www.bibb.de/de/5720.htm.
Point of contact at BIBB for further information regarding the BIBB research project Anforderungen an Teletutorinnen und Teletutoren in der beruflichen Bildung (Requirements for teletutors in the vocational training field) is Philipp Ulmer, Tel.: +49 228 / 107 1413, E-mail: ulmer@bibb.de
