{"id":857834,"date":"2021-07-20T07:00:16","date_gmt":"2021-07-20T11:00:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thecompliancecenter.com\/ca\/?p=857834"},"modified":"2021-07-20T07:04:34","modified_gmt":"2021-07-20T11:04:34","slug":"six-things-i-learned-about-online-training-during-covid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thecompliancecenter.com\/ca\/help-center\/articles\/six-things-i-learned-about-online-training-during-covid\/","title":{"rendered":"Six Things I Learned About Online Training during COVID"},"content":{"rendered":"

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If educators had been asked during the first two decades of the 21<\/span>st<\/span> century what changes they expected to see, they likely would have said the growth of virtual learning would be the top one. Recent research, for example, shows that by 2018, 53% of US adults reported watching two or more instructional videos per week<\/a><\/span>. Education was becoming, metaphorically, more like grabbing take-out when you need it than sitting down to a long meal at a restaurant that you had to book well in advance.<\/span><\/p>\n

But even the best prophets in the industry didn\u2019t expect how COVID-19 would suddenly force online learning upon the world. In a few weeks in early 2020, ICC, like the rest of the industry, went from expecting a normal year of mostly face-to-face training to suddenly having to create training protocols for a strictly online environment. So, after a year, I thought it would be informative to look at what the experience has taught me as a dangerous goods trainer.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/b>1. The infrastructure was mostly there<\/b><\/h3>\n

When the first COVID shutdowns hit, educators had to look at what resources we had. If you\u2019ve ever checked out ICC’s training page<\/a><\/span>, you\u2019ll notice we have a wide variety of courses that follow the Computer-Based Training (CBT) mode \u2013 that is, they\u2019re pre-recorded. Participants can complete the work at their own pace and schedule, including exercises as well as lecture-based materials, and complete a quiz at the end. For many learners, this is enough.<\/p>\n

However, pre-recorded training suffers from being somewhat inflexible. Changes can be difficult to make, and these courses are not easy to customize for individual employers. Further, many adult learners prefer group learning, where job-specific questions and concerns can be shared in real-time, and the knowledge of the group can be leveraged. Fortunately, we also had considerable experience in online instructor-led presentations and were able to use these to replace our in-person training. It was quite unusual to find workers in 2020 who didn\u2019t have access to a computer, tablet, or at least a smartphone on which they could engage in training.<\/p>\n

Better still, most workers had become familiar with the concept of live online connections and have at least basic computer or mobile setups at home. Workers who had started communicating with their families using Zoom<\/a><\/span> or Facetime<\/a>\u00a0were, without realizing it, becoming adept in the skills needed to take part in online training. And technology companies had already started providing simple, low-cost programs that didn\u2019t require hours of tech support to set up. Workplaces had begun using online meetings extensively, so we encountered fewer of the firewall and connectivity issues that plagued prior forays into web training. In many ways, we were prepared for a crisis we didn\u2019t know was coming.<\/p>\n

<\/b>2. Upgrades were still necessary, and will be constantly driven by advances in both software and hardware<\/b><\/h3>\n

<\/b>Of course, the sudden hit of the pandemic also showed where industry wasn\u2019t prepared. On the provider side, when equipment or technology was lacking, it became obvious quite quickly. My personal situation as a trainer illustrates some of the issues:<\/p>\n