Converting your Existing ILT Training to Online
Written by Jim Helein
My first experience with converting traditional classroom training to an online version came early in my career. In 2004, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) contracted Windwalker to convert their Money Smart curriculum into an online Computer-based Instruction (CBI). Money Smart featured ten 10 instructor-led training (ILT) courses. It was FDIC’s goal to teach financial literacy to people who were new to banking. The intended audience was welfare recipients, high school and college students, military spouses of the deployed, elderly (especially widows or widowers), and immigrants. The courses ranged from an introduction to banks in general, to opening savings or checking accounts, from obtaining and maintaining good credit, to buying a house or car, and protecting against identity theft. FDIC wanted to reach 1 million people with Money Smart, so they decided to expand their reach by creating the CBI.
Over the past two decades, I have worked with a variety of clients to convert their existing ILT into eLearning. From Xerox sales training courses to Federal Law Enforcement Training Center (FLETC) law enforcement field training.
Before we go further, I want to be clear. This is not an “ILT Bad, eLearning Good” article. Good effective training can be delivered in person or online. Ineffective and non-engaging training can also be delivered in both ways. No, this piece is about options, mainly the option to take training content you already have and expand its reach and effectiveness in other ways.
WHY CONVERT ILT?
The primary reason for the conversion projects we had was always to expand the reach of the original training. A close second was also to reduce the cost of traditional training through cutting the need for travel and accommodations or facility rental. These are still the most significant reasons we find that clients want to move their training online.
Of course, today, a new reason we are hearing more and more about converting existing training is the once in a century world-wide pandemic. Organizations and businesses who must deliver training but are still not at the point of bringing their workforces into in-person situations, are looking for ways to convert the investment they have in their existing training into ways to deliver in a virtual way.
But any training professional will tell you, that well before this pandemic, organizations were looking for ways to cut their training costs. Especially the Federal Government. For about a decade now, Government budgets were stripped for large, days-long training conferences where hundreds of Federal employees would travel to major cities for long form ILT sessions. The need to repurpose training became a priority in the Federal sector after that.
Back then they were looking to convert exiting training for these reasons:
Greater reach to a large, geographically dispersed workforce.
This was a main reason for Government agencies and large national or international corporations.
Savings on travel and accommodations.
This is related closely to the reason above and even with the cost of creating online training, oftentimes doing so provides cost savings and efficiency over the long term.
Standardize training throughout an organization.
Regardless of cost or time savings, some clients wanted to deliver training that was set and standardized across their large organizations and not rely on the skill or approach of individual training sessions in different regions or locations.
Condensing the time their workforce spent in training.
Some organizations recognize that the training they have is already too long and would like to streamline it and if doing that why not streamline the distribution to an online option.
Giving the learner control over the training; pace, learning styles, etc.
Organizations recognized that their workforce learned in different ways, and that it could be more effective to let the learner direct their learning. Online learning provided them the autonomy to choose pace and time of learning.
Providing a more flexible timing for training.
Whether it is letting the employee choose when they take the training or deciding on how many chunks they go through the training in, online learning allows them to access the training at a time and pace that may be more effective for them.
Creating cost effective refresher training or just-in-time options for employees who may have missed the in-person class (as an option).
Even if your organization is going to stick primarily with ILT (again an absolutely valid choice), having an online version allows for a great way to offer refresher training for key principles or even to provide training for employees who may miss the scheduled training due to illness or scheduling conflicts. At times, some new hires are brought on board at times not aligned to scheduled training sessions. An online option could be perfect in those situations.
It’s important to note all of these reasons start with an organization’s existing training content. It all starts there.
REDUCING SEAT TIME
In our experience, one of the primary objectives when converting existing training is to condense the time of training and reduce the seat time.
A client may have a one day or two-day training, sometimes it’s a week of training.
Almost all of us agree that no one wants to spend 8 hours or 16 hours in front of a computer, certainly not 40 hours.
Especially now when that feels like we spend our lives online!
The challenge is to find a way to reduce that time – take an 8-hour training and boil it down to an effective 1-hour seat time online course. In fact, that was the challenge of our Money Smart project. Each course was a 1-day training session. FDIC wanted the online version of each to be 30 to 60 minutes, tops.
THE FILM ANALOGY
My background is in film production, as such I am very familiar with the challenges of taking the content from one medium, say a novel, and adapting it to another – a film. As anyone who’s seen a favorite book adapted to film, you know that there are things you loved reading in the book that will not make it into the film version. The hope is that you do not lose the main thread or spine of the story, and that if key scenes or characters are cut, that the spine, the power of the story stays intact. That is also key in converting ILT into online training.
The ISD’s challenge is to find that spine, the main reason, the main objectives for the training and carry that through. That was our challenge on the FDIC project. The classroom materials had lots of great information in each of the courses. And in a classroom environment you had the time to go through it all. Instructors could discuss and demonstrate banking terminology, banking forms, different kinds of checking accounts, fees and penalties, extra charges, interest checking, interest-free checking…well, you get the point. While all that information is worthwhile, you don’t necessarily need it to get to the main point of the course.
PRACTICAL EXAMPLE
So, for the Checking Account course, our designers focused only on the opening, using and maintaining a checking account. How to open an account, what you need to bring with you and who you visited at the bank to do so. How to write a check and record that in your check register and then how to read a statement and reconcile your account each month.
For all the information around checking accounts, regulations, fees, protections, hidden charges, etc., we designed the Information Booth. Noting that banks sometimes had a shelf or booth in their bank with pamphlets or brochures to offer information on their other products, we simulated that in an Info Booth button onscreen. There a user could click on that and get all the other information that was in the 8-hour classroom course.
The key was making this user directed. We’d teach the main spine of the course – Checking Accounts: opening them, using and maintaining one or Savings: opening and maintain a savings account, so that the objective that someone could go into a bank who’d never done so before and open accounts would feel comfortable doing so. Our design then provided users information, all of it printable, to take with them. We also provided – as any online training does – a FAQs button as well.
And that’s the key to any conversion (or in the film world – adaptation), find the spine of the story and carry that through, giving the user the option and ability to go deeper into the information through a resources link.
We carried that approach into our Unit Prevention Leader (UPL) training course created for the U.S. ACSAP. The course trained the UPLs, those responsible for taking specimens for testing and doing so to ensure proper chain of evidence. To give the UPLs all the information they could want, we created the UPL Toolkit – which appeared in the interface as a Soldier’s backpack. The UPL (learner) just had to click on the pack icon and had a list of further information they could access, in the form of documents, sample forms, photographs, and video or audio vignettes.
As stated earlier, it comes down to the existing content. As a developer of online training: Know your resources. Getting a look at the existing training is critical. It must start there. The spine will start with the Learning objectives. If your condensed adapted solution addresses those you will be able to create an effective training course that does meet its requirements.
It’s also important to note that today’s training approaches provide a slew of options for providing online options. No longer are you restricted to the task of simply figuring out how to maintain the same course structure while pairing down an 8 hour classroom course to a 30 minute online version.
IDEAS FOR ADAPTATION
Can you meet the Learning Objectives by adapting the ILT course to a series of micro-learning modules? Will an animated video of software tool navigation meet the Learning Objectives? Is it possible to create just-in-time training via an AI tool? Can you simulate the learning objectives into a series of interactive scenarios that navigate through a series of decision points? As long as you maintain the spine – the Learning Objectives – you can create an effective online version of the ILT.
The other advantage is that you can probably repurpose many of the assets, graphics, videos, audio files, or course style guides from the original ILT. Most organizations have good training content. It’s just a matter of making it accessible via the new medium.
You don’t even have to lose the idea of an instructor. Of course, one approach is now virtual ILT through technologies like Zoom and Teams. That’s a valid approach, too. But if you’re designing for asynchronous, user directed training, you can still simulate an instructor or guide. You can have an online mentor. Or shoot video or record audio of instructors or SMEs talking about critical information. Add a list of FAQs, and each time one is clicked on the answer is provided by the SME in a video directly addressing the user. Add video b-roll around that to enhance their point.
Your conversion will also address the different learning styles. Your design can provide readers with stuff to read, visual learners with stuff to watch, and audio learners with stuff to hear. All at the same time!
Like with our FDIC project a while back, your key objective is to provide clients with an effective option to expand the reach of their training. And doing so by converting what they already have can be the most effective AND cost-efficient way to do that.
Remember, I’ve been at this over two decades and converting ILT to online is not new. But perhaps the need for it is even greater than ever, given the new technology and how we’ve adapted to it, cost of in person training and a once in a century, world -wide health emergency. It is said that crisis accelerates what was coming anyway. Meaning it was going to happen anyway, but now it’s here, let’s deal with it, and we’re probably never going back to the old way.
So take a look at your training, can an online version work for you? Now and even once we’re all vaccinated!