G-Cube Blog

Mobile telephony has revolutionized India over last one decade. Today, we get free incoming calls and outgoing call rates are the cheapest in the world ($0.01/minute and going down). A fully functional smart phone is available for less than $100 and mobile network is available in remotest corner of the country.

But the scene was very different just a decade back. Mobile technology was largely out of reach of common person – phones were costly, and call rates were almost 30 times of what they are today. And then some of the companies which got new telecom licenses in late 90’s changed the game by offering very affordable phones and low call rates. Rest, as they say, is history.

I think we are at same inflection point in computing and network connectivity in India. Desktop/laptop prices are coming down, but still not affordable for the masses of the country. So is the case with Internet connectivity – not so good connectivity in most Tier II cities and below and prices though reasonable are still not at a level where as a user I don’t have to think about it.

Now, I am going to stick my neck out and predict – Tablet PC’s combined with 3G/BWA networks would be game changer for computing (and technology assisted learning) within next few years.

Why Tablets? Because they are touch driven and hence easier to use, battery life is longer – so charge once and use it for substantial time without worrying about electricity supply, and with volume production they can be suitably priced to come within reach of masses (here I think it’s again going to be some Indian/Chinese company which is going to do the magic with ‘frugal engineering’ and not big boys of the world). We can also have solar charged tablets (just like recently launched solar charged phones) which would make tablets even more attractive vis-à-vis desktops/laptops.

Couple this with reasonably priced 3G/BWA packages and you have a ready consumer base of at-least 500 million and growing (total mobile users in India are around 500 million right now)!

This development according to my opinion will have biggest impact on education and training – currently an area which is vastly under-served due to infrastructural gaps and lack of quality teachers/instructors. After taking care of basic needs, India spends most on Education – so a device that can give a child in some obscure town exposure to best teaching facilities, or provide timely training to a budding professional for career growth, would take a prominent space in household budget allocation.

We at G-Cube are very excited about the opportunities this development can unlock. What are your thoughts? Does this look like a potential game changer?

‘Free will’ – the concept can be interpreted in many ways and one of that is the freedom of expression. In the Internet age, Blogs are widely accepted and appreciated medium of expression. But beyond expression, do blogs also serve an educative or business purpose? Indeed, blogs have come past the initial tag of just an ‘online diary’ of writing enthusiasts sharing their views with the millions browsing the internet. For an organization, a blog can be platform, with a million possibilities.

Business Blogs: Business blogging is now a common trend. What better platform to educate your audience and share your achievements than a blog?

Within the organization, company blogs are often the place to share views, events or even the glory of achievements. Blogs can be informal enough to encourage participation, and bring about a sense of solidarity.

For advertising and marketing purposes too, blogging is an excellent platform.

• Sharing expertise, increasing visibility and wooing prospective customers – a business blog can do it all.
• It especially makes sense for smaller or newer organizations to blog actively – it is a pocket friendly yet high-reach medium
• Short and informal – the very format of blog entries invite more views, more than a regular company website.
• Links to similar blogs are almost a norm for any business blog. This is useful for viewers looking for information on topics featuring on the blog.
• Blogs can also be utilized to share industry news. Inviting views on topics of shared interest, not only gives an opportunity to gain more knowledge but at the same time, it is a window to different perspectives. This leads to greater knowledge of the industry and more business opportunities, as a result.

Some of the interesting corporate blogs that you may like to go through -

• Articulate’s – Rapid E-learning Blog
• Brandon Hall – Workplace Learning Today
• Adobe Blogs
• Google Blog
• GE – Edison’s Desk
• Intel – Inside Scoop

Learning blogs: Blogs have proven to be a great platform for learning as well- for teachers or instructors as well as for the learners. To encourage learning within an organization, blogs have been a popular medium for many.

• For instructors, it can be a platform to raise questions and invite views. The blog can be a more comfortable place for many learners, where views can be pondered over before sharing.
• Different views or perspectives can sometimes conclude into the right answer. The learners and instructors alike can gain a lot from the diversity of opinions that a blog invites.
• Both for e-learning and traditional classroom learning, blogs have been a great medium to have the ‘after-class’ discussions. Subject matter experts, instructors and learners – can all participate.
• A blog can be a place for ‘growing knowledge’. A topic of discussion can grow from its conception to its conclusion, through various posts. Learners can look into this repository for pertinent information.
• Sharing links is also a popular phenomenon on learning blogs. This helps in attaining well-rounded information of any topic – beyond the scope or limit of only one particular blog.

Here are some of our favorite e-learning blogs (in no particular order) -

• Elliott Masie’s Learning Trends
• Harold Jarche
• Clive on Learning
• Manish Mohan – Learn & Lead
• Tony Karrer – eLearning Technology
• MinuteBio
• Craig Weiss – Elearning 24×7
• Clark Quinn – Learnlets
• Rupa Rajagopalan – The Writers Gateway
• Jane Hart – Social Media For Working & Learning

A social medium of expression, blogs encourage free-thinking. It makes us receptive of ideas, even if they differ from our own. It also gives us the confidence to voice our own views, even if they differ from the popular ones. Talking about your business or sharing your opinions – blogs make good sense!

Oh! You love Microsoft! – this is what a client’s IT Manager commented after looking at technology requirements sheet of Wizdom Web in a presentation last week (It’s built on .Net, and uses Windows Server, IIS, & MS SQL/Oracle as back-end platform). The presentation than briefly turned into a debate between open-source and proprietary systems.

Now, this was not the first time when someone asked me to compare open source vs. proprietary systems, and I am sure it won’t be the last. So I thought I will try to be as objective as possible (even though we sell proprietary LMS) and present how I see open source vs. proprietary LMS debate. So here goes ..

I neither love nor hate proprietary or open source systems. Our decisions to adopt a particular technology or platform either for development or internal use is governed by what works best for our customers and for us. For example, we use Microsoft platform for Wizdom Web, but use Linux based servers for our network management. We use Wizible (a proprietary tool) for project management, but use Bugzilla (open source) to manage internal QA process and WordPress (open source) for blogging.

So did we choose these open source technologies because they provided source code and theoretically we could modify these tools? Or did we choose them because they were free?

No, we chose them because they were the best fit for our requirements (and we have never felt the need to modify source code inspite of having in-house development team). Similarly, we chose proprietary technologies that we use because they were the best fit (read proven, robust, scalable, and with clear road-map that mapped to our growth needs) for us or for our customers

How about open source vs. proprietary LMS’s?

Questions one should evaluate –

1. Is my organization practically ever going to setup an IT team to manage or customize the system?
2. Does the future road-map of open source system map with my industry/domain growth needs?
3. Can I manage without active support?
4. If I am getting the open source system customized, will it still be able to support enhancements that will be made to the system in future (remember with open source systems the development community would not know how you have customized your system, and hence won’t make future enhancements that may fit the customized LMS)?

I generally recommend that if customer’s LMS needs are such that they can be met by out-of-the-box product, and if they have an IT team or access to pool of programmers (such as students) to manage and support the system then it makes absolute sense to go for an open source LMS.

However, if you are an organization who wants LMS to become integral part of talent development plan (read easy integration with ERP’s/HRMS’s, usage in competency management, skill gap analysis, succession planning etc), or if you are getting the system heavily customized, or if you don’t want to setup a dedicated support team for LMS then seriously consider proprietary system that best matches your usage scenario.

I raised the question of domain needs above, because most of the open source LMS’s have been designed with education domain in mind and their growth continues to be influenced by the needs of the same domain. This can be easily ascertained by looking at the terminology used in demo sites, and by going through future road-map of open source LMS’s. So in my honest opinion, they are not the best fit (not in their current form, and not atleast with next couple of releases) for a medium to large size corporate implementation.

Now, the million dollar question – How do Open Source & Proprietary LMS’s compare on Cost Front?

Assuming that open source LMS matches your objectives and organizational structure, then yes, if you have small to medium sized implementation then certainly open source LMS’s (even if moderately customized) are much more cost effective compared to licensed proprietary systems.

However, if you have medium to large scale implementation, then the license price of the LMS itself is not so significant component of the entire implementation (or atleast not so significant component with our and many other good LMS’s license prices).

Given below is a case in example, where we implemented Wizdom Web for 7,500 users for a client that’s spread across the country. I have compared this implementation with a popular open source system (OSS), and I have assumed certain efforts for OSS customizations based on my understanding of that system (Note: Costs are approximate, and currency has been converted to USD for wider audience reach).

Note: Common Customizations- Reports, UI Customizations. Additional Customizations for OSS- Categorization & Assignment of Courses Based on Department/Location, Configurable Work-flow based Enrollment Approvals

Given below is a graphical representation of total cost of ownership (TCO) over the life of LMS license.

As you can see, over a period of time costs converge and can actually be more for OSS depending upon support & enhancement requirements. For bigger implementations of over 30k users, the license cost is even less of a factor, and in such cases the most critical factor is how robust the system is, how well the LMS partner can support you throughout the LMS life cycle, and what is the proposed road-map of the LMS system and whether that aligns with your domain needs or not.

So this how I see open source vs. proprietary LMS debate. I would love to receive your criticism and feedback.

Apple launched iPad yesterday amidst lot of hype. It was slated to be Kindle killer and a serious threat to Netbooks. We try to analyze where would iPad fit in, and whether it will be for elearning what iPod was for music.

iPad Vs Kindle

First some facts - I have compared iPad – Wi-Fi + 3G model with Kindle DX as they are the comparative models amongst various versions made available from both the providers –

Analysis –

• If one is an avid book reader & is going to use the device primarily for reading eBooks only, then Kindle would make more sense – its display technology is better, weighs & costs less (Kindle also has a base version which is smaller, weighs 0.29kg & costs $259), and has huge content repository.
• However, if one is looking to do more with the handheld device than just reading books, such as browse web, emailing, view videos, listen to music, and make presentations etc, than in that case iPad beats Kindle hands down.
• iPad also has access to Apple’s application store, which has tens of thousands of apps which can be downloaded on to iPad

Take on iPad Vs Kindle – iPad is not a Kindle killer and both would fight for top two eBook reader spots. iPad would however, certainly hurt new eBook readers that are now coming in the market.

iPad & Its Impact on e-Learning

Apple’s new device was also seen as something that could have given mobile learning a big push. Will it? I have my doubts. My reasons -

No Support for Flash – Like iPhone, even iPad doesn’t support Flash and there is no mention of when it will be supported. Majority of the elearning course-ware however gets published in Flash and no support for flash is a major irritant for rolling out courses on iPad, as few would make the investment to adopt new technology.

It’s Not a Netbook – iPad doesn’t support multi-tasking, is not a phone, has upper limit to disk space (64 GB), doesn’t have an inbuilt camera, and doesn’t support MS Office (does support MS Office’s formats though) among other things.  All this would put iPad in entertainment/lifestyle product category, and would thus not get endorsed by Management/IT departments for corporate use.

iPad would have limited impact on mlearning unless some of the parameters mentioned above change, either as a result of technological advancements over next couple of years or as upgrades from Apple.

Styles and guidelines are essential to all forms of instruction. This fact is not debated, but what is certainly questioned is the effectiveness of existing learning styles and their utility. A paper on the Concept and Evidence of Utility of Learning Styles by Harold Pashler, Mark McDaniel, Doug Rohrer and Robert Bjorg, details the evidence validating the success of existing methodologies of teaching and learning. This search leads them to find little or no certainty of a specific method, and to suggest that contrary to popular belief, learning styles cannot be effectively suited in general learning environments.

What stands out in the study for me, in context of the current learning scene, are observations that are simple – but when put to practice means good business for the industry.

Know thy audience: Factors like aptitude, education and cultural influences define each learner in a different way. Defining the learner or the learner group then becomes the first step to fruitful learning.

The origin of this theory can be traced back to the mid-twentieth century, by what was probably the first testimony in the field of human personality by Karl Jung. His thoughts were further concretized into the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator Test. To this day, this test is a popular tool in understanding the aptitude and occupational skills of a person. While objective studies have failed to show how this classification of people into clusters helps, it has nevertheless failed to hamper its popularity. The Myer-Briggs test was probably the first in the long line of such studies and test that are now available and popularly used.

Coming back to the moot point, whatever the ways and means are of defining ones audience, the knowledge helps in presenting information and imparting awareness. Going by one of the more popular adverts of the learning-styles movement – ‘One style does not fit all…’ adopting different styles for different groups is definitely warranted.

Interaction is at the heart of learning: Too much or too little – is that quintessential question, when defining the levels of interaction in learning?

How much of interaction is best suited for the learner group? External factors make a learner group highly aware of its potential and capabilities. This knowledge if well understood can be the backbone of any learning lesson. Groups with heightened awareness of their own capabilities do better with little or moderate intervention. Often they tend on learning alone or in small groups of similar-minded people. On the other side are people who are not sure of their capability in adapting to new skills. Hand holding and frequent intervention can show results in this scenario.

Testing… How does that enhance learning? : Is testing just about asking questions and determining retention? Testing is more than just that. At the testing stage too, interaction plays an important role. It is suggested that prompting might be necessary for learner groups to ascertain the success of a learning module. Not only at the final stages or the end, but at an initial level too a timely prompt can enhance retention and infuse confidence. This intervention is needed for all learners. But again, the degree of it will differ for different groups or individuals.

So, to conclude, learning styles and methodologies are many. Some are proven while some are controversial. While not slavishly following a single one, but adopting the best of all worlds, is a road well-trodden. Debates over the utility of these styles and methodologies continue, but learning does not wait for them to conclude, does it?

In response to this month’s big question on LCB – e-Learning implementation and usage of different upcoming platforms is at different adoption level in different regions, and hence it becomes difficult to generalize how 2010 will pan out for our industry. I have thus categorized my thoughts on geographical basis.

India –

1. Skill Development Programs – Many government bodies at both center and state level initiated skill development programs on mass scale in collaboration with private sector in 2009. I see some of them taking off the ground this year and benefiting hundreds of thousands of youths who so far could not find meaningful jobs.
2. e-Learning Adoption in Government Bodies to Increase – Many PSU’s who are leaders in their own domains started implementing elearning in 2009, e.g. Punjab National Bank, State Bank of India, Department of Post etc. As they successfully implement the systems over next few months, I see lot of activity from other entities in these respective domains to implement similar systems in their organizations. State education boards are already very actively implementing smart classrooms and I see this only growing hereon.
3. Traditional Sectors to implement Training Management Systems – Tech savvy sectors, such as BFSI, IT/ITeS, Healthcare and Telecom etc have reached ‘Early Majority’ stage in technology adoption cycle and this will continue to grow. Something that I think will be different in 2010 will be that traditional sectors, such as Manufacturing, FMCG, and Energy etc will start adopting elearning more vigorously. They would however start with implementing training management systems to better manage their classroom trainings, and slowly build elearning practice in their organizations. In my opinion this would essentially be because of lack of relevant and ‘Indianised’ content for these domains.
4. Online Examinations – After CAT fiasco this year (or the media attention that it got), other examination bodies, such as IIT JEE, MAT etc will wait for another year I think before they start moving from paper based examinations. However, organizations on individual level would use online assessments much more in 2010 to certify their employees, or to help them evaluate their skill gaps (Almost all of our Wizdom clients, including PSU’s, ask for and use/intend to use Assessments vigorously).
5. Social Learning & M-Learning – Innovators will adopt them in 2010, but these platforms are still sometime away from mass adoption – on both corporate & individual level.

US & Parts of Europe –

1. eBooks – Amazon sold more eBooks than physical books, and Kindle was the top selling gift item ever this Christmas. Many more products are coming in the market & Apple is set to announce its new tablet shortly. All this makes 2010 a very interesting year for eBooks growth, which I believe is set to explode now.
2. m-Learning – As I had mentioned in one of my earlier posts also, we are now developing lot of content for iPhones & Blackberries, and the requests are only growing by the day. Apart from this personal experience, there are off-the-shelf m-learning content providers emerging on the scene. All this, combined with technology advancements, such as embedded Pico Projectors can make 2010 a year when m-Learning got its due share.
3. Rapid Content – Scars of recession are fresh and are not going to heal in a hurry. Cost cutting is and will remain name of the game for some time. Standardization and rapid content development, while keeping tight focus on instructional design is going to be the prevalent content development mode in 2010.
4. Search for ‘Magic Learning System’ – 70% of LMS users are unhappy with their systems. They are ugly & confusing. Social Learning is the ‘new’ way to learn & LMS’s don’t know what to do about it. Well, poor LMS has been everyone’s favourite punching bag for couple of years now. But the world currently doesn’t have an alternative for very important question from organization perspective – how to track and control learner’s movements (Yes, I know, this is not how it ideally should be – but please tell that to HR Departments & to learners who take undue advantage of liberties provided to them). Search for ‘Magic Learning System’ is on and will continue in 2010 (and we may actually see some answers too – SCORM/E-Learning cloud is one such emerging thought) which can be integrated with popular social platforms and provide a way to provide controlled access and objectively analyse learner progress in bridging her skill gaps.

So, this is what I think how 2010 is going to be. Would love to hear your thoughts & feedback.

I get these questions a lot from people who are just getting into elearning – What is SCORM? What is the advantage of having SCORM compliance? What are the challenges I can face? Should I be hands-on with SCORM?

So here is some help.

What is SCORM?

SCORM (Shareable Content Object Reference Model) is a standard defined by ADL which defines how elearning courses and LMS should talk to each other. Let me try to explain this with help of a hypothetical scenario –

• Let’s say there are 3 entities GOD, a Man, and a Dog
• Man and Dog wish to be friends and want to stay together – but there is a problem – they don’t understand each other
• Man & Dog become very sad. GOD, being what HE is, can’t see this and works out a solution. HE lays down some rules for Man & Dog and commands –
  • Dog – If you want food, wag your tail and Man will give you food
  • Man – If you are feeling lonely make a sad face and Dog will give you all its love
  • and so on …
• After this both Man & Dog become happy because now not only can they interact and live with each other, but also with other Men & Dog they get to meet!

Now understanding SCORM becomes very simple if we replace our above entities as follows–
GOD = ADL
Man = LMS
Dog = Course
Commands = SCORM

ADL has laid down rules on how course and LMS are to talk to each other for various things, e.g. how should course tell LMS how many marks a learner scored in assessment, or how should course tell LMS how much time learner has spent reading it, or how should LMS tell course where it was stopped last etc.

What are the advantages of SCORM?

Well, if there is no standard then LMS and Course won’t know how to talk to each other and each one of them would have to devise its own way of doing it. It can work if you have to talk to only one LMS or one course – but it will be impossible to communicate if LMS has to talk to courses from different vendors, or if a course has to run on different LMS’s.

Thus, some of the advantages of SCORM are –

• SCORM compliant Courses and LMS can talk to each other seamlessly
• As a customer, you have the flexibility to buy and host courses from any vendor, or if you are having problems with LMS, you can replace it with another SCORM compliant LMS without having to make any modifications in the courses
• As a course builder, you can follow set guidelines and be assured that your courses will run with all SCORM compliant LMS’s

What are the challenges I can face?

The problem arises when different service providers interpret ADL guidelines differently or do not completely implement them. It’s just like GOD lays down the rules, but different men and dogs interpret them differently and start fighting with each other that other’s interpretation is wrong.

Thankfully, ADL has provided a set of tools to check whether both LMS & courses are “truly” SCORM compliant or not. So as a customer, if you ever find yourself in situation where LMS & content providers are claiming their products to be SCORM compliant and still not working together, then you can ask them to provide test report generated via ADL tools.

However, do not worry. You would generally not face this problem with established LMS’s or content authoring tools.

Should I be hands-on with SCORM?

Depends.

If you are a content developer planning to use standard tools like Articulate, Toolbook etc. then you don’t need to know about SCORM guidelines as these tools can publish courses in SCORM compliant format without any inputs from your side.

If you are however developing content using HTML or Flash then you would certainly need to know about SCORM function calls and how to code the same in your courses.

If you are a customer using SCORM compliant LMS and courses then you should understand how to upload SCORM compliant courses onto the LMS, whether your LMS provides any settings regarding SCORM courses (such as, will course window auto-resize or you can set window size, can you switch on/off LMS generated navigation bar etc) or not etc.

I hope this was of some help. Please do feel free to contact us if you have any queries related to SCORM compliance for LMS or your courseware.

In this era of fierce competition, customer centricity is the key to success of any business. If you want repeat business from a customer, you have to go beyond jazzy interface in your eLearning training and gripping case studies; these may get customer’ attention, however, you can get the repeat business by ensuring the effectiveness of the training for the end users. 

So how do you ensure a good return on investment (ROI) for your customer?

Just keep the following points in mind while creating the training:

Þ Ensure the curriculum focuses on the job: 

Understand the business goal, where the training fits in, and break the curriculum into concise skills as per the job requirements.

Þ Ensure Interactivity in learning: 

Based on format, bandwidth, and budget, choose from audio, video, animations, simulations, digital photos, and clip arts. Design thought provoking quizzes, use real world examples, build in feedback for learners, and if possible, provide practice time in safe environment.

Þ Try for a pilot session:

Convince the stake holders, SMEs for a pilot of the training. A few end users should also be included in this session, if possible. Explain how to best take this training, including details of required software and hardware. Conduct follow-up interviews to get suggestions for improvements. 

Þ Prepare the customer:

Schedule a meeting with the customer/stake holder during the final release of the training and brief about the system and time requirements for successful completion of the training. Make them aware of how best to benefit from the training, the sequence in which it should be taken etc. Identify the need of support for the end-users and ensure you can provide the same.

(Sachin Pandey is Project Manager – Content at G-Cube)

Ups and downs of are part of normal economic cycles.  Just like nature, Economy tends to stay in equilibrium and both have a certain limited intrinsic potential to withstand the pressure of human action, beyond that both reacts and then rebel back.

That’s why, there is an economic recession!
And that why, there are natural calamities!!

And that’s why economy heats up and cools off (and freezes at times!) and so does the nature. Well, economist should consult ecologist in developing a case to understand how nature resurrects and whether any amount of “human-action” is desirable for the health of the economy. Or rather “human in-action” is more desirable to get over it sooner.

We have seen how best of analysts and experts join the chorus when economy drifts either side. Their projections tend to be over optimistic and over pessimistic in either case. Financial experts use term such as “irrational exuberance” too frequently during down time and blissfully ignore the same during boom run.

As per my analysis the collective action of “greed” and “fear” triggers at a very inner level of human psyche. It’s like hard-coded software which is etched over a million year of our evolution. And that’s why even the collective acumen of Ivy educated professionals fail to oppose these enormously powerful human tendencies. To avert that, you got be a spiritualist capitalist! (more on this in my future works)

Well this was a broad-view – recession is here for sure, how deep and how long will this be is any bodies’ and every bodies’ guess. So let us not waste time in predicting that. I would rather focus on specific issue of how learning and development (L&D) industry can benefit from the current economic situation.

Purpose of existence of all businesses is to create value for one another.  Unfortunately sustained boom cycle over last 5 years developed a few fundamental flaws in offering a genuine value equation to customers. The two important reasons are:-

Shortage of quality human resources and their high cost

Towards the peak of boom cycle human resources of good quality had fallen short and they were expensive beyond limits. This exerted huge pricing pressure and acted against the customer value.

Over-booked positions and complacency

There were customers for all kind of offering. Everything was in demand whether high quality or low quality – it didn’t matter much. In fact there were customers for all price brackets – from mature to experimental to only cost reducers they were all embracing eLearning in some way. In such a scenario most of the suppliers had no time or motivation to innovate the value chain. All of them concentrated on sales and parties! (I think I am right here )

In my views, recession is an opportunity for reinventing the value chain and creating “out-of-box” competitive solutions which don’t sacrifice on learning impact. These efforts will help suppliers’ innovate in the interest of customers.

Since, it is an established fact that eLearning helps in reducing overall cost of training (cost reduction can be 20% – 60% based on overall strategy, which depends on factors like offshoring, adoptions of types and variety of content and LMS etc. ) apart from offering certain significant qualitative advantages like:-

• “Anytime-anywhere” learning 
• Tapping the global mentoring resources for optimum skill development 
• Administration and control of training calendar from multiple locations

That’s why I don’t wish to harp on the benefits of eLearning over traditional methods here. Clearly what is likely to happen is that a large part of L&D needs will be served through eLearning- its share may increase to over 50% over next 2 years from current 35% and similar trend will be seen for online learning- which is likely to increase from current 25% to 40%. Refer to my Jan 2008 post on the similar topic.

Now, how and where such possibilities exists only experts can apply their minds and critically evolve solutions. I am sure they can evolve “much larger learning impact at reduced overall cost”.

Suppliers will also try to evolve competitive solutions suiting the requirements and budgets of SME’s apart from large businesses and institutions.

Since content comprises of a large part of eLearning I expect a significant value creation potential there, particularly in development of custom content.  Though all the possibilities can’t be defined, scope for excellence and innovation is everywhere be it access of delivery technology through SaaS, interactive content through auto tools/ engines, integrations and bundling of offerings etc.

I have no doubt that all the serious and significant layers will not only survive the meltdown but emerge “healthy-wealthy- and-wise” through recession.  Just to take a cue from what happened in 2003, while training budgets were in red training programs through eLearning grew @ 15%. Based on this I am confident that industry will continue to grow and embrace eLearning in a big way.

However the impact will vary for different participants based on their exposure – capital budget sensitive players are more likely to be under pressure then those who depend on operating budgets. So players who are in L&D consumables like content development and maintenance may be less affected than others. 

I see significant and serious companies maintaining 20-25% growth Y-O-Y (however this may not be true for next 2 quarters). Since customers are extremely cautious now, next 2Q may look bleak with flat or negative growth.

We will be to happy to offer a significant value to customers through what we call-

Watch this space.

(Mr. Ankit Jain is Head - HR & Strategy at G-Cube)

Games are at the verge of evolving into a serious method of teaching pretty soon. Why? Because they are fun, they involve intense and passionate involvement, they give us structure through their rules, they are interactive and can be adapted to a learner’s teaching style and pace, they can take various routes to learn the same concept thus catering to a much larger audience profile. Is that not all? No there is more, they spark creativity, interaction and a challenge, and they also give us emotions. All of this can fit into a game and are needed if a game is developed keeping in mind a basic rule: “Would I like or love to play this game?” I use this rule of thumb while creating a game, if the answer to this question is ‘like’ I know that it is time to relook the strategy, the graphics, etc. If the answer is ‘love’, I take a second opinion

The educationists have been trying their hands on teaching and learning through ‘hands-on’ methodologies. Really great work, I too have for some time worked on such theories with some renowned educationists. And I completely agree with them that having a hands-on experience makes learning most easy and fun. I have sat with children who have been put through some of these teaching materials, gathering scientific data, and no quantitative number can suffice for the joy that you see in the child’s eye when they understand the ‘Why?’ or the ‘How?’.

But a ‘hands-on’ approach may not always work. For example, how do you make a learner realize the demand and supply curve when all they have an idea about it is that it’s synonymous to food and hunger? Do you put them in the market with an assured sum and let them pick the details? No! Here is where a game can help. Learning from experience can only go that much. And for processes that are costly, where actual process life cycle is long, or where situations have a threat to life or property, or are dangerous or risky, games can be of great help. I played a game recently on the web about the situation in Somalia, which very distinctly played with my emotions. I could feel their pain and I was sitting no-where in Somalia at that time. But was this just an isolated reaction or a general reaction to people suffering? Either way there was learning happening.

I believe gaming as a learning strategy has not taken on off in a big way because it has not been researched properly. There is lot of feedback, both positive and negative, that can be found on the Internet, but not much of it is substantiated by any scientific process, so we cannot be sure. I however, found a research done at two universities in Canada and the US that show very positive and conclusive results. My work for one of our clients, where we had to create a similar game that uses student perception to market behavior as its concept helped me understand this research. I could relate much easily to the research work and its findings as I had sensed the feelings of utter confusion and then the dawn of realization too. I could see the results tallied with my initial reaction to our game and how I react to it now.

Now, I am not condemning books but games are more than capable of doing what the books have been doing since man scribbled on sand, and games can do much more than what the books have ever achieved.

Here is something interesting that you may want to read on the same topic – Everything Bad is Good for You – Steven Johnson

(P. Kasturi Rangan is Assistant Project Manager at G-Cube)