A couple of years ago, it was forecast that Computer Based Training would largely take over from the more traditional training class, at least in the IT industry; forecasts were that some 60% of leaning would be done using CBT. But that hasn't happened - it's more like 6% than 60% that's done using CBT, with over 90% of training remaining "traditional".  Why?

It seems that getting out of your place of work to learn gives you the impetus to get into new subjects.   It seems that many folks find there are constant interruptions when they try and learn at work.  It seems that people still need to be able to say "I don't understand - can you explain that differently, go through another example please" - feedback that's not so easy to tailor in a CBT program.  And it seems that trainees make huge gains by interacting with others who are learning the same subject but from a different starting point and with different targets.

Computer Based and Computer Aided training does have its place, but I can't see it wiping out the traditional short, intensive commercial training course.

CBT packages are largely passive and inflexible affairs (in my opinion . I tried one on Visual Basic once and found it bordering on laughable..

We recently had a presentation on a load of CBT packages for Oracle development here and revealed another flaw which I can't help but see as pretty crucial - many of them were out of date.

I think we all felt kind of sorry for the guy actually presenting them to us in the end. We were asking questions about individual aspects of the courses (that were blatantly insufficient in their coverage) which *could not* be answered by the CBTs (despite trying every button/menu/page... we watched him!).

CBTs seem, at best, poor collections of reference material.

Then again, there are quite a few people in IT who just don't feel comfortable in groups (don't ask me why and for them CBTs seem a valid, if flawed, alternative.


almosthere







I could not agree more wiht Mr Almosthere.

I've come across a few and have treated them as reference material in the end.

I liken this to the predicted demise of books, I've never bought so many yet keep reading that "treeware" is being replaced by electronic versions. Have you ever tried reading a book online? even a technical book, yuk!

jfp

Gents, I think you've hit on two other training industry problems here - keeping material up to date, and keeping (or getting) tutors up to date - the problem applies to CBT courses and to instructor lead courses too.

Another figure that I heard quoted (damned statistics) is that it takes on average 10 days to write one day of training material; little suprise then that courseware suppliers (however it's presented) will try to keep material in use when it's really due for retirement.    There's a theory (and in many ways it's well founded) that training material in IT subjects is good the world - or at least the English Speaking world - over, and that means that it's normally going to be presented by a tutor who had no hand in the writing of it, and who can't simply update the material if he finds errors, or improvements or changes that should be made ... so unless it's well managed, material can stagnate.  Hmmm ... I seem to be moving off topic here ....

Back on topic; good CBT products do have their place, and they do suit some people - but they're not sweeping the market, and I don't expect they will.

I do know what you mean about IT people not feeling comfortable in groups; afreed, but some environments do help such folks ... we find that the company cat melts the stearnest of faces ....

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