Here's A from Addie the digital narrative for my conference movie. Please bare in mind that the approach and I'm building a story. This is the longest section, the others and the conclusion are only half the length. I'm setting the scene in this part it becomes more academic and relevant further on.
A
So the analysis stage. The learning outcome metric is quite clear in this instance for trainee CEOS to pass the Wamitab exam. The organisational imperative is on return on investment, staff development for business growth and increased profits. The need for constant WAMITAB resits with a first time 60% failure rate and instances of continuing failure, leading to the need to re-recruit, are a cost to the business.
The format of the course means Students have 5 full classroom days, which are intensive and largely governed by endless PowerPoint lectures. The course requires quite a substantial amount of extra self-study beyond the classroom, 3 hours a day is the additional study time recommended by the course trainers. The supporting training materials currently comprise of this. (Hold up manual to camera) A large printed training manual which mirrors the PowerPoint and trainer classroom input.
Among the cohorts of students our HR data shows that 53% of all CEO trainees nationwide were from non UK backgrounds this figure reaches 73% for those situated within the Greater London area. This means a high proportion were recent Immigrants who had English as a second language. Many suggested in conversation with tutors that they lived in houses of multiple occupation and that study space and time was limited and crowded environments impacted on the quality of study time. This was coupled with a reliance on public transport to the training venue which lies on the periphery of North London and is at least a 25-minute walk from the nearest over-ground station in short many trainees journey times were between 2 and 3 hours each way!
So many had an aggregation of barriers to being able to fully benefit from the training experience. To summarise our learners had limited study time and lack of quality study spaces. This was also compounded by many learning in a second language.
This environment and these imperatives may appear at odds, or at least, not concerned with open principals. However, In the analysis of student profiles we are faced with issues that are very much a part of the wider debate on learner access and opportunity.
So if we switch to digital delivery how does that solve our problem. Knock up some eLearning publish it to the organisations LMS they can do it whilst they are eating their tea in the comfort of their homes!
Well he comes another set of issues to add to the others already identified. We cannot just make the assumption that students have sufficient access to hardware or reliable internet access coupled with this classroom observation indicates that there are very mixed levels of digital literacy, defined as “the ability to both understand and use digitised information” (Gilster 1997)
So as a design team we have been tasked to find a solution to this for commercial reasons, However, how we design out these mitigations has a wider remit. Our learners and these circumstances are reflective of the wider issues around digital learning opportunities, the digital divide and economic growth. In the 4th industrial revolution a lack of digital literacy and access Impedes an individuals, economic growth and social mobility and impacts the growth of the wider common wealth.
“The digital divide is a manifestation of global inequalities. Those with greater capabilities can afford opportunities to gain the necessary skills to better leverage state and private sponsored investments in digital infrastructure and training. Conversely, impoverished communities with limited capabilities have fewer opportunities to gain the skills needed to advance within the rapidly transforming digital economy” (Chetty K, Aneja U, Vidisha V, Gcora N, and Josie J, 2018)
So from both a practical business and ethical perspective digital learning equity is a mutual imperative……. And in the words of Benjamin Franklin
“an investment in knowledge pays the best interest”