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Computer Based Training Business Interchange Essay Research (стр. 3 из 4)

What about the overall impact of the Internet?

Someone pretty bright put it well: “The Internet is being overhyped but underestimated.” The Internet will change everything.

Should the training be interactive on the Web or should it be downloaded and used off-line?

It depends on the type of training and administration that you are after. Real-time administration, as the user is taking the course, can be achieved while the user is online. Off-line programs can be set up to send completion information and test scores at the end of the course, and, if necessary, download another portion of the course. But if a student is taking a course off-line, he or she may not be aware of any updates to the program that may occur while the course is in progress. If the online course requires a change or update of some part of the data or coding, the student is not disrupted, and does not have to initiate another download of the entire course.

Where is the water cooler?

Down the corridor on the right. Just past the cubicle with all the Dilbert cartoons.

What kinds of authoring systems are available for Web-based training?

Authorware, ToolBook II, IconAuthor, Quest, IBTAuthor, CBIQuick, and many others are currently available, most with training components built in. If you want to start with a simple program, an HTML editor or Web page layout program like Netscape Navigator Gold, Microsoft FrontPage, Claris Home Page or Asymetrix Web Publisher may be all you need.

How fast a connection is needed to access Web-based training effectively?

If your program utilizes video, animation, and audio, the connection should be as fast as possible. For home office users, this means ISDN or 33.6Kbps & 56Kbps modems. If the training utilizes limited graphics and no audio or video, then a minimal connection via a 14.4 modem should be adequate.

What is bandwidth?

The actual speed available at the time of the transmission. The more users are on a network, the less bandwidth available for that transmission.

How can I calculate how fast my program will be delivered over a network?

It is difficult to calculate actual speeds because bandwidth varies so often. One second, your training might be delivered at 6.5Kbps, the next it may be 1 or 2 Kbps or even less. In general, your files are calculated in bytes (MB, KB, etc.) and bandwidth is measured in bits (Mb, Kb, etc.). To determine how many bits your program is, multiply the number of bytes by 8. A program that takes up 4 megabytes of space takes up 32 megabits. If your connection speed is 2Mbps (Megabits per second), this file would take 16 seconds to download. Alternatively, over an Internet connection of 33.6Kbps (.336 Mbps) your 32 Mb training would take about 96 seconds. All this is assuming ideal conditions. And, of course, conditions are always less than ideal.

Do you need a Web server to provide Internet-based training?

A Web server is needed to have the training available to others. The options are a server maintained by your department or information technology (IT) department, or a public Internet service provider (ISP).

Once a course is developed, how do you get it on the Internet or intranet?

Most of the time it is just a matter of placing your program and its accompanying files on your server, then testing to ensure it works properly. Ask your network administrator, Webmaster or ISP provider how to upload the files the Web site. After that it is a matter of marketing.

How can you charge for courses over the Internet?

The most utilized method is to have the users pay up front by credit card, then give them a password that lets them into the program once payment has been made. Security for taking payment over the Internet is relatively good. For internal programs over an intranet, course registration software can automate chargebacks to the purchasing department.

What about security? I’ve heard about viruses, hackers, etc.

Your company’s intranet should be protected from hacker intrusions from the public Internet by a firewall. Your IT department or network administrator can recommend virus protection software. While these problems exists and make big news in the media, the percentage of incidents is quite small and should not deter your work deploying Web-based training.

What is a firewall?

A firewall is a hardware and/or software security measure taken by companies with internal intranets to keep out unwanted transmissions or visitors from the Internet. An effective firewall will keep out hackers, casual users, and accidental queries while allowing access to legitimate users of the company’s intranet from a remote location. Some firewalls limit the ability of employees within the company to download files from the Internet to keep out viruses.

Interactive Distance Learning and real-time multimedia

Interactive Distance Learning (IDL) technology allows for simultaneous, interactive instruction of student groups at up to four locations by providing high-quality video, audio and data communications. IDL is popular and effective because it emulates the traditional classroom experience. Students ask questions, watch other students on video monitors, and receive responses from their teacher and other students in real time (6).

Interactive instruction offers a solution for minimizing training time without sacrificing desired training outcomes. Those organizations that use interactive instruction report reductions in training time when compared to the traditional instructor-led approach for instruction delivery. This reduction in instructional time is typically in the range of 20-75%.

The ability of interactive training to save employee time decreases training costs and permits organizations to redeploy the time of its employees to activities useful to the organization(1).

Consider the potential benefits of these advanced distance training technologies. Your inability to understand or deliver advanced training capabilities will compromise your organizationrs success and maybe the outlook for your own career. You’ll need a systematic approach to their introductions or you’ll risk the propagation of ineffective use. Successful introductions of technology are measured by the degree to which users adapt and own its introduction and implementation. This begins with your own understanding. In the next article we’ll look at direct broadcast satellite in detail. We’ll examine an actual field implementation at other companies.

Computer Based Training (CBT) Challenges

The purposes of this paper were to examine unique characteristics multimedia brings to the educational experience; to explore ways industry is using multimedia for training purposes; to review benefits industry has discovered through experience; and finally, to consider multimedia technology as a method for presenting the junior level MIS course.

Multimedia, as an instructional tool, is finding its way into higher education. Solomon (1994, p. 81) “… explores the factors that have inhibited widespread use of multimedia…[in]…higher education as well as the factors that are necessary to allow multimedia to thrive.” Sammons (1994) specifically studied the deterrents university faculty have in adopting multimedia teaching methods and recommends strategies for overcoming these problems.

EMERGING PC TRAINING TECHNOLOGIES

The rate of information doubling is every five years. Toffler (1970) describes the shattering stress and disorientation that we induce in individuals by subjecting them to too much change. Generally speaking we are approaching and have probably exceeded our ability to make use of all the given information presented to us in a day. Because the amount of information and the ease of its distribution have increased, employees now receive an overwhelming volume of context-free information, mail memos, reports, periodicals, books, manuals, classroom training, and much more.

Employees learn most effectively in the context of a meaningful work environment. Research indicates that 80% of all job skills are leamed on the job (Malcom 1993). Today, on the job means at the PC. Yet we continue to focus all our energy on improving formal training programs while we barely influence the 80 percent of learning that always has occurred – on the job (Malcom 1993). Paradoxically, 80% of training resources are expended on the 20% of learning that occurs in the classroom or similar environment.

Instructional design is the systematic way of designing, carrying out, and evaluating the total process of learning in terms of specific objectives, based on research in human learning and communication. (Gagne, 1990) There are proven methodologies that illustrate how several types of communications media, including the PC, can be combined in various ways to mediate the flow of information between instructor/technology and recipient.

The exponential growth and commercialization of the Internet presents numerous opportunities as well as challenges :

· Information access

With the development of the World Wide Web, a global distributed information system, accessible information across the Internet has multiplied (In today’s world, this could mean high speed connection between intranets).

· Information distribution

With an estimated 30 million users and 200,000 connected networks world wide, the Intemet is becoming a mainstream public as well as corporate network. (Intemet World, 1995) The ability to use this system for training will only get better as we develop technology that assures available bandwidth reservation.

· Intercompany integration

With new business models that demand outsourcing, ‘just in time” everything, and virtual organizations, integration across organization boundaries by leveraging the Intranet and Internet can improve intercompany productivity.

With the adoption of universal conferencing standards, advanced digital compression and more powerful desktop computers, it is only a matter of time before the WWW and Intranet becomes a tool for direct audio and video communication.

· Cost effective

According to a recent research study, the average corporate investment in proprietary network implementations is $245,000, with an average payback period of more than two years. 80% of the respondents to this study targeted a single groupware application. A groupware application is characterized by the enabling role it plays in employee collaboration of documents and communication over the network. On the other hand, WWW applications can be fully developed and deployed for $10K or less. (Source: International Data Corporation).

WWW/Internet/Intranet Training

The development of the WWW/lntemet and relatively new focus on the Intranet, leave us with possibilities limited only by the extent to which we are willing to use our imaginations. Since the National Science Foundation gave up control of the Information Superhighway in late 1994, permitting commercial applications on the Intemet for the first time, technology development can only be described as exponential.

It is clear that the Web and Intranet can be used as an educationalnraining aide, providing available information in moments. And, because it is free of many of the bandwidth problems slowing aspects of WWW/lnternet development, some useful training applications will be available on the Intranet before they are generally ready on the Web.

The advent of Java and the assimilation client side execution languages like VB and Java Scripting are permitting a high degree of immediate interactivity, today. Objective testing and tracking can now be accomplished over the web.

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VIDEOCONFERENCING

In 1997 Corporate I.T. networks will enable us to use the company’s existing PC network to connect with other organizations – from desktop to desktop simultaneously training any number of cc-workers. This is facilitated by the transition to 100MB ethemet networks from 10MB ethernet networks. The Ethernet network is a system originally developed by Xerox, Intel, and Digital Equipment Corporation in the early 1980s. Many PC workstations are connected using an ethernet cable. A special network operating system manages traffic over the cable for the workstation. The significance in the 100MB ethemet network is in its ability to carry streaming video and audio without impact to other users on the network, where this would be othennrise impossible with a 10MB ethernet network.

In an Ethemet networked video conferencing solution the audience can see, hear and view material all at once. Participants submit written questions, which appear on the screens of all trainees, or request to speak directly with the instnrctor. Attendance records can also be maintained.

This will enable a training organization to meet higher demands with fewer resources. Cover more bases with less interruption to the workday. Instant connections will enable your corporation to conduct management seminars, benefits presentations or Q & A sessions from an office cubicle. And, we’ll be able to deliver live and pre-recorded training sessions to people across campus sites – simultaneously. And because we’ll be able to incorporate training into regular work schedules where work is done at the PC, we can relay new or time-sensitive information, work together in groups and conduct seminars more frequently – without increasing staff or budgets.

New products such as multipoint to mulitipoint videoconferencing are evolving into the market now. With these products your employees will be able to hold a multipoint to multipoint videoconferencing and share documents in a shared whiteboard space using standard ISDN.

ISDN, Integrated Services Digital Network, is often evangelized as the telecommunications network of the future bringing digital (as opposed to analog) signals into the home or office. ISDN can provide 64 to 128 Kbits/sec of digital data. Compare this to typical modem rates of 28.8 Kbits/sec.

Many new video conferencing technologies use ISDN. With this exciting technology people in a variety of distant locations will be able to confer and share applications such as Excel or Word. The video quality delivered is excellent at video speeds of 15 frames per second (FPS), compared to theater movies at 28 FPS, and n/ 30 FPS. The use of Multipoint Controller Units (MCU) will allow’continuous presence’ calls with dozens of video enabled PCs. Each person is equipped with full interactivity on a shared ‘whiteboard” space. The MCU capability will be brought to us by the telecommunications carders AT&T, Sprint or MCI. Scheduling a multipoint video conference will be as easy as scheduling a teleconference today.

With the coming conferencing capabilities, look for Active X video and audio conferencing in the fall of 1996, using H323 for real-time web communication without high bandwidth requirements. Long distance contact and application sharing will be commonplace. Trainers and teachers will be able to deliver product real time, from long distances and get immediate true assessment of their teaching effectiveness. This will be most effective outside the formal classroom setting, where asynchronous training philosophy dominates, as a supplement- i.e. teacher student conferences.

Before the beginning of 1997, the Web/lntranet will be much more than its present status as more a ‘display’ medium for research and training aides. It will be a fantastic altemative for actual delivery of Rich Multimedia Content (RMC), effectively supplementing more focused delivery media like multipoint videoconferencing and interactive television, which will continue to be the best alternatives for planned presentation of classroom content.

Direct Broadcast Satellite (DBS).

DBS is a one-way broadcast network offering information and video delivery to IBM compatible PCs. DBS uses a full Ku-band transponder on a satellite to provide 12 Mbps digital broadcast channel. 12 Mbps or 12 Megabits per second transmission is equivalent to 30,000 time faster transmission than your 28.8 kilobits per second modem!

A transponder is analogous to an antenna. Ku-band transponders are high powered digital broadcast antennas on the satellite. Ku-band differ from C-band transponders, lower powered analog broadcast antennas on older satellites. New Data Encryption Standards (DES) and certification systems enable authentication of broadcast recipients. In simple terms, this conditional access capability ensures that a receiver PC may only access data that it is authorized to receive.

While old C-band transponders require 1.2 meter dishes or larger, Ku-band transponders require much smaller dishes because their signals reach closer to the earth and therefore require a smaller receiving “footprint” or dish. Today’s Ku-band-ready dishes are as small as 18″ to 24″. Hughes Network Systems pioneered this technology in 1995 and introduced the now familiar DirecTV system as an alternative to traditional cable TV programming. The DirecT/ dishes are 18″ and cost as little as $600.00. Soon every PC owner will be able to own their own satellite dish. They will watch N quality video at their PC and surf the intemet at blinding speed. Examination of DBS is key to understanding the enabling role it can play in delivering distance learning to the desktop.