Rapid learning

Rapid learning (or Rapid eLearning) has traditionally referred to a methodology to build e-learning courses rapidly. Typically the author will create slides in Powerpoint, record narration on top of the slides, with some software he/she will be allowed to add tests, or even collaboration activities between the slides and then send the whole package (most often as an Adobe Flash file) to a learning management system or a website.

Some companies, for example the Rapid Learning Institute (RLI), are now using the term "rapid learning" to refer to the speed at which people learn. The RLI, for example, creates e-learning modules called Quick Takes that last six to 10-minutes.

E-learning has grown rapidly since the 90s but authors and organizations were confronted by the complexity of authoring processes. It is hard and expensive to build online courses from scratch. Hence the idea of recycling existing resources like Powerpoint presentations, and transform them into e-learning courses.

Limits of rapid learning

After 2000, a series of rapid learning tools (see below) were proposed on the market and became popular because of their simplicity and the feeling that anyone can build an e-learning course from a simple Powerpoint presentation.

Some experts have highlighted the limits of this method or even insisted on the fact that rapid learning was the consequence of an attractive misunderstanding of this form of teaching:

• My face-to-face course works fine with Powerpoint
• I published my Powerpoint presentation
• Hence my online course works fine

This criticism of rapid learning focuses on the idea that the richness of an interaction with students in the classroom is not encapsulated in a PowerPoint presentation file. Consequently, an online course is a mere passive information presentation but not a training activity with questions, workshops, problems. Rapid learning has been criticized as ignoring the axiom that "we learn by doing." More globally, the critics of rapid learning have followed the same track as the critics on the use of PowerPoint in education.

The success of rapid learning has an economic reason. Many trainers and organizations are able for the first time to build their online course without the help of an e-learning team (instructional designers, art designers etc.).

The overall evolution of internet practice and the development of the Web 2.0 collaboration scenarios might lead trainers to other scenarios. As a matter of fact, rapid learning is an inheritance of the CD-ROM model and the idea that e-learning consists in an individual self-paced practice.

Students have complained for long that self-paced individual learning can be boring and offers little chances of interaction, correction and success. But one can imagine mixed scenarios where the information is presented as rapid learning modules encapsulated in Flash SCORM packages or distributed on Learning Management Systems, and the learning activities developed through other tools : blogs, wikis, forums, videoconferences etc.

Best practices

Now that rapid learning has become an integral part of the authoring practice worldwide, some authors and consulting companies focus on how to reach the optimal compromise between the economic need for rapid learning and the pedagogical objective of a good instructional design.

These best practices recommendations include:

• proceed to needs analysis and instructional design before building the online course so as to define the required learning activities to integrate in the course
• needs analysis should decide whether the course is a blended learning course or all online
• instructional design should decide which part of the course are online, which parts are face-to-face
• articulate Powerpoint-based content with tests and online activities
• web 2.0 tools and learning management systems allow to blend content modules created through rapid learning tools with rich interaction activities. The content modules make sense only if completing an interaction scenario or appearing as the feedback of tests and case studies
• using Powerpoint to build the course structure but rely on mindmapping to present the information in a more synthetic and visual way

How rapid is rapid?

A traditional e-learning development project can take several months. In contrast the aim of rapid e-learning is to build and roll out content modules within weeks. For example, while one hour of standard e-learning can take 73 to 220 hours to develop, a PowerPoint to e-learning conversion can be estimated to take an average of 33 hours to develop.

Software

Several rapid learning software applications with varying capabilities are on the market. Most of them are authoring tools that include rapid learning as a feature. The list includes noticeably ActivePresenter, Adobe Captivate, Alphastudy, Articulate Presenter, Rapid Intake, Coggno, Dokeos, Lectora, Odijoo, SmarterU Udutu and Wondershare PPT2Flash.

Some of these tools treat each slide as a learning object and allow to add tests and online activities between the slides. Some of these software are online services, the others are desktop applications to install on your computer.

A trend of the market is also to combine rapid learning (conversion of Powerpoint presentations) with screencast (filming your screen and your mouse movements) so as to provide both a sequence of slides and applications demos. This combination is particularly powerful when authoring courses on how to use a software.

See also

• ActivePresenter
• Adobe Captivate
• Alphastudy
• Chamilo
• Coggno
• Dokeos
• Electronic learning
• Jackdaw
• Instructional design
• Lectora
• Odijoo
• Powerpoint
• Screencast
• SmarterU
• Rapid interactivity
• Rapid application development
• Web 2.0