Does the Ambience impact e-learning?

Oft my mind pondered whether e-learning as a profession was impacted by the ambience or not. Perhaps Yes.

Unlike the regular software development work, e-learning requires a serene ambience, one that could steer the human mind to levels of utmost calm and well-being wherein it could blossom and relive the instructional designer of creative blockades.

My conversations with some instructional designers in Genpact and NIIT have helped me understand the deeper workings of the human mind to a greater extent – in the way the ambience and the surroundings impinge on performance. Many professionals who undertake onsite visits in the US and Europe have displayed significant levels of enthusiasm, that perhaps was absent when they were squeezed inside a concrete building with little scope for cognitive boosterism.

Whatever be the conditional theories of the human mind and the feelings therein, I feel the following pictures will surely transfer instructional designers to an ethereal realm of calmness. These are the pictures from Austria and the Alps mountain range…

Hey! Is the E-learning Boom Round the Corner?

Its interesting to see how the Indian mainstream media occasionally dabbles with features on e-learning. Surprisingly, for more than a decade now reporters continue to file the same generic stories on e-learning over and over again. A common theme in most of these stories is about the e-learning boom that's just "round the corner." Such themes were interesting a decade back. Now they sound monotonous and give the impression that e-learning as a profession has made no stride. Perhaps this has more to do with the poor breed of technology journalists in India whose sense of journalism is to COPY PASTE stories from old sources and give them a slight twist.

The latest article is filed by The Tribune and even in TOI's Ascent that dwells on the same stale theme. And as if that was not sufficient senior industry professionals too have jumped in the fray with their bit of stale soothsaying.

Its time we spare the media channels! Its time we allowed e-learning to speak for itself. Isn't it in poor taste to use rhetoric, cathy phrases and soothsaying to promote the field of e-learning? The time for such frills are passe and its time that journalists and industry professionals stop singing the same stale song over and over again. Let the newcomers in e-learning not be awed with such features and interviews that do little service by way of informing readers. At best these shoddy writeups just fill newspaper space and generate hype for e-learning companies eager to earn the tag of a "leader."

Train Journey through Pristine Nature

Only yesterday I browsed through my collection of pictures. In a forlorn folder inside my computer I found some pictures of the train route between Silchar and Lumding (in Assam). The train route was constructed around 1900 by the Bristishers, although the Indian government is trying to convert this meter gauge into broad gauge.

The train journey between Lumding and Silchar is one of its kind largely because it has not been commercialized and hyped. Enroute lies Jatinga, a village famous for the mystery of birds committing suicide in hordes -- a phenomenon yet to be explained. Ornithologists have been flocking to this place to study the phenomenon. The area is rich in a variety of orchids & plants species such as Blue Vandas (a lovely sky blue orchid) -- the only one of its kinds in the world.

A friend had sent me these pictures. And I learn that this is the train route on which Sharukh Khan shot his famous Chaiya Chaiya song for the film Dil Se.

View from Halflong circuit house

Curvy Railway bridge near Halflong

In Delhi, it’s the Dead End for E-Learning

Delhi, India’s capital, never ceases to baffle me. For the sheer amount of grandeur and ostentation the city has emerged to offer a delusive contentment for professionals -– the latest in e-learning. The industry that once trumpeted a revolution or sorts is now beset with myriad issues – skeptic clients, dwindling market-space, and disenchanted resources. Professionals with several years of experience can be seen running from pillar to post -- trying to locate that honest employer, the workplace of their dreams.

E-learning companies in Delhi and NCR have hit a dead end, or so it appears. Jobs that were once clamoring for attention have suddenly disappeared forcing professionals to get stuck in the rut of their current assignments, in companies that once promised them the world. Amidst stories of disenchantment and dream-shattered there are many who are now seriously pensive about continuing a career in e-learning. Websites like www.naukri.com and www.jobsahead.com now carry ads of small e-learning players positioned in disheveled locales offering paltry remuneration packages. While many smart clients have backed off from outsourcing e-learning projects to North-Indian observers believe many more will follow suit. Amidst this shaky situation some players continue to function with an unusual calm -– the lull before the storm!

Strangely for a city of its size a slight shrugging-off and the impact can be seen everywhere. Towards mid-2006 Brainvisa, a Pune-based e-learning company suddenly called off its development center in Noida. This resulted in a sudden overflow of Instructional Designers all over the region. Like a flock of aliens they crowded other e-learning companies only to be despised, or worse, employed at a lower salary than what they were drawing at Brainvisa. For many it was lesson learnt hard – they should have resisted the allurement of the fat package offered by Brainvisa. Quick come quick go.

Given the shape of e-learning in Delhi and the NCR region one cannot help but wonder whether we have over-sung the outsourcing song. Its time we learnt a few lessons. A better idea for e-learning professionals is to hone their skills beyond e-learning -– in technical writing, journalism and related areas. And if you are employed in Mumbai, Pune, Chennai and Hyderabad it makes tremendous sense to ward-off offers from e-learning companies in the North. Its time we prepared for the worst!