Supporting Technologies for Synchronous E-learning

Abstract

Recent advances in multimedia technology have enabled new communications possibilities that improve the distance learning experience. Thus, the introduction of multimedia contents in learning materials results in an enhanced learning process. (Steinmetz & Nahrstedt, 1995); (Mishra & Sharma, 2004). In fact, virtual learning environments have an enormous potential (Padmore et al., 2006). Similarly, enterprise corporations must introduce technical innovations to their production cycle in order to increase their market competitiveness. As a consequence, personal staff must adapt to the changes imposed in the organization to cope with these technical improvements to positively contribute to the corporate success. Thus, it turns essential to design training programs as a part of the corporate policies to keep employees technologically updated. Multiple studies show that interactive training increases knowledge retention and shortens learning curve (Shulman, 1992), and offers great flexibility since training may be provided just-in-time specifically for each user’s needs. Interactive learning is even more appropriate to those situations in which an employee manipulates fragile or dangerous equipment. Simulation environments are very suitable to avoid possible misuses and faults that would imply high costs. As an example, in (Mollet & Arnaldi, 2006) the authors propose a virtual reality environment for the training of human staff in a military equipment factory. Geographical dispersion in multinational corporations constitutes another reason to use elearning in staff training. Thus, there is no need to maintain a specific training center, so employees do not have to move from their workplace to this center to receive training courses. This implies a cost-saving alternative compared to traditional learning, because displacements are not necessary, so training may be provided just-in-time at the workplace. Nowadays, e-learning has become a widely used learning strategy in higher education and staff training. In fact, e-learning is one of the most suitable tools for developing training plans in large business corporations in order to establish a continuing education offer to their human resources. Often, e-learning is divided into asynchronous e-learning and synchronous e-learning attending to the spatio-temporal limitations imposed to the learning process. Thus, Supporting Technologies for Synchronous E-learning 111