Greetings from Dallas, Texas. We are in town to present a session at the Zero to Three National Institute, attended by organizations focusing on supporting families of children from birth to age three. Many of these groups provide training for home visitors, nurses, teachers, Doulas and others, folks providing direct care to children...many of whom are at risk. Others here are publishers and creators of resources and tools designed to support that same work.

Many of these groups are now looking at how to transition their training from the tradtional face-to-face format to an effective online format. Rising costs and decreasing financial support, and increasingly busy schedules for family support workers, are two of the critical reasons for this change. While the interest is very real, many of these organizations have built their business model on "relationship based" activities, and have minimal familiarity with technology and the real issues of online learning.

That's why ImagiLearning is at the conference.

We're here to talk about what we consider to be the most important questions any organization should address as they consider moving online. Contrary to the approach we have seen followed so many times in the past, the most important questions we believe need to be asked are not related to technology. Yes, tech is a major piece of online learning, but from our experience the issues that create the most difficulties for online learning programs are NOT technology-related.

In our experience of designing, developing, directing online programs, as well as being both a teacher and learner online, the issues that more commonly create problems are related to the culture of the organization itself. Organizational assumptions, priorities and policies are more likely to limit the effectiveness of online learning than tech issues...which are more tangible and clear. Implementing online learning calls for changes to traditional practices and policies, many of which can be extremely difficult to change. An organization can avoid delays and a great deal of tension if they talk about those changes before they are dealing with them in the midst of deadlines.

Just a few of the seemingly minor questions we believe can make a huge difference later include:

Who approves the design of an online course?
Who will approve courses before they are allowed to go online?
Who will prepare the actual content of a course?
How will you prepare subject matter experts to help create courses?
How will you prepare your traditional trainers to teach online?
How will your traditional trainers balance their workload between training and helping develop online course content?
How will you help your tradtional trainers get beyond worrying if online training will cost them their jobs?
What will you do when online course development needs are at odds with a standing IT or marketing policy?

We have seen otherwise very hopeful and healthy online programs fall into serious disarray because of any one or two of these issues. Our entire list of questions covers much more turf, and will soon be available in our own online training course here on our site. This is the basis of our work with organizations in transition, helping them develop a complete strategy for successful implementation of online learning within their training program.

Ask the questions now...avoid the hassles later.