ILT vs. E-Learning… How Much Do Instructional Design Skills Translate?

Posted on by Judy Unrein

I have a friend who is looking for an instructional design job. Up to this point in her career, she has only designed instructor-led training, but she feels that her skills and experience will translate directly to elearning.

I don’t entirely agree, but since more of my experience is in designing elearning, I don’t feel like I’m the biggest expert on the differences in what we do.

So I’m asking for your help… what do you think?

I understand that this question is full of gray areas, but please pick a side that you agree with more… and if you’re inclined, I’d love for you to leave a comment to explain why! For the purposes of this poll, assume that no elearning development skills are being considered; just design skills.

  • Judy Unrein

    Why am I getting emails to the effect of “don’t make my ilt butt come over there and smack your e-learning butt”??? (Other than the fact that I know the sender of that email personally…) =D

    She implies a valid point though, so let me be clear that I’m not trying to say that either one is superior to (or more difficult than) the other. The question could just as easily be phrased the other way around, if that were the direction this particular job seeker wanted to go.

  • Hallie

    I voted no – I’m in a similar situation. Lots of ilt experience, and am moving to e-learning. I really needed the training I received through my M.Ed to get through the change in direction, the skills are quite different. What makes an excellent training in person doesn’t always make an excellent e-learning experience.

  • Sue

    Having done a little of both, though admittedly more ILT, I think the concepts are the same but the process does differ. While it might prove somewhat challenging, I think the transition can be made. With a sound course on e-learning instructional design specifically, and involvement in communities around that, she should be encouraged to consider the transition.

  • http://christytucker.wordpress.com Christy Tucker

    I don’t think it’s automatic, but I’ve seen enough people do it successfully that it obviously is possible (and fairly common). If the question is “does anything you know from designing ILT transfer,” then the answer is yes. If the question is “does everything you know transfer” then the answer is no. The truth is somewhere in between.

  • chet

    I also do a little bit of both, and I can say that it does somewhat transfer. The problem is figuring out how to compensate for the lack of face-to-face time. You are forced to focus more precisely on how to change behavior, knowledge transfer, and a host of other things.

  • Judy Unrein

    I think I’ve finally figured out why I couldn’t truly explain my position on this, and I appreciate how everyone’s responses have stimulated my thinking on the topic!

    Some skills definitely transfer. Analyzing a need, for example, seems pretty much the same even if you have a delivery method already assigned to you (and analysis should come before choosing a delivery method anyway, though we all know that doesn’t always happen).

    However. I tend to think of e-learning design as interaction design. And models I tend to use (such as Michael Allen’s CCAF) were created specifically for interactive e-learning design. Personally, I think they can be adapted to ILT design, but I’ve never seen an ILT instructional design model focus that much on learner interaction, and therefore I have trouble saying that sure, the skills you have as an ILT designer would serve you well in e-learning with no further study.

    That being said, that study can definitely be obtained and new skills can be learned. As Sue pointed out, there are some great courses out there. And all good instructional designers can learn; that’s one of our biggest strengths!

    Chet: You’re right… the problem of compensating for the lack of human contact is huge. Recently in my MEd program, I was working on a group project and we chose to design an entirely standalone, self-study e-learning course simply because we felt that was the biggest challenge we could set for ourselves and it would force us to “grapple with” (that became a key phrase) a sort of worst-case scenario. In real life, I’ve found you can often integrate humans even if they’re not in front of the classroom, and it’s often an excellent idea!

  • http://brandon-hall.com/janetclarey Janet Clarey

    I was looking for the “it depends” answer ; )

    My masters degree is in Instructional Design for ONLINE learning and my Ph.D. studies are in Instructional Design, Development, and Evaluation (encompassing all delivery channels). The difference I note can best be found in the coursework. ONLINE learning courses include ‘interface design,’ ‘instructional media tools,’ ‘project management for e-learning,’ ‘distance education’, etc. The theory courses are the same for both programs. I think the “e” is the different skill set…and it’s a big one. There’s also the skill involved in facilitating online vs. face-to-face – another big difference in my opinion.

    One of the reasons we have so much crap e-learning is failure to recognize the difference. Some skills translate but there’s a lot more to it than many people realize.

  • Judy Unrein

    Janet, I spent a long time pondering whether I should include “it depends”! I think it is the correct answer, of course… but I thought it was more interesting to keep the poll pretty black-and-white and drive the gray areas toward the comments. Thanks for answering!

    I agree with those last two sentences and I appreciate your backing it up with the comments about your school work… because I’ve been concerned that I’m giving ILT design short shrift, maybe because I don’t have as much formal training in that area. And yeah, I guess I betrayed in my comments to Chet that I really do think completely standalone e-learning is harder to design than ILT; there’s no offloading any of the responsibility to the instructor.

    Interestingly, yesterday I attended a webinar from Saba called Converting Instructor Led Training to eLearning, and the presenter talked a bit about the different roles inherent in creating ILT vs any kind of web-based learning, so if anyone is really interested in this topic, here’s the link…
    http://sabaex.centra.com/GA/main/0000006e3eb49c0122cf773a13007f7a. The playback has been a little screwy for me but go to about 34 mins in for the point I’m talking about.