Can Learning Over the Internet
Replace the Need for
Classroom Training? (Continued)

Example Two

You run a dive store in a busy metropolitan area where none of your customers ever seem to have any time. You want your courses to remain competitive by making them shorter and more convenient — but, at the same time, you don’t want to cut corners on quality, or shorten the amount of time students spend in the water.

Your solution is to switch all of your entry-level training over to your training agency’s on-line program. This gives you several competitive advantages:

• You get to advertise that classes can start whenever students want.
• Students don’t even need to come into the store to get started. (Of course, you would prefer they spend as much time in the store as possible; however, if it means the difference between having them sign up over the phone, and not signing up at all…)
• Students can complete the academic portion of their course on a schedule that is most convenient for them.

At the students’ convenience, you have them come into the store for a one-on-one orientation session. This can begin even after they have begun their on-line training. It is during this orientation session that students will purchase items such as mask, snorkels, fins, boots and mesh bags. (In fact, the sales process is often easier, as students may already be familiar with these items from their course materials.)

Throughout the on-line phase of their training, you maintain constant contact with students by phone and e-mail. Your agency’s program enables you to monitor their progress, and you are able to answer questions and help students through areas with which they may be having difficulty.

When students have completed the on-line portion of their course, you schedule the in-water portion. Most likely, you set a target date for this when students first sign up.

This is the important part: Students’ ability to complete all of the academic requirements on line does not mean they will spend no time in the classroom. What is different is that:

• Classroom sessions are noticeably shorter.
• The material you cover in the classroom is different from what you covered before switching to on-line training.

For example:

• There are no more lengthy discussions of physics and physiology. Thanks to the remediation provided by the on-line course, students have already established they know everything they need to about these topics.
• Your coverage of the environment will change. Instead of covering general environmental issues (which students now already know), you cover information specific to your local diving environment or the destinations to which your store runs group trips. In other words, this is where you get to show your personal slides and videos.
• Similarly, your coverage of equipment changes. For example, instead of talking about the broad range of exposure suits divers might use anywhere in the world, you get to pull out and show samples of the type of suits you sell to divers for local diving and group travel.
• You also spend time covering skill-related topics for which you might otherwise have to waste expensive pool time. For example, your classroom may be an excellent place for students to do their initial practice of scuba unit assembly and disassembly.
• Also, rather than having students wait around in cold, chest-deep pool water while you do a lengthy briefing a skill such as air sharing, you can conduct a “pre-briefing” in the classroom just prior to going to the pool. This way, you pool presentations can be limited to “keys points, demo and do.” This uses pool time more effectively, keeps students moving (and, hopefully, warmer) and results in less boredom.

The bottom line: On-line training enables you to use time more effectively, make your classes more appealing — yet still enables students to learn as much or more than before.

The end of life as we know it? »

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