Elearning Voiceover

The last two decades (and especially the last 10 years) have seen a major shift in the way work gets done in a modern society. We’ve seen this manifest in the way companies train their employees. In the past, it was common for businesses to spend a great deal of money on training departments…which were staffed by content developers, technical writers and live presenters/trainers…many of whom traveled the country or the world getting the company’s employees up-to-snuff on the latest production methods or company philosophies.

Clearly the internet has changed all that. It accelerated a shift that started a few years before the internet took hold with computer-based training (CBT), where PowerPoint and similar programs were used to create slide shows that employees could watch on their own. And even before that, training videos were very popular. The biggest problem with these methods was getting them everywhere they needed to be seen…AND the expense of keeping them up-to-date.

So what did the internet bring to the dance? Speed and ubiquity. Training content can now be made available everywhere, almost immediately. And updates are no problem. When content is delivered via the web, it only has to be changed one time, in one place. Then, the next time it’s viewed…the trainee sees the latest version. Often this requires minimum cost and expertise, as most Online Training content is presented using Flash or Articulate…so the time and personnel involved in the update is minimal, thereby eliminating bottlenecks. A tremendous boon for efficiency (not to mention cost savings)!

This new training format is most commonly referred to as eLearning (aka Elearning or E-learning) or Web-Based Training (WBT).