Scenario 1: Collaborative Training Environment:
A major corporation and needs to be implemented in six regional
offices recently purchased
A new automated staff information system.
Unfortunately, the staff is located throughout all the different offices and
cannot meet at the same time or in the same location. As an instructional
designer for the corporation, you have been charged with implementing a
training workshop for these offices. As part of the training, you were advised
how imperative it is that the staff members share information, in the form of
screen captures and documents, and participate in ongoing collaboration.
When looking at this scenario I first broke it down in to
important ideas and objectives that the corporation has. The phrases “Six regional offices” and “Share
information” really stick out as objectives that as an ID I need to meet. I feel as though the use of Blogs, or Wiki would be great tools to incorporate and implement this during the training.
A Blog has been defined as an “online journal site where
individuals, called Bloggers, post their entries to express their views.”
(Laureate Education, n.d.). With the use
of Blogs, the staff from all of the different offices could discuss and share
their thoughts on the training and information they are being presented. All staff can easily comment, and post
questions on certain topics. When researching for an outside resource I came
across a blog that gives a great overview of the benefits a blog can have for a
business.
On the site Better Business Blogging, found at http://www.betterbusinessblogging.com/what-is-a-blog/#6,
introduces many ways that a Blog can be useful for a business. They focused on internal communications and
building relationships between co-workers.
The site stated:
“Internal Communications a blog is an excellent tool to help to share information easily
within your company, manage projects, develop teams and hugely improve the internal
communications.”
“Don’t forget
that a Business Blog also gives you, your company and those who work for it, a
place to collect and share ideas and relevant information with your customers
and prospects. This in turn generates mutual trust and builds to a
relationship, which is more like a partnership than the typical
supplier-customer sales relationship.”
The use of Wiki would allow the staff to share documents and
collaborate together. Each office can
upload images, documents and have access to all other offices documents. It would be a more contained environment than
the blog, but still the staff would be able to bounce ideas off of each
other.
In a blog post by Mary O. Foley on Inc. Tech, she states “Fear
is one of the obstacles keeping businesses from realizing productivity gains by
using internal Wikis. But the business gains -- collaboration, informed
employees, sense of community -- may outweigh any risks.” (Foley, 2007).
Some of her other points that I found to be interesting are the fact
that you can go paperless by using a Wiki.
I know that more and more companies want to cut costs. With using a Wiki you are eliminating paper
copies and printing materials. All staff
would have access and the ability to share paperwork and presentations with each
other while completing their job.
Both of these tool can and would be successful when put into the
scenario.
Resources
Laureate Education Inc. N.D. Multimedia Program: The Technology of Distance
Education.
Foley, Mary. 2007. Don’t Fear the Wiki! Business Can
Benefit. http://technology.inc.com/2007/12/01/dont-fear-the-wiki-business-can-benefit/
