PADI eBusiness - Atomic Online - 800 Pound Gorilla in the Room

[Azza]

If there is any reason to "push students through" the academics, it would have to be because of a limit of classroom space and time. That is eliminated by eLearning--no reason to push whatsoever.

It is normally the pool and boat that costs more than the classroom although I do understand what you are saying and to an extent agree.

What about the tradtional class student who doesn't truly understand what is happening in that class of 8 students but is afraid to ask those extra questions because of the fear of showing ignorance in a room full of people who seem to understand. Maybe he knows enough to pass the test, but really doesn't understand. That student would have the ability to ask away in private, without fear of holding up the class or appearing dumb to the other students.

This is where a good instructor will come into his own. Everybody learns differently, some by reading a book or watching a DVD, some by interactive learning, some by seeing examples or actually doing things. There variety of teaching methods one must use when teaching effectively and to this end I must say that my 14 week JNCO and 12 week SNCO courses from my army days were much more enlightening than my 10 day PADI instructor course(although in the scheme of things is wasn't a bad course- quite enjoyed it actually).

What if a student doesnt understand something in the e-learning process? Do they email, ring or IM an online Instructor to ask them to clarify or employ a different teaching medium? I guess this is the part of the e-learning process I don't really understand.

 

[Azza]

I really don't have any idea how PADI will set up the class, but according to what is considered best practice in eLearning today, the instructor has a lot more interaction with the student than most people here seem to think.

I guess this is the catagory I fall into. I can't visually see how this is going to work.

Getting that across to "old school' teachers was a rough job--they were more than wary, and some were hostile.

Seen this before.

 

[TwoBitTxn]

What if a student doesnt understand something in the e-learning process? Do they email, ring or IM an online Instructor to ask them to clarify or employ a different teaching medium? I guess this is the part of the e-learning process I don't really understand.

That is a great question. I havn't seen an answer to it yet.

And you are right, different students learn differently. Some of the online classes I have taken worked for me, others didn't.

There is great value in a well conducted face to face classroom setting. There is great value and demand for a well conducted online learning program. The two can coexist.

TwoBit

 

[boulderjohn]

What if a student doesnt understand something in the e-learning process? Do they email, ring or IM an online Instructor to ask them to clarify or employ a different teaching medium? I guess this is the part of the e-learning process I don't really understand.

Thanks for asking.

There are many ways to interact with questions, depending upon how the course is set up. Email is an option, and so is the telephone or an instant message session. There are other ways as well.

An online course has a software frame in which it sits. There are several versions available on the market today into which course content can be placed, but my guess is that PADI will develop a proprietary system of its own, as some other online course providers do. (I could be wrong, though--they could use an existing "platform" like eCollege, BlackBoard, Desire2Learn, Angel, Moodle, etc.) Whatever they do, this frame includes all the ways that the student and teacher--or student and student--can interact. It includes items like a whiteboard, in which the student and teacher could work together, as if they were standing at a chalk board together. The student could do table problems while the teacher watched and made comments, for example. Depending upon the system used, this white board could include full audio, so the two could talk aloud as they worked by hooking a microphone to the computer. With a web cam, they could see each other.

As I said, I don't know how they are going to do it.

I used to tell new online course developers that their biggest mistake in designing a course would be to assume that they have a limitation that does not in fact exist. I think that warning holds true here; we should not assume that eLearning has limitations that we just assume exist because we have no experience with it and are making guesses based on our current lack of knowledge.

 

[boulderjohn]

I used to tell new online course developers that their biggest mistake in designing a course would be to assume that they have a limitation that does not in fact exist. I think that warning holds true here; we should not assume that eLearning has limitations that we just assume exist because we have no experience with it and are making guesses based on our current lack of knowledge.

Here I am quoting myself and commenting---

When my company decided to replace our old online foreign language courses, we hired an expert in the theory of teaching foreign language to guide the process. He was not an expert in technology. He assumed that our class would be inferior because we would not have all the audio that is part of a normal classroom. Surprise! Our new foreign language courses are full of audio. Students listen to a ton of sounds, from hearing the alphabet to conversations, songs, and short essays. In turn, they submit a ton of their own recordings so that the teacher can come back with oral comments on ther pronunciations, etc.

Again, the lesson is that we should not assume too quickly.

 

[RJP]

Phil - I'm not disagreeing with the idea. I'm simply asking questions. That's the value I bring. You're interpretting that as me telling you what you shouldn't do.

"For a man of your claimed skill in marketing, faulting PADI for putting a pleasant face on dive education is simply silly."

Dude, I'm not faulting them at all. It's the smart thing to do to get people in the door. At least if you're in the c-card and text book business. But if you're a dive retailer, that's only the sizzle that sells the steak. And that's fine, but there's gotta be someone once you get in the door that tells you that NJ Wreck Diving is even cooler than that! No way my e-mentor from Cozumel can do that. Nor is it his job.

That's the point your missing:

"And you are exactly correct.....you could do your eLearning on line, your e-Mentor could be a guy in Cozumel who does your pool work and OW checkouts, and your eTailer could be in West Palm Beach. What possible problem could you have with that, if it meets your desires and choices for your anticipated type of diving?"

I would have had no problem with that. But the dive industry should have a problem with it, if they were smart enough to realize it. It's the biggest problem facing the industry. It's your biggest problem Phil, and you don't even know it. LDSs and e-tailers and gear companies are like a bunch of seagulls fighting over a french-fry on the beach. Everything in the scuba industry is "market share" driven. Look at the mobile phone industry to see what happens when everyone is merely concerned with dividing up the customers who come through the door. It's death.

Here's the pro-bono stuff Phil. It's the million dollar idea. Here it is for free. And it's so simple you'll either not recognize it, will dismiss it, or see it as too simple. Best part of it is, I'm not that smart to have come up with it myself. My job is not to create opportunity, but to help clients figure out where it already exists.

You talk about "my anticipated type of diving." Well when I walked into my LDS a year ago my anticipated type of diving was 'one week a year, in the caymans, with rental gear.' I walked in for a mask, fins, snorkle and an OW c-card. I would have been the perfect customer for the e-train, e-tail, e-mentor model. And my shop would have trained me, and I would have bought $300 worth of gear there, gone to caymans, and never gone back to the LDS. Nor would I have gone to LP or to you or scubatoys or whatever. I would have just rented gear one week a year in the carribean.

What my LDS did was take a guy who walked in to buy the "shiny happy people" on the cover of the PADI book, and turn me into a NJ wreck diver. I literally grew up on the beach in NJ, but had no idea you could dive here. My LDS opened my eyes, and I opened my wallet. Instead of buying $300 worth of gear at that LDS and diving one week a year, I dive every weekend. I've purchased more that $7,000 worth of stuff that a year ago I had no idea existed, much less that I needed it. I've taken AOW, nitrox, PBB, drysuit, boat diver, wreck diver, and rescue classes. I have nearly completed my DM. I've booked a liveaboard trip through the shop, and several other weekend and longer trips. I've sent dozens of other folks to them for the same treatment.

"I agree...the best thing your local dive store did for you was to teach you the stuff that isn't in the books or in the "standards". That wouldn't change even one little bit if you had done your pre-class academic study from a PADI eLearning program."

You're wrong Phil, they didn't just teach me stuff that wasn't in the book. They set my expectations about diving. And I don't mean they LOWERED those expectations. They RAISED them. They started with the picture on the cover of the PADI manual, and basically said "...but you know what's even cooler than that..."

Hell, for all your being a brave internet visionary you don't even see it Phil. It's not a bunch of cold miserable divers on a small boat; it's a small, exclusive group of guys out on a brisk November Saturday, braving the mighty Atlantic to dive on a freighter sunk by a U-boat in 1943, bringing up plates with the ship's crest on it, that look as new as they did three-quarters of a century ago...when most other guys are home raking leaves into plastic trash bags.

THAT'S MARKETING

And, please Phil, for all your "calling me out" to help you do it for free here on the forum, you could at least mention that in our email back-and-forth discussion a few weeks ago I did in fact offer to "put my money where my mouth is" and get together with you to further discuss some very specific ideas, involving at my own expense some of the top advertising agencies, PR firms and marketing organizations in the world. Never did hear back from you on that one.

 

[Swan1172]

RJP,

I get what you are saying, but I am just the opposite of what you described. I didn't need my LDS to raise my expectations, because I did that on my own. I got certified and then started doing my own research on what I wanted to do next training wise. In my research, I learned a ton about tec diving and decided that was something that I wanted to pursue. My LDS has a couple of guys that specialize in tec, so I got hooked up with them. However, I would never had met them if it was not for me asking the shop owner, which is the opposite of what you describe.

I don't think the paradigm shift we are seeing in dive training is going to create any absolutes. That is to say that I think you will have a choice of taking an online class or a traditional class. Either way, you are still going to have to do the open water portion, which is what provided the common link between the two methodologies.

 

[Swan1172]

Remember, the diving will not be taught on the internet. Only the academic portion of the materials, to be supplimented with whatever else the instructor deems proper. Your inability to understand how your student might get assistance from PADI during eLearning is your shortcoming, not one of PADI. It is, when given proper thought, quite easy to visualize how PADI intends to "run" such a program.

Phil,

I totally agree with you on this and think that it is just a logical extension of what PADI is currently doing. Their current model is "independent study" with a review of the materials in a classroom setting.

When I got OW certified, I went to the shop, registered, bought the course materials and was told to have the learning reviews completed by the time the class started. Evidently, I was the only one that took this seriously, because I was the only one that read the material and completed the learning reviews. Further, we had a couple of people fail the final test, but were permitted to change a couple of their answers after consulting with the instructor to achieve a passing score.

None of this would have happened in an online classroom, because you would not have been able to complete the course until you had completed the learning reviews and passed the final test. As was previously stated, online classes usually require more out of the student, because they can't take a "free rider" approach to learning and hope that the material that they did not read is covered in the classroom discussion.

 

[Thalassamania]

My concern is for the quality of diving instruction that all the e-learning will effect. I really don’t care how a diver learns the gas laws and such, except that I do get a chance to get to know my students during that process. But let’s let that go, what we need to think about, for a moment, is the quality of in-water instruction.

Let’s face it, the fact is that in-water instruction today is, in many cases, rather poor. The average instructor has less than three years of diving experience and less than 200 dives under his or her belt and only lasts two to three years in the industry. So unless a student somehow lucks out the best that can reasonable expect is an instructor who’s been diving for say five years, teaching for two, made a few hundred dives on their own and taught maybe twenty classes. E-learning is going to make that even worse.

Control will shift even more to the shop and the agency away from the actual certifying entity (how many of you remember that it is no the agency that certifies, it is the instructor that certifies that the student has met a set of standards promulgated by the agency?). E-learning will also drop the already miniscule pay from the rim right into the toilet.

I may not be very imaginative, I'm no marketeer, the only solution I see is for shops to give up trying to make it on keystoning retail sales and try to strike deals with large e-tailers or form buying cooperatives to get competitive prices and also to reform themselves into for-profit Dive Clubs (like Health Clubs, Tennis Clubs, Karate Clubs, Flying Clubs) and compete by leading with quality facilities, quality training (highly experienced instructors and staff), good gear rental (HP Steel, High end regs, High end BCs, BP/Ws, etc.), good travel services, effective assistance to help divers obtain the biggest discount possible for gear purchases, and rental to members of high cost items (e.g., scooters, SCR, CCR, Video and editing, cameras, etc.).

 

[Rick Inman]

I'm not an instructor - just a diver, who is happy to dive with the many new divers who are moved through our local LDS training system. I really can't see how online academics are going to hurt them any. When the computer gets into the yellow, you head up, right?

Stopping internet training is like throwing an egg in from of a bulldozer: No matter how good the egg is, it ain't going slow down progress. The real victim here will be our local instructors, who have already forgotten how to dive except in the pool or at Check-out Lake. Without teaching the academics on a regular basis, they'll soon forget how to use the tables, too.

No worries. When the computer gets into the yellow...

(And my wife says I'm a synic...)