[LINK] Use e-Learning to Teach Teleworking

[Tom Worthington]

The Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, 
Senator Stephen Conroy, said on Saturday that Australia's low rate of 
teleworking was due in part to cultural barriers. He suggested that this 
could be changed through education and awareness of telework’s benefits: 
http://www.minister.dbcde.gov.au/media/media_releases/2012/001

I suggest that e-learning could teach the needed skills and provide 
experience with an on-line working environment.

The minister was speaking at the announcement of "National Telework 
Week", to be held 12 to 16 November 2012: http://www.nbn.gov.au/telework

Senator Conroy emphasised that the National Broadband Network (NBN) will 
allow easier access to work from home, with high-definition multi-party 
video conferencing, large file transfers and real-time collaborative 
business tools.

However, the Minister did not announce any education initiatives to 
address the issue of the low take up rate of teleworking. As the 
Minister suggested, employers and employees need training in how to set 
their business up for teleworking and how to use it. This is, in the 
main, not a technical problem of not having computers and Internet 
access, but of not knowing how to use what they have effectively.

TEACH TELEWORKING VIA E-LEARNING

I suggest that one very effective way to introduce personnel to 
tele-working is with e-learning and blended learning (a mix of on-line 
and classroom learning) at secondary school, TAFE, university and work 
short courses. The some tools and techniques used for teleworking are 
also now used for education. While teaching staff directly about how to 
telework, or while teaching them some other subject, students can be 
introduced to new ways of working.

LEARN TO USE ON-LINE FORMATS

Working out how to teach students on-line has taught us a lot about how 
to communicate on-line in general. One lesson is that documents need to 
be clear, direct and technically efficient. Documents designed for 
paper, do not provide the best on-line experience. An example is the 
Department of for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy 
(DBCDE) National Telework Week Fact Sheet: 
http://www.nbn.gov.au/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/DBCDE_factsheet_Telework_Week_web.pdf

This contains very useful information about what employers and employees 
can expect from teleworking, but has been poorly presented in the form 
of a four page 1.1 Mbyte PDF file. The document is formatted as a 
traditional paper brochure, with two columns of text. This is hard to 
read on a small smart phone or tablet computer screen. Also the PDF 
formatting makes the document ten times as large as it need be. While 
that size is not significant for someone on a high speed NBN connection, 
it could be slow and expensive on a wireless device, so I have created a 
HTML version of the text of the brochure: 
http://blog.tomw.net.au/2012/01/use-e-learning-to-teach-teleworking.html#ntw

Having the NBN's ability to carry high-definition multi-party video 
conferencing, large file transfers and real-time collaborative 
applications will enhance teleworking. But what what people first need 
is to know how to use text, audio, email and the web. National Telework 
Week (NTW) will help with awareness, but needs to be backed up with more 
substantial education for Australian employees.

EFFECTS OF TELEWORK ON THE ENVIRONMENT

NTW has an interesting list of human resource, IT and building industry 
backers: Australian Human Resources Institute, Australian Industry Group 
(AIG), Australian Information Industry Association (AIIA), the 
Australian Network for Disability and the Local Government Managers 
Australia. Cisco, the Australian Sustainable Built Environment Council, 
IBM, Intel, Microsoft, Unity4, Telstra, BlackBerry, Polycom, 
Infrastructure Australia and the Green Building Council of Australia.

At first glance it would appear that teleworking would be negative for 
the building industry as if more workers stay at home, fewer office 
buildings will be needed. But in practice many teleworkers only work a 
few days a week from home and still need an office to go to. Those 
offices need to be designed differently for the more mobile workforce. 
Fewer permanent offices and more meeting rooms and casual areas are 
needed. The same trend is seen in educational institutions, with 
learning centres which look more like an airport business lounge than a 
school.

Teleworking causes challenges for human resource management, as business 
has to manage staff they do not see much of the time operating out of 
home office environments they have little control over.

Teleworking also create opportunities and challenges for building and 
business environmental ratings. If fewer staff are in the office, the 
electricity bill may be lowers. But the business may have to cool a 
large building to hold peak staff demand, even though the building is 
part empty most of the time. This requires changes to building design 
and meeting scheduling. Also if the energy used by staff in poorly 
designed home offices is included, the organisation's environmental 
rating may be in jeopardy.


-- 
Tom Worthington FACS CP, TomW Communications Pty Ltd. t: 0419496150
PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617, Australia  http://www.tomw.net.au
Liability limited by a scheme approved under Professional Standards
Legislation

Adjunct Senior Lecturer, Research School of Computer Science,
Australian National University http://cs.anu.edu.au/courses/COMP7310/