Swine flu might not be the huge danger that it first appeared - although the disease continues to spread it seems less potent than feared in the majority of cases - but the reponse of the media, governments and the general public to the initial outbreak is enlightening.
As might be expected the headline grabbing numbers and contradictory ‘expert’ opinions tend to spread even faster than the disease itself. This poses a particular challenge for thos tasked with helping prevent and contain the spread of the disease - how can they keep up with the spread of (dis)information in the age of 24/7 news, blogs and Twitter?
Devon County Council Tackles Swine Flu with ELearning
Devon County Council for one, were one step ahead, having created an elearning module (accessible via their intranet) to provide useful information about how flu pandemics spread. Karissa Marker from Devon County Council (DCC) explained:
“Whilst our plan was to prepare all Devon County Council staff in the event of an outbreak of flu, it was particularly important that our social care staff were trained, as in the course of their work they come into contact with vulnerable people on a daily basis.”
A simple elearning module helped them accomplish this task effectively. So what can we learn from DCC’s efforts?
- ELearning suits rapid deployment - The idea of bringing large numbers of staff together in one place, at one time, makes no sense in time-senstive environments (and even less sense in this case). If you need to get information out quickly, elearning modules make sense.
- ELearning suits rapid development - DCC created their module in Learning Pool’s authoring tool which made it easy to create the module quickly.
- ELearning is complementary to other formats - As part of their overall efforts, DCC also used a printed distance learning booklet and arranged a briefing session for line managers.
- Preparation is key - To reduce the time involved in deploying information smart organisations will consider what kinds of information might be required in the future. A flu pandemic is a foreseeable event - as are all kinds of natural disasters, public health issues and even seasonal events.
- Sharing is good - The course created by DCC is now freely available to all Learning Pool members. By pooling resources, organisations in the public sector can be collectively much smarter and much better prepared (not to mention save themselves a lot of time and money in duplicated efforts).
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