ELM Resources, a not-for-profit, mutual-benefit corporation, provides web-based transmission and data translation services for student loan data between loan providers and schools/universities. This corporation has a relatively new training staff of five to seven employees and over 1,800 client organizations. Because of the heavy demands placed on the training staff, ELM training administrators sought alternatives to their current training program of onsite training and web conferencing. Blended learning was identified as one possible solution. In this project, blended learning is defined as using a combination of face-to-face training and technology-delivered training. By adding web-based, on-demand tutorials, along with other training media, ELM hoped to increase access to training while keeping costs low. This project explores the impact of these tutorials on ELM and its clients. Reported are an interview with the Director of Training and several surveys distributed to school staff, lenders, and ELM training specialists. A critique of the project addresses the need for future research to collect performance data. Evaluation results indicate that the changes to the training program have established a positive relationship between ELM and its clients, and have given ELM a definite competitive edge. The advantages especially noted in the evaluation results include the usefulness of the tutorials as both a reinforcement of previous training and a self-testing tool, their brief and highly visual format which teaches one process at a time, and the convenience in accessing and using the tutorials. Disadvantages include the tutorial's inherent impersonal nature, the loss of the ability to ask questions, and lack of optional narration. This paper discusses unanticipated benefits to the trainers, such as the use of the tutorials within face-to-face training sessions, and to other ELM staff members, including Help Desk personnel. The decrease in training-related Help Desk calls after the introduction of the training changes suggests a positive impact on learning.

Ce document se propose de mieux comprendre les fonctionnements pédagogiques et communicationnels de deux dispositifs d’apprentissage au sein d’un même département universitaire : le cas d’une Licence en Sciences de l’information et de la communication. Cette approche compréhensive à visée exploratoire part du postulat que le sens ne se construit qu’en situation et en interaction avec le dispositif d’apprentissage, adoptant ainsi une position épistémologique issue d’une « convention constructiviste ». La recherche souhaite comprendre comment les apprenants co-construisent leur réalité collective d’apprentissage à travers leurs expériences d’apprentissage signifiantes. L’émergence de modèles de lecture issus du double ancrage analytique (méthodes d’analyse de la systémique qualitative et de la sémiotique situationnelle) met également en exergue la dynamique et la logique des systèmes, les règles du jeu et le débat latent entre les acteurs en présence. En sus de cette lecture communicationnelle, cette recherche à visée heuristique offre une large réponse en terme méthodologique (notamment à travers la proposition de la technique dialectique graduelle). C’est en ce sens que ce document représente un premier socle de sorte à fonder une réflexion plus empirique, tant sur les méthodes d’analyse que sur la place des technologies de l’information et de la communication dans le paysage universitaire actuel. / This document suggests understanding better the educational functionings and communicationnels of two devices of learning within the same university department: the case of a License in Sciences of the information and the communication. This comprehensive approach with exploratory aim leaves the postulate that the sense builds itself only in situation and in interaction the device of learning, so adopting a épistémologique position outcome of a " constructivist agreement ". The research wishes to understand how are learners co-build their collective reality through their significant experiences of learning. The emergence of models of reading stemming from the double analytical anchoring (methods of the qualitative systematism and of semiotics situationnelle) also highlights the dynamics and the logic of the systems, the rules of the game and the latent debate between the actors in presence. In addition to this communicationnelle reading, this research with aim heuristics offers a wide answer in methodological term (in particular through the proposition of the gradual dialectical technique). It is in the sense that this document represents a first base so as to base a more empirical reflection, both on the methods of analysis and on the place of information technologies and communication in the current university landscape.