Winner of eLearning competition announced

The winner of the eLearning competition organized by Finland's eLearning Center was announced at the eEemeli gala held at Aulanko in Hämeelinna on April 9, 2003. The winner was selected by the Chairman of the Jury, eLearning investigator Markku Markkula. The award for the best eLearning product was granted to AAC Global Oy's Meeting the Visitors Online. The winner received a check for EUR 5,000 and the eEemeli award, designed by Anna Turunen and Laura Lehenkari.

The winning program is a course in business English, which comprises language related to greeting and receiving corporate guests. The course is part of the Global Enterprise eLearning course series, which is designed to enhance and support classroom training and to encourage efficient distant learning. The course is targeted at people working in an international environment.

The theme of the 2003 competition was experiential learning. Almost 30 Finnish eLearning products related to personnel, customer or product training were entered in the competition.

The jury comprised of experts short-listed the following five products for the final:

AAC Global Oy's Meeting the Visitors Online, Finnair Oyj's route reporting system start-up training program, Everscreen Oy's Occupational guidance for storemen educational program, Divace Oy's Campiaza and Tampere Polytechnic eAcademy Online's Click´n Learn

The jury evaluated the products in terms of pedagogic useability, commercial potential, technical implementation, applicability to different learner groups and scalability for a variety of data terminals, as well as their interactive and experiential characteristics, creativity and novelty.

Chairman Markkula described the products entered in the competition as representing a wide range of fields from language software to in-house personnel and system training. Extremely simple solutions had been adopted to produce good and functional results.

Meeting the Visitors Online is functional, high-quality software that both engages and involves the learner and thus gives rise to new insights. Extremely motivating, the software offers flexible support for independent study as well as at educational institutions and the workplace. The product is highly interactive and contains a variety of elements that enhance learning.

Markkula says that while Finnish language training models are at the top of their class, even the largest companies in Finland are too small to be able to compete on their own and to achieve sufficient growth in the global market for language services. In addition to the existing contents and technologies, this expertise should be boosted by introducing new digitally supported types of service for language training and the utilization of language skills. In the eLearning investigator's report, Markkula suggests that comprehensive services in cross-cultural language training should be targeted as a spearhead area, with the public and private sectors assuming special responsibility for boosting the export of the services together.

Finland's eLearning Center organized the competition in cooperation with the Hämeenlinna Technology Centre, the city of Hämeelinna, Cooperative Bank of Hämeenlinna and the Virtaa Hämeeseeen project.

Finland's eLearning Center association is a nation-wide player in the eLearning sector. Founded in 2002, the association promotes the use, research and development of web-based training and digital educational solutions at enterprises, educational institutions and organizations. Its objectives are to create operational preconditions and to activate its members in developing and using high-quality web-based training solutions, as well as distributing them in both national and global markets. The association serves as an active cooperation forum for communities and people who implement, use and develop web-based training.

Further information on the competition and Finland's eLearning Centre

http://www.eoppimiskeskus.net

Chairman, Ms Leena Vainio, tel. +358 40 727 6601

Chairman of the Jury, Mr Markku Markkula, tel. +358 50 462 2455