EAC 585 Integrating Technology into Training Programs New methods and technologies constantly arise in all career

r fields; HRD and education are not exceptions. As these novel tools become manifest, the community as a whole must agree on proper ways to apply the benefits they provide. In recent years, education and HRD have been significantly impacted by social media and Web 2.0. These technological advancements, while not explicitly tied to training, open up a world of new possibilities for training approaches and relaying information to multiple physically separated stakeholders. The next step, then, is to evaluate the use of these technologies to ensure they are actually providing their intended benefit. Any new technology can be implemented in some way, but that implementation is pointless without evaluation to assess its validity and utility. That was the purpose of this assignment. I focused on one training course taught through the Distance Education & Learning Technology Applications (DELTA) program at NC State University that was designed to teach users how to incorporate Facebook as a teaching tool. I quickly discovered that, due in part to the novelty of social media, there are no universally agreed upon approaches to evaluating courses taught via social media or other online environments. I chose an evaluation method that seemed appropriate to me for this task, the e-Learning Success Model developed by Dr. Anita Lee-Post. Using the criteria developed in the e-Learning Success Model, I conducted both a formative and summative evaluation of the DELTA program. Ultimately, the DELTA program met the success threshold in three of the six dimensions proposed by Lee-Post. This evaluation isnt the final say on either the DELTA program or on the evaluation of technology-based programs in general. Still, it provided me valuable insight into the importance of evaluation, the volume of evaluative models and approaches, and the necessity of evaluation when faced with new technologies and methodologies. Like any tool, technology can be of critical importance in creating an effective training program or can be detrimental and destructive if misused. Its through evaluation that trainers assess where their program falls on that continuum of success and take the necessary steps to make training courses more effective. As methods evolve, so too will the models used to evaluate them. This assignment helped me gain a better understanding of how to evaluate a programs successes and shortcomings and then take the next step to consider how it might improve in the future.