To meet the training needs of our Member and Co-operating States, ECMWF started at the beginning of 2017 a project aimed at producing a set of publicly available eLearning modules, initially on foundational material for our numerical weather prediction, software and product courses. eLearning has a number of potential benefits: it can expand the reach of training, and it can give learners flexibility in terms of when, where and how they want to learn. It is a flexible and student-driven kind of learning that relies on effective multimedia resources. It supports diverse learning styles and can complement traditional classroom teaching. eLearning leverages technology to create and design engaging and effective multimedia resources.
The new eLearning modules provide the background knowledge on which face-to-face courses at ECMWF can build. This will enable us to spend the course time on more complex material or to shorten training events to reduce costs for Member States. Other initiatives such as WMO Global Campus and future EUMETNET training programmes may also find the new ECMWF eLearning modules useful as resources to make available to their member states.
The modules are being created in collaboration with instructional designers who are working with ECMWF experts. The instructional design methodology used it that set out by Mayes & de Freitas (2004), which assumes that information is processed through two channels (auditory and visual) of limited capacity. In order to minimise overload, the learner filters, selects, organises and integrates the information presented in the resources. These assumptions and learning principles are guiding the creation of our eLearning modules.
A set of online modules covering NWP topics, software, ECMWF meteorological archive and Metview (visualisation) is now publicly available on ECMWF website!
Please visit (and forward the link to colleagues):
https://www.ecmwf.int/en/en/learning/education-material/elearning-online-resources
More modules will be added in the following months. We hope you find these resources useful!
Anna