Key themes for learning in 2010

We share some of the key themes spotted at last week's Learning Technologies Conference and Exhibition.

Last week Brightwave was a proud sponsor at the Learning Technologies 2010 Conference and Exhibition. According to most people, this was the most successful show to date. Attendance figures were significantly up on previous years and the general buzz from both potential buyers and suppliers was positive, informed and purposeful.

It looks like 2010 will be a turning point year for e-learning. The recession has pushed many reluctant organisations to commit more strategically to using learning technology in all its many forms. Earlier adopters such as Sky, Bupa and Boots are reporting significant business impacts. People are increasingly comfortable with interactive technology through their home and social use. Indeed, there is a widening gulf in expectations between this and the learning technologies on offer in most corporate environments.

So what were the major themes that we can learn and prepare for in the coming year? Here are just a few key areas that are likely to dominate:

1. Reducing wasteful training spend - laser focus on business objectives

E-learning has won the argument in terms of efficient delivery of training. Where there is a lack of clarity around the effectiveness and relevance of a training activity, then delivering this  experience online will save an organisation time and money, as well as provide a clear, measurable mechanism to establish if it has any productive value at all. If the metrics don't stack up, then it can be candidate for being dropped completely. This will put pressure on training departments to look much more carefully at the business case that drives their learning interventions.  Do check out Towards Maturity's Impact Indicator Launch presentation delivered by Laura Overton at the show which reports on the bottomline business benefits achieved and achievable by investing in learning technologies

2. Design matters more than ever

While the tools proliferate offering you the ability to produce "rapid" and "interactive" e-learning, it is increasingly clear that design skills really drive the eventual engagement and successful learning outcomes. Without these, you might appear to spend less by doing it yourself, but in fact waste more - both of your own and your learners time and your organisations money. So it's important to spend time gaining experience by working collaboratively with expert support in order to either build capability in the long term or develop productive partnerships, depending on what's right strategically for your organisation.

3. All onboard

I gave a seminar at the Learning and Skills floor of the exhibition that explored how technology supports onboarding/induction solutions. This will be a major trend as the employment market becomes more fluid. Huge cost savings can be derived through better alignment of onboarding activities from initial attraction through to completion of induction training. Reducing 'time to full competence' delivers big benefits in raising overall productivity levels and has significant impact on employee engagement measures. Have a look at the award winning onboarding portal produced for Sky to see how major an impact a review of your current induction practices can be.

Download an onboarding brochure

4. Social learning is the new black

Supporting informal learning practices in the workplace is fraught with challenges (a bit like nailing jelly to the wall) but big benefits can be derived from supporting learning opportunities that are naturally interleaved into everyday workplace activity. Social tools such as blogs, wikis, micro-blogging (like Twitter, Yammer and the like) are gradually being more widely recognised as complementary ways in which to encourage a more fluid, open, sharing culture amongst staff, many of whom are increasingly working in more flexible, mobile ways. That said, many organisations remain worried about security and productivity by opening up control. In many ways this challenges more deeply the way in which organisations structure themselves going forward.

5. Mobile learning (maybe)

Yes, lots of talk in this area again this year, but still little real action outside of isolated case studies. That said, with the smart phone beginning to dominate and the appearance of a new class of tablet based computers (led by Apple's iPad launched last week) there is further promise. However there really needs to be further standardisation of how we deliver interactive, tracked learning to various mobile devices. With Flash being resisted by Apple, we may have to wait for HTML5 to gain full adoption before this can really go mainstream. The benefits are wide-reaching if we can get to location-aware, just in time learning and performance support.

6. Share and save

Major cuts in public funding are inevitable, no matter what the outcome of the General Election this year. There is still excessive duplication of training provision across many public organisations, both central and local. Sharing platforms and content development costs to deliver high quality e-learning experiences is a fantastic way to reduce taxpayer burdens while actually improving the effectiveness of training delivery. We are already experiencing major success with our Local Government E-Learning Service being used collaboratively by Scottish local authorities so would expect that this to become more widespread as the story spreads.

7. The future is bright

All told, this year's Learning Technologies event demonstrates the distance the e-learning industry has come. With the right emphasis on quality and innovative design, we can move learning experiences in the workplace to be genuinely engaging, relevant and timely. At Brightwave we try to lead from the front on this and it appears many of the attendees agree with us given the activity on the stand, in the seminars and on what they told journalists compiling an exit poll on the day. Here's to a successful 2010 for all!

Comments

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Kingston 2010-02-08 09:28:31 "According to most people, this was the most successful show to date. Attendance figures were significantly up on previous years and the general buzz from both potential buyers and suppliers was positive, informed and purposeful" I can see brightwave is a member of the Kirkpatrick school of evaluation. Reply

Mobile learning is here, it's free (and it's infor Patrick Dunn 2010-02-08 09:27:50 Excellent posting! See my response at http://patrickdunn.squarespace.com/occasional-rants/ Reply

Kirkpatrick Lars Hyland (Brightwave) 2010-02-08 12:37:43 Kingston - nice, made me laugh. You are quite right. The real results will be born out later but already seeing talk turning into action. Reply

Mobile learning - organisational value Lars Hyland (Brightwave) 2010-02-08 12:40:24 Patrick, Thanks for the comment and a great response on your blog. I agree, that for a significant segment of the population mobile learning is already here, informal, fragmented (in a good way) and highly valued by the individual. The point I made was in the context of a trade show where organisations themselves are looking to harness mobile platforms to support a mix of formal and informal learning - shall we call it "skimmed learning"? Reply

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