Opportunities for e-Learning Industry in 2010

Summary

This is an attempt to present thoughts by various industry experts on challenges and opportunities that e-Learning industry is going to face in the year 2010.

What are the factors that are going to govern this industry in the coming year? We are talking about Learning 2.0, is it technology thats going to bring some revolution or the market is going to bounce back. Which industries verticals should be targeted? Is mobile technology going to bring some new mode of delivery?

These are the questions which popped up in our minds. I am sure answers to these questions can build a wonderful business plan for the professionals doing yearly planning. Let us see what experts think:

Expert from Education Field:

Challenges during 2010 will be many. Advantages will include our collaborative involvement in recognizing the challenges, creating the opportunities, and working toward solutions to the benefit of each and all. The opportunities for the e-learning industry will be endless however the challenges most difficult to overcome will be general acceptance of the technology and the opportunity it provides as when used as educational tools.

I read frequently about learning institutions that require students to “turn off” their connections to the digital world when attending classes. What a shame that the pedagogy most often used is centuries old and that educators are unwilling or unable to leverage the technologies available today!

I read frequently about business uses of social networks and learning 2.0 technologies (more specifically, lack thereof) because management does not yet trust the tools or the users with the tools. (I am old enough to remember when microcomputers were threats to IT departments because they challenged the “tried and true” methods of computer science and how slowly they were integrated into daily business. Nonetheless, the microcomputer WAS eventually embraced and successfully exploited. It just took time to establish traction.

What we have now is a very similar challenge, in my humble opinion. We at the forefront see the advantages and many of the opportunities of leveraging technology for learning and we must have patience while we establish proof for those less inclined to accept our visions. We must produce the industry-specific apps that verticals will embrace because the apps provide a necessary “new tool” for their success. It was not the microcomputer per se; it was using it as ledger paper (spreadsheets). It was not the microcomputer; it was using it to write form letters and to address each “personally” to thousands of potential customers in minutes instead of hours (word processors). It was not the microcomputer; it was the page layout software that enabled anyone to become an editor and publisher (think Adobe).

I can imagine field service technicians using a handheld device to view a digital video that demonstrates how to open, remove, replace and close an everyday appliance or a piece of scientific instrumentation. There are many more examples I can suggest however, I think that I have perhaps stood atop my soapbox a bet to long already.

Lead IT Knowledge & Information:

I am beginning to see the tentative use of web 3.0, notably in combinations of tools and technique that indicate another change in direction and possible advances in delivery. It does already appear as if knowledge capture will become more vital than before, particularity given the impact of the recession.

President of a Consulting Firm:

1. assimilating new technology to increase the convenience of learning or
2. assimilating new technology to increase the quality of learning
3. Measuring quality by focusing on the ability of learning to produce the learner's performance expectations that motivated the investment in the learning

A Talent Transformation Professional:

Year 2010 is going to take e-learning Industry to new heights. With the advent of reliable open source LMS’s and easy to use authoring tools, technical dependency is going to reduce. Instructional designing as a stream is getting a good welcome amongst students. We have got seasoned professionals who have excelled in the e-learning industry from its nascent stage. They will be strengthening the existing development cycle and processes with their experience. We can expect some new instructional design theories and probably give a better meaning to the existing theories.

From the demand side, the upcoming generation of learners will create a need to the educational institutions and corporates to leverage the e-learning way in a bigger way. This is irrespective of whether the institutions want it or not.

Anshu Systems' View:

When we talk about new technology, developers can use new technology to build engaging elearning, but we can't guarantee that end user will adopt it as it is. So I think when technology is progressing and a quality elearning product can be developed, there must be a parallel running program to develop the adaptability by fine tunning accessibility and usability of elearning product from end users’ point of view. Identify the challenges which learner may face while consuming elearning. Many times resistance to adopt new technique causes failure of elerning implementation, this is very commonly observed in the industry as technology progresses, and normal tendency of a user opposes change. There needs proper motivational factors to make transition successful.

On the other hand elearning for disabled people is an area of challenge and I am very sure technology can bring wonders here. We are currently working on a project called elearning for learning disabled children, a lot of research is in progress about the delivery mechanism, trial results to standardize the pace of learning, assessment techniques etc.

Challenges create opportunities and current challenges are applying technology to bring quality, usability and there needs a mechanism to measure and maintain the performance so as to keep the interest alive.