Trends in eLearning That Can Help You

It’s that time of the year again when L&D executives are busy researching patterns in eLearning for those who can make a difference to their current corporate training. It is going to be a little different this year, though. Organizations need to reconsider how they function, train, and prepare personnel to combat the challenges raised by market trends with COVID-19 training disruptions [1].

There are a few interesting stats here. About 47 percent of companies have harmed their training budgets because of the pandemic, according to our study, and more than 23 percent of organizations are attempting to move entirely from face-to-face classroom training to other formats.

How is your company planning to upskill and reskill staff in 2021 in this context?

I have compiled a list of developments that will give you an idea of what will dominate the corporate training[2] circuit in 2021, to help you prepare your training initiatives better. I’ve divided the trends into three parts to make it easy: evolving online training areas, eLearning and design, and technology for learning.

New Online Platforms for Continuing Education

Enhance your EQ

In all roles and functions, particularly for those leaders who have to manifest high levels of emotional intelligence and empathy to interact and help their teams effectively, there has been an increasing demand for soft skills training, more so since the pandemic.

Although classroom, on-the-job, seminars, in-person training methods have been the norm until now, we are now seeing a growing appetite for methods of online training, courtesy of social distancing.

Here’s how online preparation approaches for training soft skills can be used:

• Blended learning to mimic the nature of in-person coaching, including Virtual Instructor-Led Training (VILT);
• eLearning for self-paced learning: building on what the VILT sessions covered. To improve participation by offering a taste of real-life issues, instructional techniques such as scenarios, simulations, and case studies may be used;
• Mobile learning for access to learning assets anywhere at any time, including for performance support;
• Images, problem-based activities, audio podcasts to improve and refresh learning to beat the forgetting curve: microlearning nuggets;
• Social learning elements can be used to inspire learners to discover and exchange knowledge and best practices that they can use in their jobs; and,
• Personalized pathways of learning with the help of a new-age LMS (Learning Management System). For adaptive learning, a learning experience platform (LXP) is even better.

Focus on Your Customers

The most feasible or realistic choice, particularly in the current scenario, may not be to conduct in-person training sessions for clients. It is true that for customer preparation, nothing can beat seminars or webinars. But your clients would still prefer the ease of logging into the website of your company for information and training rather than going on-site for training. Online consumer education is seeing a fresh increase this year.

Customers may learn at their speed and time and from the comfort of their own homes with online training. What are the greatest benefits of customer training online? It is capable of:

• Catering to millions of consumers from a single LMS around the world. To provide unique learning experiences, a new-age LMS will let you build cohorts (sub-domains). Depending on your particular goods and services and the tasks or duties of clients, you can also configure the LMS.
• Provide various forms of online learning resources, such as presentations, product videos, customer testimonials, case studies, podcasts, as well as real-life solutions focused on AI and VR.
• Monitor and report improvement in learning and provide in-depth analysis on all facets of the program for consumer education.
• Conduct daily webinars and interactive workshops to announce developments and get real-time feedback.

Design Focused Training

Mixed Learning Approach

According to our report, 34% of organizations consider virtual classrooms, while 44% would like a mixed approach to organizational training (digital + virtual). In comparison to in-person classroom approaches, virtual classrooms have incomparable comfort and versatility. In these unparalleled modifications, utilizing virtual classrooms is certainly a fail-safe choice.

Digital classroom preparation, however, is very distinct from teaching in the classroom or eLearning. A virtual classroom is not the same as performing an ILT session using virtual conferencing instruments, unlike common thought.

Digital classroom success depends on content and technology that must be carefully planned, developed, and implemented.

• Content

You will need a facilitator guide, learner handouts, reference material, and “getting started” webinars for hands-on practice to develop a brand new VILT program or expand on existing content.

• Technology

You can choose from platforms such as Microsoft Teams, Adobe Connect, Vedamo, Skype, Google Classroom, Zoom, etc, based on the types of collaboration activities required.

eLearning Benefits

For organizations, what are some of the pressing issues? Dynamic markets, shifting internal operations, and external influences without precedent! The need for the hour is stimulating, productive employee training at the pace of business.

Enter the 4 Rs of eLearning Easy Conversions!

The 4 Rs are useful for all urgent training needs, whether you want to convert your current legacy courses to sensitive eLearning or build online training assets from scratch.

• Record to save SME time

Make the most of the restricted time of your Subject Matter Specialist (SME). In eLearning design and development, the fast ‘n dirty Record strategy reduces SME touchpoints to rollout training within timelines.

• Republish for mobile compatibility

Convert legacy mobile-incompatible courses built with outdated software (Flash) or older versions of a Republish Strategy authoring tool. This enables you to update to a newer version of an authoring tool, revamp existing courses’ look and feel, and make courses compliant with mobile devices!

• Rebuild for microlearning

To deliver customized learning experiences, reconstruct your long eLearning courses or curricula into microlearning, bite-sized learning assets dealing with one learning objective[4] each.

• Redesign for blended learning

Get over the constraints of in-person classroom instruction, high logistical costs, gathering students and trainers in one location, etc., and move with the Redesign Strategy to online training.

Focus on Technology

Student-Focused Learning Process

An LXP enables you to aggregate the content with an emphasis on learner experience, unlike a traditional Learning Management System. It integrates content from multiple sources, content repositories, intranet, LMS, collaboration networks (Zoom, Adobe Connect, Microsoft Teams), SharePoint Portal, and more.

LXPs, along with their inherent capacity to incorporate resources from various learning environments,