4 eLearning Trends To Treat With Caution

4 eLearning Trends To Treat With Caution
Pressmaster/Shutterstock.com
Summary: Jumping onboard to a new industry trend with insufficient planning can result in your initiative failing to achieve its objective and, in the worst case, even hinder the learning process. So which hot topics should you treat with care?

Proceed With Caution: 4 eLearning Trends You Should Be Careful With

There are always buzzwords and innovations that ‘everyone’s talking about’, dominating eLearning blogs and industry events. According to research, some eLearning trends indicate positive progress in the industry, while others may need to be treated with caution before you dive in.

Interviews with 10 industry experts highlighted the 4 key trends to tread carefully with:

1. Virtual Reality, or VR

Indisputably, Virtual Reality can be very impressive. Yet, for VR to thrive within the eLearning industry, there needs to be a clear vision of how it will work in practice.

David Wood, Founder of JamPan, noted that he’s seen some brilliant examples of VR, but not necessarily from learning organizations:

“You can, of course, create a simulated office environment for fire safety training, and enable people to walk virtually toward the exits. But is that the most effective/efficient way to meet that learning goal? I think VR is a technology to keep an eye on, but I’m waiting to see more learning-led results”.

According to Dr. Ben Betts, CEO at HT2 Labs, this could be because actually delivering a VR experience at scale is pretty unthinkable:

“The majority of our clients have process issues putting in place relatively simple initiatives, so the thought of actually delivering a VR experience at scale is pretty unthinkable. Maybe I’m thinking about the wrong context; maybe it will be small scale, high-value, high-risk training forever”.

Ultimately, the key question to consider when adopting anything new is whether it will help you achieve the desired outcome. VR shouldn’t be incorporated into learning just because it’s a common buzzword. Before you decide to give it a go, consider how it’s going to help your learner, and whether it’s truly the most effective or efficient way to meet the learning goal.

2. Gamification

While gamifying learning can result in higher engagement and motivation levels, it should be used with caution. Stephen Walsh, Director at JamPan & AndersPink, offers a few words of warning for those who seek to employ ‘gamification’.

“If you are designing a great experience for learners that’s action-orientated, has challenge in it, and is relevant to learners, you don’t need to gamify it. It should stand on its own terms. I’m wary of people who talk about putting some snakes and ladders element around your otherwise dreadful piece of compliance learning”.

So, if you’re considering introducing an interactive element to your learning, don’t let this deter you—just ensure that it’s relevant to the content and will aid the learning process.

3. Artificial Intelligence, or AI

I don’t think AI will stick. It’s too much of an investment and L&D is still too behind the times”, says Sam Taylor, Digital Development Manager at Hitachi Rail Europe.

However, the industry should not be afraid of new developments just because they require investment. If you are confident that a trend is going to yield better results for your learners, the ROI you see may well justify the upfront resources it requires.

Again, it all comes down to whether a trend is going to deliver in terms of achieving an objective. Laura Overton, CEO at Towards Maturity, talks about assessing an emerging development by whether it meets a need:

We need to be aware of the potential and open our minds to what they could do, but still focus on the needs that need addressing, above all.

4. Microlearning

The theory behind microlearning makes a lot of sense: organizing content into sections so that learning can fit easily with modern day attention spans and learners’ busy lifestyles is not a bad thing. The worry is that the buzzword, ‘microlearning’, has grown legs of its own, meaning the industry is losing sight of its’ founding principles.

David Perring, Director of Research at Fosway Group, highlights that microlearning on its own is actually meaningless. In order to drive change, learning providers need to focus on what learners need. David explains:

“We should focus on what’s needed to drive change: being more social, working together, nudging each other to improve performance. The debate around macro vs. micro is taking people down a blind alley. We should obsess less about forgetting curves, and more about doing curves”.

Is the debate around macro vs. micro learning just distracting from focusing on what will really help implement behavior change? As always, making microlearning work comes down to execution!

What’s the next big thing for your learners?

The recurring theme among these trends is that none should be discredited or discounted, as long as they are selected because they are the right approach to achieve the desired outcome for your learners.

Fiona Quigley, Digital Learning Innovator at Logicearth, sums it up nicely: “If you listen very carefully to the buzzwords over the last few years, they are all telling us the same thing. Our users want better learning experiences”. You just need to find out exactly what that learning experience is for your organization.

What’s right for your learners?

Download this free template to help understand your learners’ needs.