Global learning technologies creator CERTPOINT Systems and learning thought leader Charles Jennings, Duntroon Associates, identified five key trends affecting the way people learn in today’s borderless world:
- An organization is no longer the unique keeper of knowledge. Digital technology and its inherent transparency mean that a commercial insight is as likely to be created by a supplier, dealer, or customer as by the product development team. This fuels the need for social learning, collaboration, and communities.
- Business-focused learning, not process-focused learning. Knowledge remains powerful, but access to the right knowledge at the right time is where the real power lies. Traditional process-led learning must transform to give employees skills to achieve business results.
- Finding needles in haystacks. IDC (International Data Corporation) estimates that searching for information consumes 8.8 hours of an employee’s time each week, while analyzing information to support decisions takes an additional 8.1 hours. The ability to efficiently create, find, organize, and analyze information has become vital.
- Mobile learning must move forward. Mobile learning needs to reach beyond content delivery to provide a conduit for collaborative working and learning.
- New role for learning management systems (LMSs). Claire Schooley of Forrester says the LMS needs to integrate informal learning tools (including social), provide Amazon-type content evaluation and rating, allow flexibility to take courses offline and on mobile devices, and provide robust tagged content search so learners can instantly find a piece of content.