Saturday, March 07, 2009

State of E-Learning 2009

Elearn Magazine asked me for 500 words on my views about the current state and future of e-learning. The piece begins:

"As the news about the economy grows ever bleaker, organizations are finally forced to take a hard look at travel and other expenses associated with traditional classroom training. I predict this will bring several changes to the e-learning horizon—some good, some perhaps not."

The other 456 words are here.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Interesting points Jane. The only bit I would add is unfortunately a bit of a downer. From what I've seen, the companies that are adopting social media and social networking are generally doing it through IT or marketing initiatives, not through training and development groups. In fact, most of the learning players aren't in the loop at all. I'm not just talking about what we're selling, but also about every major social learning case study to date (Best Buy, Ace, Intel, Cisco, Caterpillar...).

So I agree. Our learners may ultimately win the war, but I'm pretty sure training groups are going to lose it, not just the current one about who owns elearning, but the new one too, the one most learning professionals don't even know they are fighting yet - the battle for control of social learning.

Jane Bozarth said...

Actually, that's kind of my point. I see exactly what you describe, and I blame training for it. If training refuses to drive the train, someone else will.

And apparently has. As I have often said, to paraphrase Marc Rosenberg, training needs to realize it's in the learning business, not the classroom business.

Jane Bozarth said...

PS: My email signature says,
"Opportunities are not lost. They are just taken by others."