Whether it's the latest e-learning software, views or just our opinions on the state of the nation, you can find it all here. This section is growing all the time, so make sure you come back frequently.
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Our News picks
A review of Learning Technologies 2012
Another busy, well attended show with lots of delegates
provided with a wide range of exhibitors all combining to create a real buzz.
The event (as ever) was well organised with a large number of
visitors over both days, and exhibitors reporting that the show was generating good
quality leads, and visitors we spoke with found the show useful and informative.
The Training Press Releases
sponsored post event “party” was certainly very much appreciated by the
exhibitors after a very busy Wednesday.
The 2012
Learning Technologies show was interesting for a variety of reasons, and
one particularly interesting reason was that this show was not dominated by the
next big thing…..! Indeed, with some notable exceptions 2012 was more of the
same from previous years!
Confidence, certainty
and coalescence…….in the Cloud
While more of the same may sound a little dull, our view is now
we have an industry that is maturing rapidly, and to the buyer this is a very
good thing. We too see this as an encouraging trend, as it offers the buyer
continuity and certainty, and indicates that the “hype waves” that have so dominated
this industry are slowing. This we believe will give buyers greater confidence
in the longevity of both the vendors and the technology offers being made.
Our view is further reinforced by what we saw and heard from
the exhibitors and speakers. There was no doubt that they were doing a very
good job in explaining what e-learning and learning technologies are about and
what impact they have. Our evidence is based both on our conversations with
vendors and observing the presentations made in the exhibition seminar areas.
The presentations we listened to were generally informative
and advisory, indicating a new maturity of both presenter and delegate. We were
particularly impressed with the presentations from Onlignment and eXact- Learning. This provision of
advice and information was well supported by Towards Maturity. We were
interested in the newly launching “Corporate Learning Consortium” led by Martin
Baker of the Charity Learning consortium. The excellent “European e-learning
barometer” published by CrossKnowledge
also impressed us greatly. We strongly
advise that you get a copy!
In short, continuity of message, coalescence of technologies
and a new mature confidence in the industry and its abilities would sum up
Learning Technologies 2012. This we believe is increasingly reflected in the
attitude of the e-learning and learning technologies buyers. The challenge for
our industry now is to “break out” beyond the already committed and confident
buyers and win new converts in mid-sized corporates and the SME market.
We know the opportunity is very real having spent a
significant amount of time interviewing many buyers of learning development
across the UK for our 2012 research. Organisations with the right products and business
proposition will be well placed to prosper as the market expands.
So what were the themes we saw at Learning Technologies
2012:
Review of BETT 2012
A review of BETT 2012 and the five themes we took away and our favourite” top” exhibitors:
BETT In a word or three, busy, busy, busy, - there was no doubt that the two halls of London’s Olympia were thronging with delegates and buzzing with noise and atmosphere. Will BETT be able to fit in here in future years? Well no as BETT is on the move to The Excel Arena next year.
With an impressive range of exhibitors, many with even more impressive stands, BETT really is the event for ICT and education. The throng indicates a vibrant and very competitive market, seeing it all in 1 day is too tiring, we here at e-learning centre would recommend two 2/3 days to give you time to see everything without tiring yourself out!
Here at e-learningcentre.co.uk we have advised many companies on how to select the right e-learning and learning technologies, and since we started hosting the BECTA collection on our site we have had an increasing number of education establishments approach us. So we are interested in looking at how the corporate and education e-learning and learning technologies markets compare and contrast, and to offer our independent and impartial expertise to schools and educational establishments.
So what are the 5 themes that stood out for us at BETT 2012 read more here
Predictions for 2012......
Here at e-learning centre we are continuing our tradition of looking through the predictions made for e-learning 2012, and adding a few of our own, and a little commentary. We start with Tony Bates and Craig Weiss so far......
Take a look at the thoughts of Tony Bates at on-line learning and distance education resources, it is a brave person who makes these predictions, but these look pretty much on the money to us, but we felt the need to add a couple of ours and one from our good friend Craig Weiss.
1) The Year of the Tablet - 99% probable
Yes pretty hard to disagree with, as prices fall and performance improves, we have seen some interesting projects launch in education already, but we are a little less sure in the corporate world, where desktops and especially laptops will hang on in.Do not underestimate the importance of "cool" to the modern learner especially in the developed world, and this is where Apple will retain its hold on the market.See prediction 12 for more on usage levels!
2) Learning analytics - 90% probable
Very likely indeed, with the emergence of new open standards replacing SCORM - (see project Tin Can) we will see a very large number of new open analytics tool sets emerging, but the interesting ones will focus on the exceptions and actively seek out at risk learners
3) Growth of open education - 70% probable
Been tracking and featuring these initiatives on this site for a while now, with lots more to come, we have been impressed with the work of Dr Mitra who really brings a challenging definition to open education....- we heard him speak at a Webanywhere education technology event earlier this year......brilliant 4) Disruption in the LMS Market - 60% probable
Too right, the LMS is not going away, either in corporate or education, but it will change and evolve as never before, with Totara and Moodle making even bigger in-roads into the market, large players will be bought out or buy into HR or MIS to gain greater vertical integration in the market. There will continue to be a raft of new entrants and new business models into this market. 60% probable a bit conservative in our view!
5) Integration of social media into formal learning - 66% probable
This was the hype of 2011, and interesting to see it drop down the list, still likely to play a big role in education - without doubt, and many establishments will be challenged to keep up with all the associated issues around its usage. In corporate it is still "fear and fascination" and we are still really looking for the business case, our view is that Serious Gaming and Simulation will come of age in 2012! - How's that for a prediction! See prediction 12 below for the importance of Social media.
6) The digital university - 10% probability
Universities will be dragged toward digitisation, few will achieve and deliver a full digital learning offer, and many will have to fundamentally change the way they do things......do watch India in this space....as we see already in the USA, as much of the educational establishments back office administration, student support, and even the production of lecture notes and assignment marking is outsourced to India!
7) Watch India!
See above
8) The great unknown - 10% probability
Or as we prefer to call it, the law of unintended consequences and without doubt.......
Anything missing? we would add the following:
9) Serious gaming and simulation comes of age.....we have all talked this up for 5 years or more, but finally we think it will go mainstream especially in the corporate market
10) We will move beyond rapid e-learning to rapid re-use of e-learning assets, take a look at ZebraZapps to see what we mean.
Research from Craig Weiss into the "online learning market" is well worth reading at his site e-learning 24/7, and illustrates the progress that is happening in online education in the UK and US and we get this bold prediction from Craig:
11) "Toss in the cost savings to all learners, emerging markets, financial gains for the schools themselves and yes, even government funding (from whichever country you are located) and online learning is set to surpass its classroom cousin, who has the education system to thank for its long usage." We wonder when this is likely to happen? 2012, doubt it.
12) Web 3.0 - Fact or fiction! See the excellent article by David Coleman in ELearning magazine. Perhaps the most interesting information is about web 2.0 usage and the provision and usage levels of different devices - 71% of organisations surveyed in 2011 by ELearning Magazine provided a Laptop (Notebook), 58% Smart Phone, 32% non Smart mobile phone and 21% ipad or tablet to their employees! Perhaps it is worth highlighting that many of us have all 3 devices (laptop, smartphone and tablet), and we would welcome a study into how (and why) learners use these differing devices, is it second screen learning, of different devices for differing genres of learning? The interesting other finding from David Coleman is "Which Web 2.0 solutions are used for learning?" - Social networks coming top with 72% of learners surveyed, down to 3% for Augmented reality - so much for our 2011 prediction for Augmented reality!
eLearning Atlas
This is a great resource from the company behind Scorm.com, - we would urge all content developers and LMS developers to register on eLearning Atlas.
ELIG Report on the European e-learning market
Learning Light were delighted to contribute to ELIGs report "A Snapshot of the e-learning industry in 2011" This is an exceptionally well researched document and includes contributions from Learning Light Ltd (operators of this site), Toward Maturity, Outsell and MMB. In addition ELIG's Lin Squires interviewed several industry players and put together this excellent report.
Take a look at our Showcase to see e-learning can be fun with Bob's Business
If you wonder how e-learning can address a dry old topic like Business Information Security and achieve high levels of learner retention take a look at Bob's Business in our latest showcase review
New Industry Insights
See our new "Industry Insights" feature from our latest contributors, Talent management experts Halogen Software, looking at "Practical Ways to Ensure Training Investments are Effective".
Recent Features
Free e-learning courses and how to find them!
DevLearn 2011 - a review
Devlearn 2011 was great. This event effectively brought together learning and training practitioners, vendors of e-learning and learning technologies and thought leaders into a vibrant and well organised event, well done to the e-learning guild for putting together such a worthy event.
The themes of the conference were broad, with a massive amount of choice of presentations to see from both practitioners, vendors and thought leaders, it was easy to select an event of interest or follow a specific theme. The highlighted themes being The Cloud, Emerging tech, Management Xchange, Strategic buyers and Virtual learning, each theme being hosted by an expert in that area.
We followed where possible The Cloud theme and where keen to see what the future of e-learning is looking like!
The Buzz or DevLearn in a paragraph!
A quick synopsis and buzz words in one sentence would be: Change and lots of it!
In one paragraph:
Driven by “The Cloud”, “Self- organised networks” and “social business”, learning and training will change in how it is designed, delivered and recorded –it will now be built around “activity streams” (forming the basis of beyond SCORM standards) utilising “CaaS” (content as a service), moving to a world beyond rapid authoring to “rapid reuse” . Learning communities will be “mediated through technology”, content and knowledge will be “curated” and intelligently suggested by and to members of the networked community. The learning experience will become “frictionless”, thanks in part to “XML” all leading to the next generation of learning and performance in how it is recorded, as learning and reporting of learning is separated leading to new community developed or organisationally developed “analytics” as, it is wise to remember the cloud never forgets!
Live online Learning - a facilitators guide
Take a look at our review of this super guide aimed at facilitators produced by industry experts onlignment and available from them free of charge (Creative Commons license).
Learning Light speaks at elearning Network event in Sheffield
Learning Light's Gill Broadhead spoke at the eLN's recent event held in Sheffield. Gill spoke about the work Learning Light does with hard to reach learners. Learning Light has been working to re-skill offenders by using e-learning. Take a look at the presentation engaging with hard to reach learners with e-learning
Online College Classes
We often find ourselves talking about "Open Content" when we here at Learning Light are invited to speak at events, and people often ask "what do you mean?" and we talk about Google and the internet, but take a look at Online College Classes which describes itself as "A free compendium of educational multimedia content from around the web" and you will really see what is meant by open content, and how learning is changing.
The student who brought this to our attention enthuses: "The project is a website that meshes everything from podcasts, ebooks, online classes, and OpenCourseWare. It's meant to be complementary to a student's learning experience to help push them above and beyond." We thank you and do take a look its listed in our favourite resources list
Learning Light to speak at Enable Conference - Krakov, Poland: September 6th
The Enable project, an EU funded Leonardo Transfer of Innovation project has announced its conference is to be held in Krakov, Poland on 6th September 2011. For more details visit the Enable site.
The project has developed a unique methodology that uses both a "digital engagement tool" - Page Designer and a learner led engagement methodology to engage hard to reach learners across the 5 different countries. In the UK the project focused on the Somali community which has proved to be very rewarding. Piloting of the methodology and engagement tool has produced some very encouraging results indeed.
It is the projects aspiration to make Page Designer available under a Creative Commons License to be used for all those interested in the tool and the methodology to engage with hard to reach learners.
Learning Light is already well known for its pioneering work with hard to reach learners in the UK, having developed innovative e-learning programmes for use by hard to reach groups such as offenders and the long term unemployed. We believe that the Enable methodology and engagement tool are significant developments in this field.
