e-Learning News and Views Archive – 2009 to 2015

Whether it’s how the latest e-learning software developed, our views or just our opinions on the state of the web based education and training, here you can find an archive of popular news stories from 2009 to 2015. Go to our e-learning news section for more recent developments.

If you have any comments, would like to contribute to the site, or have any thoughts about would you’d like to see here, please get in touch with us. We’d love to hear your views.

Our News picks

2015:

People will pay for quality online learning

Dedicated users of massive open online courses (MOOCs) are prepared to pay for quality content, according to a study of nearly 75,000 course reviews.

MOOC reviewing service coursetalk found users rated paid courses 1.4 times higher than free courses on average, and that average ratings tend to rise as course cost increases.

Coursetalk sourced the study from 74,297 reviews of 7526 courses offered by 46 providers.

It’s top five MOOC providers, based on course ratings, are in order: Treehouse, Stanford Online, Coursera, edX and Code School. Australian provider OpenLearning is rated eighth.

Read more here.

Why Video Is The Best Medium For Microlearning

The world around enterprise learning is changing at an extremely rapid pace. There are 3 billion Internet users across the globe, 6.9 billion mobile phone subscriptions, and 2 billion active users on social networks. The very employees that organizations are training can, in the blink of an eye, Google or watch a YouTube video to learn the skills they need to do their jobs

If organizations want to better align with employees, educational content has to be just-in-time, easy to access, and broken up into shorter, more easily digestible pieces.

Read more here.

We have a huge selection of short video elearning which can teach you what you need to know, when you want to know it, and quickly: take a look here.

As always you can filter our courses using the icons on the right hand side of the course pages to find our Video and Just-In-Time courses.

Litmos announces Boost! Wearable Device system.

This week Litmos announced the Litmos® Boost app for wearable and mobile computing devices including the Apple Watch.

The application, unveiled at CallidusCloud’s annual C3 Conference in Las Vegas, NV, will allow users of the Litmos Learning Management System to receive “booster” questions and reminders through their Apple Watch, iPad, iPhone and Android devices, reinforcing the value of learning.

The app allows learning professionals to set up a set of small “booster” questions that can be delivered at intervals to remind training participants of key takeaways.

Administrators and managers can define learning boosts for content and frequency, assess knowledge retention over time, and refine learning strategy and assignments.

Read more here.

LearnUpon introduces Tin Can support and LRS integration to its cloud-based learning management system

LearnUpon now supports the launching, tracking and reporting of Tin Can content, including the shipment of the resulting Tin Can statements to their customers’ preferred Learning Record Store (LRS). In addition, LearnUpon now provides seamless integration with not one, but four of the leading Learning Record Stores on the market – Wax LRS by Saltbox, Grassblade LRS, WaterShed LRS and Learning Locker.

Tin Can API, which is also known as Experience API or xAPI, has been delivered by Rustici Software and is the latest standard in online learning. Tin Can provides a more flexible and detailed view of a learner’s progress than its predecessor SCORM, with the distinct advantage being its ability to track the learner’s individual activities or experiences both inside and outside traditional learning environments.

Read more here.

UK Convenience Store chain Nisa moves in to Retail elearning

Nisa’s Retail Academy has launched an online portal for its training programme, to run alongside the training guides already available to retailers through Nisa membership.

Developed in partnership with UpSkill people, the interactive courses cover a range of topics including Welcome to Retail – Induction, Sales and Service, Health & Safety, Restricted Products and Food Hygiene.

Nisa said the bitesize modules will allow members’ teams to be “upskilled at a time and pace to suit them”. It said the portal will offer participants an individual learning road map as well as assessments for each course to highlight what they have learned, complete with feedback.

You can read more here.

Successful mobile games company creates Maths game

Halfbrick launches maths-teaching sequel to Fruit Ninja mobile game

Fruit Ninja has taught a generation of mobile gamers how to slice their way through virtual foodstuffs. Now its developer has produced a spin-off game to help teach children maths.

Fruit Ninja Academy: Math Master, released by Halfbrick for Android and iOS devices, aims to help five- to seven-year-olds practise their addition, subtraction and multiplication, among other skills.

You can read more here.

Towards Maturity research reveals 75% of learners motivated to learn online by the prospect of doing their job faster and better

Towards Maturity looked at how 2,000 learners in the private sector were learning what they needed to do their jobs. In The Learner Voice Part 2, the not-for-profit research company digs a little deeper with a new sample of 5,700 learners randomly selected from 17,000 learners, who responded from a range of organisations across the private and public sectors during 2014. The study reveals the perspectives of line managers, sales staff, those in their role for less than 6 months, those over 50 and those in the 21-30 age bracket.

One clear finding is that collaboration is king for all staff when it comes to learning – 91% of the whole sample reported that team collaboration is either essential or very useful for learning what they need for their job (rising to 96% for those who have been in the company for less than 6 months and dropping to 84% for those in sales roles).

You can read more here.

Jeb Bush gives schools and states a grade and introduces a reward/penalty scheme

His education think tank, ExcelinEd, released scores grading all 50 state’s digital learning efforts last week. The ratings are based off ten learning principles that were decided by a group of 100 education policymakers, leaders, and blended learning experts selected by ExcelinEd at a conference in 2010. Unsurprisingly Florida’s digital learning efforts (the state where Bush was a governor and led an education reform push) are rated as the best in the country, with an A- rating. Though the ratings may not hold up in an objective sense, they do provide a peek at how Illinois education would be viewed if Bush gets to the White House and decides to bring his Florida education reform to the rest of the country.

What happens to educators that don’t fare well along Bush’s policy? Students at schools that received an “F” rating two years in a row are given a voucher to transfer to any other public school in the state. Teachers whose students don’t do well on tests aren’t paid as well as teachers whose students do better on tests.

You can read more here.

Tugaru publish articles on Mobile Learning and HTML5

Tugaru have just published two new articles about some hot topics in elearning.

Mobile Learning discusses what mobile learning is, how it can be used to benefit elearning, and what new features it brings to the playing field.

The Implications of HTML5 discusses one of the big changes in the world of elearning which many people have missed: the shift from Flash to HTML5. More importantly, it talks about the implications of this change.

These elearning articles are must-reads for anyone who wants to stay up-to-date with what’s happening in the elearning world.

You can read the articles here.

Tugaru have told us that they will be regularly posting more interesting articles about elearning over the coming weeks, so be sure to keep an eye on them!

New Review of My Showcase

This week David Patterson has reviewed My Showcase – the next generation of E-Portfolio – which gives the learner control of their learning records.

“My Showcase is a new generation of platforms designed to Collect, Organise and Share learning achievements in an environment that is managed and controlled by the learner, not the institution or employer.”

You can read the review here.

Tugaru publish “Virtual Reality – the final frontier of e-learning?”

“To be transported from the mundane real world of responsibility and hard work to a care-free virtual world of your own imagining – what could be more exciting?”

Tugaru have just published an exciting new article about the relationship between Virtual Reality and Elearning. The article talks in depth about how Virtual Reality can benefit current Elearning, and the potential it offers for new opportunities in the Elearning world.

You can read the article here.

Tugaru have told us that they will be regularly posting more interesting articles about elearning over the coming weeks, so be sure to keep an eye on them!

Lynda.com acquired by LinkedIn for $1.5 Billion

Lynda.com, who sell elearning courses to improve business, technology and creative skills on a subscription model, have been acquired by LinkedIn.

LinkedIn hope to bolster the hiring element of their business by offering elearning courses to improve people’s skills for particular job roles.

This is a really interesting development as it is the first time we have seen one of social media giants directly move in to an already well established elearning market. If this venture is successful for LinkedIn, who at the end of 2014 had 332 million members, then we could see the popularisation of elearning content with people seeking employment. What this means for other generic elearning content vendors remains to be seen; the popularity could be a boon, but there is a potential loss of business here!

Here at Learning Light, we have already made a similar move by offering elearning courses (such as Business Improvement, Employability and ICT and Tech Skills) on partner career and job websites.

Tugaru publish new elearning articles and resources

Tugaru have recently published some exciting in-depth articles on Badges and Micro-Credentials and Informal Learning. Both of these topics are really hot in the elearning sphere at the moment so we recommend you check them out!

We have also heard they will be releasing more interesting articles in the near future so be sure to keep checking their resources page.

“Online Learning” vs “Digital Learning”

Craig Weiss, the independent e-learning analyst, recently published a really interesting piece about the terms ‘online learning’ and ‘digital learning’.

Craig argues that ‘E-learning’ is the parent term under which ‘Online Learning’ and ‘Digital Learning’ fall. Of these subsidiary terms, Craig argues  that the use of ‘Online learning’ is more relevant to most of the things we usually think of as e-learning, such as social and mobile learning, and that it is a broader term than ‘Digital Learning’ which is suited more specifically to EdTech and Higher Education.

We wholeheartedly agree with Craig Weiss that ‘E-learning’ is, and should be, the parent term, and that this is why we see ‘E-learning’ used the most!

Here is the relevant piece of Craig’s article:

” E-Learning is an umbrella term and should stay that way. But, as with anything, it needs refinement and that is where my spin comes in.

Think of two columns.  In column one “Online Learning” – as the header

  • 100% online courses, content, classes, etc.
  • Learning Management systems/learning platforms or whatever you want to say your solution is
  • Social learning
  • Mobile learning
  • Virtual learning if it is online
  • Apps/APIs
  • Web conferencing
  • Performance management (not TM)
  • Digital tools if they are available online as SaaS offerings
  • Authoring tools
  • Future learning (to be defined)
  • Majority of learning technologies
  • MOOCs, SPOCs
  • Assessment tools online
  • Flipped classrooms if online (personally, flipped is a stretch, I mean you and I were doing it in the classroom – bring in an assignment or whatever and talk about it – yeah, boring).

In column two – “Digital Learning” as the header

  • Digital learning – whereas the tools are used offline – in the classroom, or at the workplace
  • VR – Virtual Reality
  • Kinect
  • Digital tools that are used offline to boost and enhance the F2F (face to face) learning experience, which is being highly utilized today in K-12 and higher education
  • Learning technologies used in the classroom (and not online)

What does it mean?

Under e-learning, you have “online learning” as one column, “digital learning” as the other column.

To me that makes perfect sense.  “Digital learning” is overwhelmingly used today in K-12 and higher education.

“Online learning” is overwhelmingly used in business.

I don’t see it changing that much in years to come. In fact, I see “digital learning” as only minimal impact with the business side.

Yeah, “online learning” is seeing growth and expansion, especially with m-learning and social learning on the HE side and will continue, but there is still a strong presence of online and F2F going hand in hand.

The day “digital learning” is used as the main term, is the day we admit defeat and accept the angle of electronic learning as the be and see all word, with digital as the “term” to use.  I hope I never see that come to fruition.

But, I can see it with HE and K-12 and that is of equal concern.

Oh, and I’m not the only one who feels that way (i.e. digital learning being the word/term to replace e-learning).”

Review of Kokm

Two reviews in one week! The subject of this review is Kokm – a service which provides and manages an intranet, extranet, resource library and an LMS… phew, that’s a lot of stuff!

You can read our review here.

Review of scormLMS

This week we have reviewed scormLMS, a straight-talking, no-frills, excellently functioning new LMS.

You can see our review here.

2014:

Review of School Jotter

This week we have reviewed Webanywhere’s School Jotter, an innovative tool from which enables schools to create personal, functional, user-friendly websites and much more including an app store for schools.

You can see our review here.

Learning Light publishes 3 original articles on E-learning in the Middle East

On our blog we have published the articles ‘E-learning and equal participation in Muslim communities’ and ‘The Middle-East, Innovation and E-learning’.

These are original and thought-provoking articles which discuss how e-learning can promote equality and redress poverty in Muslim communities, and how e-learning can promote innovation in the Middle East.

They are the final two articles in a series of three which focuses on issues surrounding E-learning and the Middle East.

I have never seen any articles which deal with this intriguing and pertinent subject matter, and they promise to shed light on the previously unexplored benefits of e-learning.

We are extremely excited to publish these articles written by Saeeda Ahmed and Dr Georgios Vournas which set side-by-side detailed and intricate topics.

Learning Light has added a further 75 courses to its portfolio of e-learning materials.

These new courses, which cover health and safety issues, along with business development topics, have been developed by Safety Media. They are available from the health and safety courses section of our website that contains over 200 online courses in total.

David Patterson, a Director of Learning Light, commented: “Since 60 to 70 per cent of all e-learning materials in the world relate to health and safety and/or compliance, these courses from Safety Media offer an excellent start to those wanting to establish – or augment – a corporate e-learning resources repository.

“In line with Learning Light’s ethos and operating policy, all these new courses meet the quality criteria encapsulated in the e-learning content evaluation tool (ELCET), developed at the end of last year by Learning Light in association with The Virtual College,” he added.

“In our experience, many organisations have difficulty in specifying and procuring effective generic e-learning materials – hence the need for ELCET. And, since ELCET makes assessing potential learning materials for Learning Light’s E-learning Centre website much easier, it should also help anyone who has to evaluate e-learning materials for use in their organisation,” he continued.

All of the Safety Media courses are certified as meeting continuing professional development (CPD) criteria. Most of the courses are also approved by Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (ROSPA).

The Course Wall courses are provided in three formats: interactive courses; videos, and short videos. They can be completed in any internet-enabled location, using a laptop, mobile phone or tablet.

Study reveals that employers value MOOCs

A recent study has been conducted on employer’s receptivity towards MOOCs. Once introduced to the concepts of MOOCs, many employers saw them as a valuable resource to their businesses.

Results showed that though awareness of MOOCs was relatively low (31% of the surveyed employers had heard of MOOCs), once they understood what they were, the employers perceived MOOCs positively in hiring decisions, viewing them mainly as indicating employees’ personal attributes like motivation and a desire to learn. A majority of employers (59%) were also receptive to using MOOCs for recruiting purposes—especially for staff with technical skills in high demand. Yet an even higher percentage (83%) were using, considering using, or could see their organization using MOOCs for professional development. Interviews with employers suggested that obtaining evidence about the quality of MOOCs, including the long-term learning and work performance gains that employees accrue from taking them, would increase employers’ use of MOOCs not just in professional development but also in recruiting and hiring.

Read the full study here.

Elearning for Ebola

John Hopkins Medicine has been tasked by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to lead a group designing an interactive web-based learning program that will guide healthcare workers, nurses and physicians through government-approved protocols to aid clinicians as they care for patients who may be at risk of contracting the Ebola virus.

The program will train healthcare providers in three critical areas: proper donning of personal protective equipment, the safe removal of gear, and active monitoring skills.

At E-learning Centre we have two courses on Pandemic Planning and Bloodborne Pathogens.

Read the full article here.

University of Birmingham partners with Wiley: new educational Ecosystems

The University of Birmingham has become the first European institution to partner with the US publishing giant Wiley, marking a step-change in the provision of distance and online learning in the UK. Wiley have recently acquired CrossKnowledge, a French e-learning company specialising in leadership and management. This suggests that The University of Birmingham are now going to start offering more e-learning content as part of their courses.

Check out our library of e-learning courses here.

View the full article here.

Edtech Europe Line up looking strong:

Panel: Investment Opportunities in e-Learning
Topic: The private equity and venture capital industries are looking to invest in the sector. What are the businesses that are attracting professional investors? What are the trends and what are investors looking for?

Speakers 
Moderator: Michaël Bijaoui (Managing Director, East Wind Advisors)
Luben Pampoulov (Partner & Co-Founder, GSV Asset Management)
Michael Staton (Partner, Learn Capital)
Karim Tabet (Managing Director, Providence Equity Partners)
Mark Turley (Head of Education Investments, Pamoja Capital)
Natalie Tydeman (Partner, GMT Communications Partners)

Other Speakers

  • John Ambrose (Senior VP, Strategy and Corporate Development, SkillSoft)
  • Craig Barton (Co-Founder, Diagnostic Questions)
  • Michaël Bijaoui (Managing Director, East Wind Advisors)
  • Mads Tvillinggaard Bonde (CEO & Founder, Labster)
  • Don Burton (Managing Director, Techstars Education Technology Sector)
  • Michael Cole (VP, Fit Brains, Rosetta Stone)
  • Dr. Ulrik Juul Christensen (Senior Fellow, Digital Learning, McGraw-Hill Education)
  • Ed Cooke (CEO & Co-Founder, Memrise)
  • Ian Fordham (Co-Founder, The Education Foundation)
  • Charles Gould (CEO, Brightwave)
  • Charlie Harrington (Director, BD & Co-Head of London Office, Knewton)
  • Colin Hughes (Managing Director, Collins Learning, Harper Collins Publishers)
  • Jeremy Johnson (Co-Founder and Chief Strategy Officer, 2U)
  • Harri Ketamo (Chief Scientist & Founder, SkillPixels)
  • Nick Kind (Head of Business Insights, Verlagsgruppe Georg von Holtzbrinck)
  • Hannes Klöpper (Managing Director & Co-Founder, iversity)
  • Amar Kumar (Vice President, Office of the Chief Education Advisor, Pearson)
  • Dr. Barbara Kurshan (Executive Director of Academic Innovation and Senior Fellow in Education, Graduate School of Education, University of Pennsylvania)
  • Arndt Kwiatkowski (bettermarks)
  • Jason Lange (CEO & Co-Founder, BloomBoard)
  • Juan Lopez-Valcarcel (SVP Data, Experience & Efficacy, Pearson)
  • Sotiris Makrygiannis (Chairman & CEO, CBTec – Eliademy.com)
  • John Martin (CEO, Sanoma Learning)
  • Chris Merrick (VP, International Marketing, Blackboard)
  • Anne McElvoy (Public Policy Editor, The Economist)
  • Dr. Dror Ben Naim (CEO, Smart Sparrow)
  • Jamie O’Connell (Product Director, Hobsons)
  • Deborah Quazzo (Founder & Partner, GSV Advisors)
  • Ron Reed (Executive Producer, SXSWedu)
  • Tom Richmond (Senior Policy Adviser, Department for Education)
  • Louise Rogers (CEO, TES Global)
  • David Rosenberg (International BD Manager, foursquare)
  • Jay Rosenstock (EVP, Corporate Development and President, Discovery Education International)
  • Scott Sage (Partner, DFJ Esprit)
  • Jérôme Serre (CEO, eduPad)
  • Evgeny Shadchnev (CEO & Co-Founder, Makers Academy)
  • Aaron Skonnard (CEO & President, Pluralsight)
  • Lars Kirkeskov Sørup (EVP, LearnSmart, Area9)
  • Michael Staton (Partner, Learn Capital)
  • Karim Tabet (Managing Director, Providence Equity)
  • Cheyne Tan (Managing Director, BlikBook)
  • Mark Turley (Head of Education Investments, Pamoja Capital)
  • Natalie Tydeman (Partner, GMT Communications Partners)
  • Edouard Ullmo (Co-Founder, Open Education Challenge)
  • Benjamin Vedrenne-Cloquet (CEO & Co-Founder, Edxus Group)
  • Kirsten Winkler (Founder & Editor, EDUKWEST)
  • Markus Witte (CEO, Babbel)

Edtech Europe announce a preview of the Innovation Showcase speakers for this year’s EdTech Europe 2014.Innovation Showcases will be presented throughout the day’s dual-track agenda and aims to highlight some of EdTech’s most disruptive companies.

Select Confirmed Innovation Showcases
Arndt Kwiatkowski (CEO & Founder, bettermarks)
Aaron Skonnard (CEO & President, Pluralsight)
Cheyne Tan (Co-Founder & Managing Director, BlikBook)
Mads Bonde (CEO & Founder, Labster)
Evgeny Shadchnev (CEO & Co-Founder, Makers Academy)

Virtual College White Paper

Online learning- threat or salvation for further education?

Written by David Patterson of Learning Light, this paper using a PEST analysis looks at the challenges facing Further Education, and can be downloaded free of charge from Virtual College 

Video leads the way in mLearning

According to the YouTube website – Over 6 billion hours of video are watched each month on YouTube—that’s almost an hour for every person on Earth. That tells you that lots of people enjoy watching video, and enjoy watching video to learn. Video learning has also proven to be a powerful accelerator of the learning process. Increased watching of Video also lends itself nicely to the increased growth of sales of mobile devices and in particular to the increased sales of Tablets, because mobile devices are ideal to watch video and again according to the stats on YouTube – Mobile makes up almost 40% of YouTube’s global watch time. You can read more about video and mlearning on our blog page.

Read our recent reviews of BETT and Learning Technologies

January 2014 saw both the BETT show and Learning Technologies show held in London.

This year there was no clash and it was possible to visit both…..and both were very busy indeed.

You can read both our reviews of BETT “all about the teacher” and Learning Technologies...busy busy busy.

If you visited BETT and missed the Internet of School things showing of Kinect – flying you like a pigeon over the roof tops of London… you missed a wonderful experience.

IBIS Capital and the Edxus Group launches EdTech Europe 2014 and calls for entries for the edtech top 20.

EdTech Europe 2014 is an exclusive dual-track one day summit to be hosted at Millbank Tower, London, England on 12th June 2014.

The event, whose attendance is by invitation only, will address the current industry and investment trends in the global EdTech sector as well as bringing together key executives from established professional learning and education players, innovators disrupting the established market order and investors with an interest in the sector.

You will learn about the latest developments in the professional and academic e-Learning markets via a dual-track conference format running simultaneously in adjacent halls.

You will hear industry executives set out their views and plans to address this fast changing marketplace

You will see the innovators showcasing their disruptive business models and you will find out what is attracting investors to the sector.

Call for entries for the edtech top 20

The event will also see the second edition of the European EdTech 20; showcasing the top 20 most innovative and fastest growing e-Learning companies in Europe.

To be considered for inclusion in the EdTech 20, please email us at info@edtecheurope.com.

This is one of the must attend events of the e-learning year.

UK e-learning marketplace update

Click here to read our update on the e-learning marketplace as we enter 2014.

2013:

BETT 2013 Review:

You can read our review of BETT 2013 here.

UK Publishes an “International Education Strategy”

The UK Government’s Department of Business Innovation and Skills (BIS) has published a Policy paper entitled:International education strategy: global growth and prosperity, with the subtext stating to the paper: “Sets out how government and the education sector will build on UK strengths to take advantage of global opportunities.”

The policy paper comes with a useful infographic illustrating just how important Education is to UK PLC.

The paper focuses principally on the importance of education to the UK economy, and initially gives little recognition to the corporate e-learning sector.

The policy paper is however fully appreciative and fulsome in its recognition of the UK’s lead in educational technologies.

You can read the policy papers here or our summary views of its significance here on our blog

Read the review of Hong Kong’s Learning and Teaching expo

This event – a Thursday to Saturday event is held every December in the hugely impressive Hong Kong convention centre on the harbour front opposite Kowloon in Wan Chi.

The convention centre is on a massive scale, but the expo itself is about 30% to 40% of the size of Learning Technologies event held annually in London, or 20% of the BETT show with exhibitors much more aligned to the BETT market than the corporate Learning Technologies market.

Read the review of BES Asia

There is no doubt that UK education and edtech is highly regarded in the ASEAN market. This is the conclusion from Learning Light after their recent trip to exhibit at BES Asia. Learning Light’s view is that the ASEAN market for education and in particular edtech and e-learning is set to grow strongly. You can read the BES Asia blog piece here.

Harbinger launches new version of Raptivity

Harbinger Group’s Raptivity is among the most well-known of the wizard-led interactivity building software tools for the professional learning designer/ developer. It comes with a library of pre-built templates, including over 190 interactions such as games, simulations, brainteasers, interactive diagrams and virtual worlds – and can be used to create a stand-alone piece of learning content or import that file into another tool, such as Captivate, Articulate or Lectora.

You can read the full review here.

e-learning centre now offers e-learning courses

Learning Light who operate this site e-learning centre have now launched a new Course Store selling a large range of e-learning materials.

With leading international vendors such as ej4, Virtual College, e-ltalking and e-learning language specialists Altissia all providing courses for sale on the store.

The ej4 materials are widely used by large American companies such as Allison Transmissions, the brewer Miller, soft drinks giant Pepsi Co, leading pharmaceuticals companies including Merck and Pfizer and many other large American companies.

The Virtual College materials are used by the NHS, the Virtual College Housing Academy, YP Training and Local Authorities across the UK.

All these e-learning materials now available at  E-learning Centre have been carefully selected, evaluated and curated by the Learning Light team, so customers can be confident that they are gaining access to high quality e-learning.

These materials are now priced very competitively and allow individuals or small businesses access to leading e-learning vendors courses that were once only available to large companies and organisations.

Learning Light will be adding significantly to the Course Store in coming weeks, providing they meet their high standards!

Virtual College’s Virtual Awards for e-learning

The Virtual College Virtual e-learning awards have taken place today October 16th 2013.

Top marks to Virtual College for coming up with the idea of Virtual Awards….as you can see the winners any time and gain inspiration from other organisations successes.

We know judges have put a huge amount of work into judging these awards as our own Gill Broadhead has been on the judges panel.

The entrants have also all put huge effort into improving their organisation’s performance by using e-learning and should be commended for their efforts and enthusiasm.

The winners have now been revealed, and we congratulate all of the winners and commiserate with those who didn’t win, but the competition was incredibly tough and the standards of innovation and enthusiasm very high indeed.

It is great to see such an event, and we look forward to more to come, and you can see the Virtual Awards for e-learning and those worthy winners at the Virtual Awards.

e-learning a major NHS Success story

A HSJ (Health Service Journal) supplement published recently looking at the Electronic Staff Records (ESR) roll out provided some stunningly encouraging information as how the NHS is using e-learning.

So a NHS project focusing on Electronic Staff Records has with innovation and imagination encompassed e-learning with impressive effect. While ESR is reported to have saved £16 million in data duplication costs alone per annum, the uptake of e-learning and the savings made in time and money must in our view eclipse that figure.
Our rough and ready analysis indicates about 25% or so of NHS Training delivered by e-learning, Derbyshire Trust is up at closer to 75%, so there is some considerable potential growth in this market yet.

Read our thoughts in more detail on our blog

Videos for e-learning up by over 1000% in many organisations

With Elliot Masie publicising the up and coming Learning 2013 by asking if you have a tired LMS, he highlights one of the reasons why many an LMS is a little fatigued is that e-learning is being increasingly delivered by video.

Indeed the ever insightful Masie has been tracking and commenting on the rise of video now for several years, and is now publically stating that the use of video in many organisations is up by over 1000%. He also notes these short form videos are also often user created.

You can read our opinions as to why video is playing an increasing role in organisational and driving mobile learning as well.

 

EUROPE’S 20 FASTEST GROWING AND MOST INNOVATIVE E-LEARNING COMPANIES NAMED
Education technology company Edxus Group and IBIS Capital, a specialist media investment and advisory firm, today announced the initial results of their EdTech 20 ranking, unveiling the top 20 e-learning companies in Europe in terms of innovation, scale, market impact and revenue growth over the past year as judged by an industry-leading panel. The entries, received from across Europe, highlighted a number of key trends in the education technology space, including new generation software as a service (SaaS) instructional platforms, Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), the gamification of content and analytics enabling adaptive learning and testing.

New guest blog piece from Scott Hewitt:

How Can You Use Game Based Learning?

In his first guest blog Scott Hewitt discusses how to use Game Based Learning.

This is a very well informed and prescient piece from Scott as interest in games based learning continues to grow and grow, and grasping the best way to make it work for your organisation is key.

ePIC 2013, the 11th ePortfolio and Identity Conference London 8-9-10 July.

Organiser Serge Ravet continues to explore the issues around open learning, open content and open personal data, and has some great speakers lined up, including MyKnowledgeMap’s Rob Arnsten and City and Guild’s Kirsty Donnelly.

To reflect the need to address those issues, the tittle of ePIC 2013 is Open Me!

Open ePortfolios, Open Badges and Open Identities will be among the key discussions.

The 11th ePortfolio and Identity Conference intends to explore further the concept of ‘openness’ in relation to the themes traditionally addressed by the conference. In particular, as ePortfolio and Open Badges are containers of personal data, what is their place in what some predict as the next big revolution: open personal data?

Top 20 European EdTech e-Learning Companies to be Announced at EdTech Europe on June 14th 2013

To reserve your seat at the event go to:

http://edtecheurope2013.eventbrite.co.uk/

The European EdTech 20 will include those e-Learning companies who have shown the most significant innovation and growth over the last year and whose businesses are primarily based within Europe. Inclusion in the European EdTech 20 will be determined by our panel by reference to a number of factors including revenue growth, scale, innovation and market impact.

To be considered for inclusion, applicants are requested to complete the following form and return the information to info@edtecheurope.com before 30th April 2013.

Learning Light to speak and Compere Totem Learning and e-learning Studios Buzzword Clinic –

Learning Light’s David Patterson is speaking and acting as the Compere at the Totem learning Buzzword clinic in Coventry on the 24th April.

Are you confused about learning tech jargon? Or want to know how to make technology work for your business?

Totem Learning and e-Learning Studios are putting on an event where we tackle all those confusing terms. We will clear up the LMS from the CMS, VLE from a MLE, a MOOC from an online course. Come and see examples of how technology can reduce costs, increase productivity and sales giving you that competitive edge.

With special guest speaker and compere David Patterson, from Learning Light, discussing trends in the learning industry, our team of experts will be on hand to address any questions you might have.

Book to attend http://bit.ly/XCuE4x

UNESCO Publish Mobile Learning Policy Paper

UNESCO have recently published a comprehensive paper entitled Policy Guidelines for Mobile Learning.

This is a very well researched paper offering guidelines based on real practical examples from all over the world.

The actual Policy Guidelines are useful and more can be read on our Blog on this site, and is well worth reading, as the effects on the edtech industry are possibly quite profound.

Dream up your own MOOC

Dream up your own Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) and make it come true with a 25,000 Euro fellowship from the Stifterverband für die Deutsche Wissenschaft and iversity. Applications for the contest are due before 30 April 2013.

MOOCs are certainly hot topics now.

The MOOC Production Fellowship Contest is currently looking for ten innovative concepts for massive open online courses (MOOCs). The fellowship will be awarded by Stifterverband and iversity to ten instructors (or teams) that show potential for raising awareness of the tremendous potential of digital technology in education. Fellows who successfully present innovative and creative projects will receive 25,000 Euros in funding as well as assistance with course production.

The aim is to have at least five courses online in the fall of 2013, and five more in the spring of 2014. The courses will run on the iversity platform and will be available to the public free of charge.

Application stage: March 11, 2013 – April 30, 2013
Info session in Berlin: April 5, 2013
Voting stage: May 1, 2013 – May 23, 2013
Jury decision: until June 10, 2013
Announcing of fellows and workshop: June 20 and 21, 2013

More information here.

A Summit to address the current industry and investment trends in Education Technology and e-Learning

IBIS Capital and Edxus Group are announcing the launch of EdTech Europe, an exclusive one day summit to be hosted in its inaugural year at the London Business School on 14th June 2013.

Why?

The Education sector is worth $4.4 trillion a year globally with e-Learning representing $91 billion growing at 17% p.a. until 2017
The industry is highly fragmented with more than 3,000 e-Learning companies in Europe, ripe for consolidation and growth capital investment

And… 
The conference will include the Launch of EdTech Europe 20, the top 20 most innovative and fastest growing e-learning companies in Europe.

Also….
The event will address the current industry and investment trends in Education Technology and e-Learning for both the academic and professional learning sectors. The event will bring together in one place: senior executives from established professional learning and education players, innovators disrupting the established market order and leading European institutional investors.

Asking….
The summit will explore the business of educating and address questions such as: “Can the traditional publishers respond quickly enough?”; “Is there a business case for Massive Online Open Courses “MOOCs?”; “What is the role of big data?”; and “Why is there a shortage of investment in European e-Learning?”
Charles McIntyre , CEO of IBIS Capital says:
“Education and training has been one of the least innovated areas in modern life despite the fact it attracts over $4.4 trillion a year in spending. We now have the technology infrastructure and software to make the next 10 years bear witness to more change in education than has occurred in the last 100 years. With change comes disruption, new business models and changes to the old order. The EdTech Europe event will be at the very heart of this process and we are proud to help support this new event.”
Ed Tech Europe will also unveil the European EdTech 20: the top 20 most innovative and fastest growing e-Learning companies in Europe.

Benjamin Vedrenne-Cloquet , CEO & co-founder of Edxus Group adds:
“The disruption observed in the Education sector is global, technology driven and has the potential to redefine durably the competitive advantages of our economies. There are more than 3,000 e-learning companies in Europe. More than 10% of them have both truly talented management teams and innovative products. For them to scale and compete globally, they will need to consolidate and to access growth capital from leading institutional and strategic investors. EdTech Europe is created to bring together the ecosystem of innovators and capital; and Edxus Group aims to be a catalyst of the consolidation and investment in the sector.”
Enquiries: info@edtecheurope.com

Twitter: @edtecheurope
IBIS Capital is a London based specialist media investment and advisory firm. (http://www.ibiscapital.co.uk)
Edxus Group is a London based Education Technology company recently formed to develop and acquire e-Learning businesses across Europe. (http://www.edxusgroup.com)
SOURCE IBIS Capital and Edxus Group

For the record, Learning Light has worked closely with IBIS Capital in preparing the research into the e-learning market……e-learning lessons for the future, which is available from Learning Light.

XBLOCK SOURCE CODE, AND THE NEXT GENERATION OF ONLINE AND BLENDED COURSES from EdX.

In a significant development for the MOOC market, EdX,  has released its XBlock SDK to the general public under the Affero GPL open source license. XBlock is the underlying architecture supporting the rich, interactive
course content found in edX courses. With XBlock, educational institutions are able to go far beyond simple text and videos to deliver interactive learning built specifically for the Internet environment. The release of the XBlock source code marks the first step toward edX’s vision of creating an open online learning platform that mirrors the collaborative philosophy of MOOCs
themselves and is an invitation to the global community of developers to work with edX to deliver the world’s best and most accessible online learning experience.
XBlock is a component architecture that enables developers to create independent course components, or XBlocks, that are able to work seamlessly with other components in the construction and presentation of an online course. Course authors are able to combine XBlocks from a variety of sources – from text and video to sophisticated wiki-based collaborative learning environments and online laboratories – to create rich engaging online courses. The XBlock architecture will enable the easy integration of next generation
education tools like the circuit simulator in edX’s popular Circuits and Electronics course (6.002x) and the molecular manipulator in the new Introduction to Biology – The Secret of Life course (7.00x) taught by Eric Lander, one of the leaders of the Human Genome Project.
XBlock is not limited to just delivering courses. A complete educational ecosystem will make use of a number of web applications, all of which require access to course content and data. XBlocks provide the structure and APIs needed to build components for use by those applications. edX will be working with independent developers to continue to extend the functionality of XBlock through the XBlock SDK and future open source initiatives.
“From its beginning, edX has been committed to developing the world’s best learning platform and tapping our global community to help us get there,” said Rob Rubin, edX Vice President of Engineering. “We look forward to working with the world’s developers, educators and researchers to help evolve the platform and ensure that everyone, everywhere has access to the world-class education that edX provides.”

2012:

Review of BETT 2012.

You can read our review of BETT 2012 here.Learning Light launches e-learning Questions and Answers videos 

e-learning experts Learning Light have just released 15 videos answering some of the most topical issues facing the e-learning buyer today.

With Gill Broadhead and David Patterson discussing how to choose an LMS, what to look for in rapid authoring tools, and what you need to consider in deploying e-learning, those interested in e-learning should get plenty of insight into the issues to consider.

In other videos David Patterson interviews e-learning development expert Rupert Abel, and discuss topics such as HTML5, converting legacy e-learning to Apps, how you track learners when delivering e-learning apps, the Tin Can API and its impact on mobile learning, web based e-learning authoring tools vs system based tools, and cloud based e-learning solutions and more.

You can learn more at Learning Lights e-learning Q and A’s page.

2012 Training News

Here are some of the most interesting pieces of training news from 2012.

Learning Light launches e-learning video collection.

Learning Light, a consultancy with an in-depth knowledge and experience of the e-learning marketplace and how to use e-learning materials to best advantage, has enhanced its e-learning video library with two ranges of video-based learning materials.

 From el:talking, comes 20 scenario-based videos around the subject of ‘difficult conversations’ with employees. These cover informal performance discussions; managing change; managing difficult behaviour, and ‘more formal discussions’.

David Patterson, a director of Learning Light, commented: “These short videos are British-made and relate to the UK culture and workplace. With our “spring special introductory” license price from just £695 for all 20 videos fully streamed directly into your company, these could form a cost-effective part of an in-house training department’s armoury.”

Learning Light is also making available several hundred mobile-friendly online learning videos from eJ4. Known as the ‘e-learning video campus’, these short videos cover a wide range of topics, notably focusing on increasing sales and improving performance (especially via supervisory skills).

Cloud-based and available on a 14-day free trial, the videos are priced on the basis of the number of learners involved and courses required. A three year licence for 100 users taking 25 courses could work out at under £30 per user per year.

“Topics from eJ4 include business grammar, communication styles, communications, customer service, health and wellness, key account selling, leadership, negotiating, presentation skills, professional productivity, retail excellence, selling skills and supervision skills,” said David Paterson. “There are also videos on IT skills including Windows7, Microsoft office 2010, Microsoft Office 2007 and Microsoft Office 2003.”

“We are pleased to see that research by Towards Maturity has noted a considerable increase in the number of organisations using e-learning video content from outside of their organisation”, commented Patterson going on to say. “According to their research: 37% of organisations used video in this way in 2011; 42% in 2012; with a predicted rise to 65% in 2013”. (Towards Maturity, 2012-13 benchmark: Bridging the Gap, Integrating learning & work) “and Learning Light’s own research fully concurs with this, as does several other thought leaders, including Elliot Masie”, added David Patterson.

He added: “Learning Light’s consultancy activities give it a unique position – and perspective – from which to access and evaluate an increasingly wide range of generic online learning content. In our view, the el:talking and eJ4 learning materials, along with the other learning materials Learning Light recommends, are of a high quality and are ‘affordable’, representing value for  money; engaging for learners, and – importantly – effective.”

Demonstration versions of these learning materials are available on http://www.learninglight.com/elearningvideos

 

Learning Light collaborates with IBIS Capital to produce a detailed e-learning market report

IBIS Capital Limited, a specialist investment bank focused on the Media sector, has produced a 101 page report on the e-Learning sector – with market information and analysis from Learning Light, a consultancy with an in-depth knowledge and experience of the e-Learning marketplace and how to use e-Learning materials effectively.

Entitled, the ‘Global e-Learning Investment Review’, the report examines, among other things:

  • Education trends and technology innovation
  • Analysis of the structure of the industry (Content, Management Systems and Distribution)
  • Valuation metrics along with a review of mergers and acquisitions (M&A) activity
  • Overview of investor and strategic interest in the sector

The report sets out IBIS Capital’s ‘Lessons for the Future’ for would-be investors in this sector. These include:

  • The rise in peer-to-peer platforms will result in large amounts of educational content becoming freely available. Business models will focus on delivering chargeable premium bespoke and ancillary services.
  • Learning will become increasingly personalised with e-Learning harnessing big data analytics to provide interactive learning that is tailored to the meet the individual’s learning patterns and aptitude
  • With the rise of mobile and tablet penetration, students will increasingly access content “anytime, anywhere”. The classroom will become the arena for face-to-face tutoring of individual requirements and open discussion.
  • The need to improve skills, meet regulatory requirements and manage training costs will result in e-Learning becoming part of the fabric of virtually every business.
  • As the range of e-Learning offerings expand, the need for qualifications and standards to be recognised will become increasingly important. The accreditation will become unified over time and educational brands will reduce to a small number of global players.
  • The education process will continue throughout an individual’s life. Individuals will maintain a live log of their learning experiences from the time they start their studies and then on through their working lives.

The report also sets out 47 significant Education M&A transactions, where 75% of these have been in the e-learning sector over the past two years, amounting to approximately $3.8bn by transaction value.

David Patterson, a director of Learning Light, commented: “We’ve been delighted to put our market knowledge at IBIS Capital’s disposal – to help put into context some of the events in the e-learning world over the past couple of years.

“While any company that wants to acquire companies in this sector – or which wants to be acquired – will be anxious to read this IBIS report, Learning Light would stress the need for taking expert professional consultancy advice when performing such tasks as ‘due diligence’ in the run-up to any further deals.”

Charles McIntyre, of IBIS Capital, said: “The e-learning sector has reached a tipping point where we now have the digital infrastructure, the mobile and tablet penetration, the software platforms and most importantly the consumer demand to see education innovation in the digital age become an integral part of teaching and corporate training.

“The IBIS report will provide a window onto this world for anybody seeking to invest or build businesses in the e-Learning sector.”

The IBIS Capital report, ‘Global e-Learning Investment Review’, is available, from Learning Light’s website, http://www.learninglight.com/e-learning-market-research

 

Learning Light launches new site

Learning Light, our sister company has launched a new website that offers a host of new e-learning services.

Learning Light now offers content development services and re-sells carefully selected e-learning courses, as well as offering their market leading consultancy services.

A really exciting development is that Learning Light now offers workshops for organisations seeking to learn more about e-learning, and take charge of their own e-learning projects. Learning Light’s philosophy has always been to show people how to succeed with e-learning!

These workshops are broken down into 3 components Define and Determine, Design and Developand Deploy. Interestingly Learning Light are also launching workshop training programmes to advise on how to start an e-learning business!

Take a look at new Learning Light!

Global e-learning market forecast to grow by 23% (CAGR) to 2017

In a posting published by edtech Digest, of research conducted by GSV Advisors the size of the global education market is studied.The report offers a summary of overall Global Education Expenditure, and this is broken down into a series of catagories including e-learning at K-12, Higher post secondary and Corporate, and this is repeated for the US market.The figures are very interesting, in showing likely market size in 2015 and gives a market size in 2017 and the Compound annual growth rate (CAGR).So what do they tell us in global terms….. Well the global spend on education is estimated at $4450.9bn and is slated to grow at 7%, with K-12 growing at 6%, Post secondary at 8% and corporate and government also at 8%. E-learning is however slated to grow at 23%. You can read more of our analysis of the e-learning market and this research.

Just in case you are wondering what Andy means by Digital Learning: “Digital Learning is a revolution that is already changing how individuals, organizations and institutions around the world learn, develop and evolve. Digital learning has wide-ranging applications and implications for creating cost-effective, just-in-time learning and development opportunities and solutions for anyone, anywhere at any time. Described as the “democratization of learning”, this revolution has multiple uses and applications across every type of business and every individual. It’s exciting, immersive and meets the needs of today’s “screen savvy” generations.

One of the best “white papers” we have read on Mobile learning from eNyota Learning

If you are looking to understand the issues and opportunities around Mobile Learning, the debate around flash and HTML5. There is an excellent section about trends toward these devices and some very good samples of work developed for mobile and tablet devices.

The Cross Platform and browser tests are really useful, and we are very impressed by the work undertaken by eNyota to help us all understand the “issues and opportunities” around mobile learning. A visit to eNyota is well worth while.

Mobile Learning for Teachers

An excellent document published by UNESCO, and sponsored by Nokia which looks into the real issues and opportunities for the use of mobile devices for teaching world wide.  http://bit.ly/KogzNQ

The research by Mark West is thorough and of great use, as we see mobile learning (mlearning) moving mainstream at a very rapid pace, and this research paper provides excellent advice in the context of a worldwide shortage of teachers how technology, and mobile technology in particular can play a role…..To quote “In summary, the world needs to accomplish two very difficult tasks simultaneously in order to seriously address the global teacher crisis: it must raise both the quantity and the quality of the global teacher workforce. This needs to be done as quickly as possible, especially in poor communities where the crisis is most pronounced. As the papers in this Series make clear,mobile technology can help move countries closer to both of these goals. While not a panacea, mobile devices, often functioning in concert with other technologies, have a track record of improving educational efficiency and helping novice and experienced teachers alike acquire complex skills and complete meaningful work in classrooms. The ‘Mobile Learning for Teachers’ papers examine this record and describe some of the myriad ways mobile technologies are being used to support and train teachers in different regions and contexts around the world.”

How to choose an LMS: 5 very informative videos from ADL

Not sure where to begin in choosing an LMS, well ADL has come to the rescue with this excellent informative series of videos. Video 1 looks at the benefits of using an LMS, Video 2 at the specific steps to take in choosing an LMS, Video 3 explains the differences between an LMS, LCMS, CrMS and a VLE, Video 4 looks at the common features and issues of an LMS and Video 5 as how the ADL (Advanced Distributed Learning) initiative may be able to  help, which is great if you are in the USA, however if you are in the UK – you can always ask us here at e-learning centre and we would be happy to help.

Study Guides and Strategies – a wonderful e-learning resource since 1996

Our thanks to Joe Landsberger,  (Joe is the founder, creator and curator of Study Guides and Strategies) for sharing with us this wonderful e-learning site. Study Guides and Strategies founded in 1996 has delivered great learning materials on a wide range of topics to over 10 million learners in 2011 alone, and supports 39 languages! Joe anticipates 12 million learners for 2012!   We are always interested in Open Content and this is yet another great example.

elearningpapers 2012 Special edition, including: Avatar the course!

It is well worth visiting elearningpapers.eu and downloading the 2012 Special edition. Made up of 11 papers we are particularly taken with the “From the field” section which has “Avatar the Course”, “Art based learning interventions” and “Serious Games and formal and informal learning.

West Yorkshire probation launches e-learning programme

 The Step Change Programme is taking the imaginative step of using e-learning to train offenders for jobs in the Waste Management and Recycling Industries. The e-learning courses “Learning for work”  are provided by Learning Light and delivered by West Yorkshire Probation Service in one of the most imaginative projects designed to reduce re-offending and meet the challenge of the WEEE directive in handling the ever growing amounts of e-waste. This really is e-learning for the environment.
 Take a look at Snapguide – A free tool to build step by step guides for i-phone
 This really is rather neat, in that you download the free App, build your guide and share it with the community. You take pictures, videos and add voice to create your own “How to Guide”. You can then share on Twitter, Facebook and Google Plus. This brings a whole new dimension to Knowledge Sharing! Take a look at Snapguide, it is very good!
 BLOOMS Taxonomy updated for i-pad

This is a really useful site Education Technology and Mobile Learning, put together by Med Kharbach, based in Halifax, Canada. You must take a look at his Blooms Taxonomy for the 21st century – outstanding in its discussion on Blooms taxonomy for i-pads! This site is full of useful information assembled by Med, and includes TED Talks, learning tools and so much more.

New Webinars partnership programme with CrossKnowledge

e-Learning centre is pleased to announce that we have partnered with CrossKnowledge to provide a series of webinars aimed at learning and development professionals .

CrossKnowledge is one of Europe’s leading e-learning and blended learning providers, and we have been very impressed with the webinars to date, so are delighted that we can now share these with visitors to this site.

Do you know about the DITA new Learning & Training Materials Standards?
This was the question Fabrizio Cardinali, CEO of eXact Learning Solutions and Chair of the European Learning Industry Group, asked the audience at Learning Technologies at the beginning of his presentation..I had just sat down and no, I didn’t know about DITA, but I was curious to know. There were not many other nods in the audience either but we were set to find out.DITA stands for ‘Darwin Information Typing Architecture’ and it is a new standard – recently added by eXact Learning Solutions for their flagship online and mobile learning content management solution, eXact LCMS. To date, they have also been leading the provision of SCORM based solutions.DITA is a new generation XML based standard promoted by OASIS, the world’s leading association for Information Society Standards, headquartered in the US and which includes tens of world leading large manufacturing, IT and product industries. OASIS is driving the standardisation of technical documentation produced for many domains, including engineering, automotive, financial, pharmaceutical, semiconductor and translation industries.Why is DITA relevant to the learning Industry?The Oasis committee working on DITA has just released a new learning & training (L&T) specialisation empowering greater flexibility in the re-use and sharing of documentation sources within, and across, departments in large organisations wanting to embed technical documentation into blended, instructor-led and online learning processes.It is also highly relevant to publishing since it is set to improve existing publishing XML specifications such as epub and DocBook, along with alternative XML specifications which have been difficult to master and deploy to date given their limited flexibility and configurability.
.
DITA L&T specialisation gives greater flexibility to instructional designers, giving them the ability to import and re-use product based documentation from different corporate departments and organise learning materials into smaller and more focused topics, tasks and references. It also allows the reuse and sharing of documentation sources within organisations. DITA optimises all this by means of new XML features such as dynamic linking; supporting both ‘push’ and ‘pull’ in terms of object orientated XML chunks, as well as their specialisation for different subject domains.Fabrizio tells me that leading organisations within the banking, manufacturing, medical and automotive industries are now adding compliance to the new DITA L&T standard in their published requests for proposals – along with the existing AICC and SCORM standards which they have included up to now.Check out Fabrizio’s slides from Learning Technologies 2012 where he outlines the story of DITA to date, sets a parallel benchmark with SCORM and highlights the new features of the SCORM to DITA bridging capabilities of the new eXact LCMS solution.

More on Learning Technologies 2012

Wisdom of the crowds downloads?

….what presentations are being viewed from Learning Technologies Conference in January 2012, we thought we would do some totally unscientific download crowd analysis.

If you visit http://dpcloud.co/v3/enterprise/learningtech/ you can see the many excellent presentations delivered. However, one cannot help wondering why some presentations proved so much more popular for people to download/ view than others. Is there something about the Wisdom of Crowds here?

Steve Wheeler – an associate professor and prolific tweeter (@ timbuckteeth) leads in the popularity stakes by a huge order of magnitude, with over 1200 downloads at present – he also has 11,000 followers on twitter – some co-incidence? His presentation addresses “Digital Learning Futures.”

In second place is another Professor….Stephen Heppell, some mere 800 views behind Steve Wheeler, addressing “Third Millennium Learning”, other popular titles for downloads also focus on the future….in third place Ray Kurzweil another futurist with – “The Web within us – when minds and machines become one!” and Jaron Lanier’s “Are we at the beginning of the rise of post human machine intelligence”.

From this we must conclude our crowd of viewers undoubtedly are interested in the future, and they like to be challenged and stimulated with views of the future. Can we conclude they are more interested in listening to and learning from an academics and futurists than to narrow examples of good practise!

Our unscientific “download crowd analysis” indicates terms such as L&D and HR in the title of the video appear to be a turn-off to the event viewers – why should this be we wonder?

The videos of presentations addressing mobile learning do not appear to be hugely popular, which is quite surprising indeed, given the emphasis on this form of learning at present. It was perhaps not that surprising that there were only 3 presentations addressing this hot topic, as take up is still quite low, indeed we must complement those brave presenters pioneering this path and being prepared to share what they have learnt …..do take a look.

Social learning was likewise in short supply, as a download not surprisingly as this is still very new, but not appearing in high demand from our download crowd is very surprising…or not!

Our favourites “Engaging the un-willing learner” by Mark Berthelemy from Capita, and “The Current Position of e-learning across Europe” by Antoine Solom of IPSOS and CrossKnowledge. If you wish to know more see our report on the European e-learning market 2010-11

e-ruralnet “E-LEARNING IN THE RURAL CONTEXT:

INNOVATION, INCLUSION AND THE ROLE OF THE MARKET”

A very interesting report recently published looking at the role e-learning can play in the rural economy, not an area that has been given much attention recently, or indeed at all. You can download the report or visit the e-ruralnet site. This report was an EU funded by the LLP Transversal Programme.

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.

For full details of predictions 1-8 see on-line learning and distance education resources

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!

 2011 News:

Our Review of DevLearn 2011

You can read our review here.

European E-learning Market update for ELIG

The ELIG Marketplace working group has produced this summary as a snapshot of the Learning Industry in Europe in 2011. Its purpose is to provide an industry structure, segmentation and analysis that helps industry members build more effective strategies.

You can read the full review here.

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!

Take a look at this great tool if you are looking for free e-learning courses or what is known as “Open Courseware” this search tool will certainly help identify courses from universities  developed by statestats,

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!

Read our full review of DevLearn and the future of e-learning 

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 – Krakow, 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.

Along with Learning Light speakers will come from Romania’s IFES, as well as  Asset-tec, based in Athens, Greece, Efficio, based in Poland, Fondazione Luigi CLerici of Italy, The Workshop, based in Sheffield UK and the MRS Consultancy also based in the UK.

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.

Review of The Education Technology Show 2011

Education Technology Show 2011 Let us hope that this is the first of many events put together across the regions of the UK, designed to bring…  Read more

Learning Technologies 2011

Another trip to a vibrant Learning Technologies Show, and a trip around what was a busy and bustling event, indeed for many the “busy and bustling” began on…  Read more

2010:

European eLearning Summit

Learning Light, in association with  – learndirect and CreativeSheffield played host to an exclusive event for the leaders of the European e-learning industry in Sheffield (one of Europe’s leading centres of e-learning) from 17th until 19th of November 2010.

You can read more about it here.

DevLearn 2010

In conjunction with Learning Light, UK Trade & Investment was pleased to be able to both provide tailored support and advice for the companies that went out to… Read more

2009:

Learning 2009

Learning (2009) is one of the conferences held for the learning professional, held annually and organised by the Masie foundation, with the hugely charismatic… Read more

IADIS e-Learning 2009

Held over four and a half days, e-Learning 2009 brings together a wide range of e-learning researchers and professionals from Universities and Academic… Read more