With Xyleme’s Mark Hellenger, who began with an interesting theme, highlighting that by 2020 the L&D industry will have to support 5 different generations of learners!
One size of content cannot possibly fit all argues Hellenger, quite correctly, and add the increasingly global nature of learning the challenge will be even more complex.
Learning needs are therefore more complex than ever, the volume of materials is growing dare we say exponentially and you have a situation where we are moving from a “Course first model” to a “Content need first model.”
Add to this the breakdown between work, home and leisure and the plethora of new devices where learning can be delivered to “the always connected employee “ and you have an interesting challenge says Hellenger. We agree, you couldn’t disagree!
The solution is a clear content strategy that is designed to allow rapid re-use of content to react to learner feedback and to allow customisation and personalisation. This means several things…..content becomes dynamic, the Subject matter experts view of the world is increasingly impacted on by the learners view of the world. Content in The Cloud becomes flexible and open and available in small chunks – granular and modular and has the properties of being re-usable, available, knowledge based, aligned to performance support and the learner can personalise.
I copied the table below which summarises the changes:
| Today…… | Tomorrow…. | |
| Development Method | ADDIE | Agile |
| Focus | Prescriptive | Outcome |
| Content | Monolithic | Nugget |
| Driver | Subject matter expert | Learner |
| Delivery | LMS | Learning Apps |
| Objective | Pass | Job skill/proficiency |
While Hellenger undoubtedly has a message on behalf of his company, I found this to be one of the most interesting and informative presentations of the event, and wished I had taken better notes.
