I see a rapid adaption of open source LMS’, drastic reduction of seat time for each training session, especially the online ones, increased role of social media in organizational learning, Just-in-time learning and a boom in cross cultural training.

1. Learning Predictions – 2010
This month’s big question in Learning Circuits Blog “What are your Predictions and Plans for 2010?”
My crystal-gazing revealed certain expected trends in learning. I do not know if they would come about in
2010 but things will surely move in these directions.
Learning Management Systems (LMS/LCMS): Organizations will move more toward adapting open source
LMS/LCMS like Moodle, ATutor or Ganesha rather than going in for proprietary systems like SABA,
SumTotal and so on.
Also, they would be more interested in the basic features rather than all the frills (and expenses) that go
with the current systems. So, it will be more ‘back to basics’. It augurs well for organizations that offer
customization and maintenance of open source LMS’ or offer their LMS free like TLN and change for
maintenance.
Duration for Training: In 2009, CommLab has developed more than a 100 eLearning courses for 25-30
organizations in 7 countries. The trend is clear. The customers/learners want “capsules” or “pills” of
learning – the more concise, the better. Gone are the days of 3-5 learning hours for a program. Now, the
average seat time is less than 1 hour. I think this will further come down to 30 minutes or even less. It
poses a challenge to Instructional and Learning Designers to come up with ‘precision’ learning. Again, to
cut the bells and whistles, the learners are becoming very mature. They want more training and less
entertaining. They want both effective and efficient learning – better learning in less time.
Harnessing Social Media: I am sure all of you have learnt something useful through social media in the
past year. I have personally learnt substantially by just reading various discussions in LinkedIn, leave
alone posting and participating in them. I think Social Media is the next big wave in learning. The
challenge here is to channelize and manage this revolution. I really don’t know how. Any ideas?
Just-In-Time (JIT) Learning: Reading about learning delivered through mobile phones (m-learning)
and other PDAs makes me wonder that a time is near when learners want to acquire learning just before
they need to use it. For example a sales person may want to brush up his product knowledge just before a
crucial sales call or an operator wants to run his eyes down a checklist just before starting a new machine
or a custom service executive goes through the latest analysis of a particular customer’s behavior before
taking the call.
Boom in Cross-Cultural Learning: When we started CommLab in 2000, without any physical
representation outside India, trying to do business virtually, we knew pretty little about the cultural
aspects of our markets. Today, after 9 years, we feel that we know so much about these cultural nuances.
The world is really a global village now and we will continue to learn so much about each other, wherever
we may be physically living. I foresee a boom in learning about each other’s cultures. The day is not far
that a common, basic culture evolves. Maybe it is too grand a vision, but it is exciting to think about it!
Great time to be alive!!!
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