Learning Trends & Futures: 7 Changes That Will Morph the Training Function
By Elliott Masie

Over the next three to five years, learning will move from Human Capital Management to Performance Support 3.0 to Next Generation Fingertip Knowledge. This evolution is changing the learning field “right in front of our eyes.” Seven key trends are merging to support this evolution.

TREND #1
Traditional Corporate Training Departments Are Toast
There will be more learning than ever, but there will not be a centralized training group for a whole company. Learning will move to being department-driven, with content being user-created. Instead of a corporate training group, there will be a shared services group supporting the business units and functional heads. The training teams will be far more diverse in the future than they are today.

Training effectiveness measurements will change too. ROI for learning and/or the number of people going through courses are worthless measurements.What is worthwhile is asking, “How did learning move the standard business metrics needle forward?”

TREND #2
Content Becomes Democratized
Learning content will be created by users as fast as it can be today by instructional designers. The content will not be controllable as it is today because there will be significantly more places where learning content will be published. As a result, content development will get closer to front line workers who know what is happening. The best strategy for corporate trainers will be to create templates and get out of the way: instructional design will be done by the community.

The instructional design process will change radically. Instead of waiting for the instructional designers to take 13-18 weeks to build the average course, users will do it in hours or a few days. Plus, there will be a lot of social networks for learning. Learning content will be different than the current wikipedia format in that, in the future, you will know who created the content.

TREND #3
Thin Slices of Content Will Be Consumed
Instead of “complete courses,” content will get sliced into smaller, bite sized chunks that will be created rapidly. Popularity of reading-based courses will drop radically because today’s youth do NOT want to read textbooks. They want media - but it doesn’t have to be Hollywood. This new content will be in the form of STORIES!

Content will also be contextualized through social networking: the community will say what is relevant and critical to know.What if content gets out of sequence? Corporate learning needs to add stronger assessment to make up for the lack of content structure.

TREND #4
Content Authoring Tools Will Change
Learning content tools will help users create stories. Tools will be available that will help users to create thin-sliced content that will become peer and value rated. Today we have a scarcity of content, but that will change dramatically when the community creates the content. See what is happening right now with YouTube to preview this future.

TREND #5
Gaming and Simulation Emerges
Gaming and simulation are somewhat new in learning, but they are very powerful and will continue to gain momentum. The problem with gaming at work is that there are not enough opportunities to practice; however, simulations will give people experience often not available in real life. For example, where do you learn how to fire someone as a manager? What if there was a simulation course on how to fire someone, much like a game? Now, if you do it wrong, you might get sued, but with a simulation you can practice until you get it right.

Simulation helps you to “Fail Forward,” to make progress through mistakes without any real negative consequences: only learning opportunities. More tools will emerge that will make gaming and simulation widely available.



TREND #6
Self-Service Learning Becomes the Norm
Today, most learning comes by assignment from management. In the future, you will see much more learning coming from driven individuals who want to learn.

TREND #7
Finding Courses Will Be More Important Than Creating Courses
Since there will be an explosion of community- developed courseware, the “corporate” training group will be charged with organizing a taxonomy to help users find learning content (category creation, adding metadata). Librarians may become more important than the instructional designers. A new job title will emerge: Social Network Manager, the coach of how to create courseware.

THE BOTTOM LINE
Learning will not look the same in three years. The command and control model will give way to community learning. Plus, there will be a content explosion. Content will be developed faster and in shorter, thinner slices. It will be created by the community, be story-based and increasingly interactive with more simulation.

Elliott Masie is Host of The Learning CONSORTIUM. This article is an excerpt from the ”Learning TRENDS & Futures” presentation made at Learning 2006. To view the entire presentation, please visit: www.learning2006.com

Reprinted from  eLearning Magazine