“Future workforce education will build on the capabilities of emerging technologies, including AI-powered tutoring systems, VR and AR, simulated learning environments, and collaborative tools.These tools will become increasingly central to skills training provision, and offer the potential for broader access, lower cost delivery, and greater learner engagement at a time of growing need for workforce upskilling and lifelong learning.” – David Autor, David Mindell, Elisabeth Reynolds.
The Work of the Future: Building Better Jobs in an Age of Intelligent Machines. 2020 MIT Report
In times of lockdown restrictions, businesses have faced the unprecedented challenges with in-house staff learning and development (L&D). The same goes for e-learning companies that provide virtual learning services to external B2B users. When times get tough, rethinking your education technology developmentstrategy is what can help you keep things going.
So, what do most middle- to larger-sized companies and e-learning platforms have in common? In a few words, the problem underlying today’s poor performance of any EdTech business is its legacy e-learning software solutions. The sad fact is that traditional learning management systems (LMS) fail to effectively address COVID-19 pressing issues. A recent research from Aberdeen has revealed that many businesses cannot bring their corporate learning efficiencies up to par ( Source).
Why to leverage e-learning software development for business in COVID-19 times.
From the outset, online training and e-learning education have become tech-enabled innovation anchored by software development solutions. Unlike traditional learning practices, digital learning appears to be a way more accessible, interactive, and collaborative process.
Which is why, lots of companies start jumping on the EdTech bandwagon in an effort to improve their corporate learning and development efficiencies. Also, the growing EdTech sector is largely joined by businesses that offer e-learning services to B2B customers. All this, along with the increasing number of business users looking for robust e-learning software solutions in COVID-19 times, has contributed greatly to the overall EdTech market growth. For now, there already exist a great number of e-learning tools, websites, and platforms. Both the App Store and Google Play are ready to provide you with a plethora of business apps for e-learning.
Given such a huge uptake in popularity, the EdTech market starts generating big-time incomes. According to Statista, the expected size of the global e-learning market will exceed $243 billion in 2022.
What’s more, all the evidence suggests that disruptive innovations are more than welcome on all fronts of the EdTech space. When it comes to corporate eLearning and training, over 90% of respondents expect prompt technological disruption to their industry sector as the HolonIQ March 2020 surveyrevealed. Regardless of the size of the companies surveyed, all of them look forward to using corporate dynamic e-learning platforms and services not later than within the next 24 months.
With all the facts shown above, organizations should likely reshape their EdTech adoption strategy to meet the increasing demand for efficient e-learning services, both for employees and for B2B customers.
To help you out with this, HebronSoft has compiled a list of the most prospective eLearning trends that should be on your EdTech radar in 2021 and beyond.
5 Main EdTech trend predictions for 2021
1. The use of AI for eLearning process automation
Today, the adoption of AI has become a mainstay for every single industry. 76% out of 1,600 enterprise c-suite leaders from all around the globe consider AI as a key driver for the success of their company. What even more interesting, 85% of senior decision makers are going to train their employees by utilizing AI-driven tools and services.
Introducing chatbots as an AI application for EdTech is a great way to provide your employees or B2B customers with personalized virtual learning environments. AI and chatbots can make corporate e-learning way more interesting and engaging. The learning process powered with chatbots helps identify learners’ skills gaps and provides ongoing informational support.
What’s more, based on users’ feedback, chatbots can streamline the course flow on the go tailoring it to individual user needs. All this makes chatbots a promising option in the eyes of business founders and CEOs. In its latest 2020 State of AI in the Enterprise report, Deloitte reveals that 74% of top executives are going to integrate AI across all enterprise applications within a three-year period.
So, how can AI satisfy your growing demand for business e-learning optimization? To answer this question, let’s have a look at the IBM case that serves as a perfect example of how to efficiently integrate the AI potential for EdTech. IBM is an early mover that has adopted AI technologies throughout its Your Learning Platform. AI-driven tools and 24/7 learning chatbots allow the company to automate eLearning flows across departments. As of Q1 2020, 89% of IBM employees were engaged with the e-learning platform. On top of this, the average amount of time spent on corporate training and professional development reached 77 hours per employee in 2019.
2. BigData Analytics for personalization
The Big Data trend for EdTech is here to stay. While traditional manager-driven LMS (Learning Management Systems) are unable to handle increasing amounts of business and personal data, BigData ushers in a new personalized eLearning approach. According to an e-learning evangelist Ryan Tracey, today we witness the rising importance of data for EdTech in terms of assessing the workforce learning progress and evaluating the outcomes.
EdTech businesses can now gather BigData insights to provide their customers and employees with personalized learning experiences. These tech-enabled eLearning solutions are based on user behavior analytics and can deliver tailored resources and activities to corporate users. Personalization in e-learning is proved to ensure efficiency and increased performance. While data harmonization of massive internal and external e-learning content results in significant UX improvement and administration costs reduction.
3. Extended Reality (VR, AR), Voice user interfaces (VUIs)
As educational technologies keep evolving, users are not satisfied anymore with being trained via textual e-learning content only. Millennials aka Generation Y is the leading workforce for 2021 and further. They’ve got accustomed to cutting-edge technologies and software solutions in their everyday lives. The same level of innovations they expect from corporate learning and development.
This said, 2021 eLearning solutions for enterprise training should enable Virtual and Augmented Reality learner experiences. Today, it is known as Immersive learning, which enhances educational environment with compelling virtual assets like VR headsets, AR apps, 360° videos and panoramas, you name it.
4. M-Learning (Mobile learning)
The expectations of enterprise learners are all about mobile learning. There is no doubt that mobile education will be a game changer in EdTech in 2021 and beyond. Given that business learners strive to efficiently manage their time in a fast-paced world, 67% of employees like to access eLearning modules on the go.
Today, Mobile App Development offers robust mobile applications on iOS, Android, and Windows platforms for corporate training and development. The benefits of e-learning apps for business are numerous, though can be boiled down to the five key features:
– On-demand availability
– User and program-specific app customization
– Collaborative knowledge acquisition and exchange
– Uninterrupted e-learning even in offline mode
– Fast e-learning value delivery and assessment
5. Microlearning
Microlearning is yet another great EdTech methodology business owners should consider for 2021. Since employees are usually short of spare time and have less attention span, the learning information is delivered in small pieces via preferred channels and custom-built software tools. The concept behind Microlearning is both simple and compelling as it enables corporate users to reinforce e-learning at scale.
You should really think about implementing microlearning into your 2021 business strategy for a number of reasons. According to one of the most prominent speakers in the worldwide L&D community JD Dillon, learners are way better at acquiring new information through short sessions rather than having a boring one-time course. With this in mind, microlearning enjoys the following competitive advantages:
– High learner engagement
– Smooth cross-platform integration
– Instant achievement assessment
– Long-term knowledge retention
– Individual performance analytics When delivered in multiple sessions, these distributed e-learning insights greatly contribute to all the stages of workforce upskilling. Microlearning enhances employee onboarding, encourages greater learner engagement, reinforces retention, and improves the overall job-specific proficiency of your corporate staff.
How to create a robust virtual learning environment for enterprise?
With a plethora of out-of-the-box software solutions for EdTech on today’s market, they always need a great deal of time and effort to integrate them with your current e-learning platform.
So, is there a cheaper alternative to such a complete e-learning software overhaul? The answer is a definite yes. Implementing new functionality across your mobile and desktop EdTech applications is a great option. The only thing to do is to find a robust IT service provider with a proven track record in developing business e-learning apps for EdTech.
HebronSoft’s expertise in EdTech is based on successful Microlearning and mobile learning use cases. We help our customers gain a competitive edge in corporate e-learning by enhancing learner experience. You are welcome to contact us anytime you need better eLearning services for your employees or B2B customers.