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Putting innovative learning to work today
12 essential topics, trends and tools for L&D in 2019
ReferencesThe data and insights in this report are extrapolated from the following sources:
Redthread Research – redthreadresearch.com
Fosway Group – fosway.com
Towards Maturity – towardsmaturity.org
Open University – open.ac.uk
Good Practice – goodpractice.com/ld-resources
AI Now Institute – ainowinstitute.org
NMC Horizon Report – library.educause.edu/resources
Learning & Performance Institute – thelpi.org/resources
Corporate Learning Analytics Summit – learninganalytics.iqpc.com
Society for Learning Analytics Research – solaresearch.org
Journal of Learning Analytics – learning-analytics.info
Brandon Hall – brandonhall.com
LinkedIn Learning – learning.linkedin.com
Elearning Guild –
slideshare.net/DavidKelly3/whats-your-reality-ar-and-vr-for-learning
ARtillry Intelligence – artillry.co/pro
NAVEX Global – trust.navexglobal.com
Contents
Introduction1. Learning market
complexity 2. The learning stack3. Social learning4. AI5. Mobile6. xAPI 7. Learning analytics8. Personalised learning9. Instructor-led blends10. Immersive learning11. Compliance training12. Video
The potential of new learning technologies is certainly exciting: targeted digital solutions which are built into employees’ workflows. The ability to fine-tune talented individuals to optimise value and drive innovation. Creating cultures where thinking, activated teams are supported by just-in-time information; all underpinned with the data and analysis to effectively prove the business impact.
What do you do when the future finally arrives?Today’s learning technology landscape is a bewildering and confusing place, with more new tools coming to market than ever before.
But a lot of what we hear is based on speculation, not evidence.
When the possibilities are this rich and bewildering, you need to probe deeper to get a feel for what’s really happening on the ground. With that in mind, I’ve been exploring the most important learning studies of the past year from analysts researching thousands of organisations, looking for the key trends and topics for learning technologists.
I’ve identified the real problems L&D practitioners are experiencing, and how the trends in learning technology can be used to help them.
I hope the findings help you cut through the hype and put innovative learning to work in the year ahead.
Mark Aberdour, CTO Brightwave
1. Learning market complexityThe learning tech market is a bewildering place but offers exciting choices to those who can navigate it.The learning technologies market has been going through continued expansion, and while there has been significant merger and acquisition activity among the larger players there are more niche, specialist vendors coming into the market than ever before.
During 2018, multiple market analysts noted a fragmented and confused market that is bewildering to navigate, but also one which presents exciting choices for customers.
The expansion in niche solutions has been geared towards solving specific challenges and integrating well with existing platforms, which is reflected in the fact that the average L&D team now uses over 20 different technologies to support their learning delivery!
The big message from the analysts: increasing choice presents great opportunities, but you need to really understand and manage the risks during selection and implementation.
Consult widely, and buy smart!
2. The learning stackThe LMS isn’t dead, it’s being combined with multiple, specialist products into a learning technology stack.The recent expansion of the learning tech market has been dominated by niche solutions geared towards solving specific challenges. A hallmark of these specialist products is how they integrate seamlessly with existing technologies: they want to complement your Learning Management System, not replace it.
Certain voices will always call out the demise of the LMS. However, research of more than 700 leading organisations shows LMS usage has actually risen over the past 2 years and currently sits at 80%.
What we now know is that L&D teams are also moving far beyond the boundaries of the LMS, with the average company now using multiple platforms. The more forward-thinking teams are combining these niche, specialist offerings into a connected network of products. Hence terms like learning technology stack and learning ecosystem have been gaining ground this year.
If you hear anyone still intent on calling out the death of the LMS in 2019, you can quickly correct them.
Organisations buying learning technologies are increasingly seeing these specialist products as commodities, swapping in and out of the stack with ease. These niche players are particularly active in performance support, continuous improvement, knowledge management, workplace support and curated content.
So what does this all mean? If you’re in the market for an LMS, the research would suggest looking for something modular and integration-friendly. Keep the LMS slimline and explore the market for niche products that meet a specific need your organisation has...
...and start building out your learning technology stack.
3. Social learningEverybody’s talking about social learning, most people already have the tools, but hardly anyone is making it work...Social learning comes in many forms. You might come across it as social learning, collaborative learning, informal learning. It’s often a key component within blended learning, and of course it’s the ‘20’ in 70:20:10.
Buyers are demanding social features when they select new LMS products. As a result, social learning is well supported by tool providers, being the fourth most widely supported feature of all.
Despite the widespread support for social learning, very few organisations are actually making good use of it. A majority of L&D leaders still cannot see beyond the formal training ‘event’, where the learner is a passive recipient of learning rather than a contributor. Of all the priority skills required for L&D today, facilitation of social/collaborative learning is the biggest skills gap of the lot.
While organisations are using knowledge building communities in many different ways and they commonly fail to understand the nurturing and patience needed to embed social learning and the required shift towards a culture of sharing.
We may be looking in the wrong place. Almost 60% of organisations expect enterprise social networks to grow over the next 2 years. These tools, like Yammer, exist outside the control and influence of the L&D team, yet their learners may well be active on these environments and engaging in the collaborative learning that the L&D teams are reluctant to adopt.
It’s a good idea to develop and integrate these platforms using agile, iterative methods.
Get on board the social learning ship before the learners set sail in it without you!
You probably already have the tools, but how can you make social learning work?
4. AI: Too smart too soon?While early adopters experiment with AI, we should all educate ourselves on the issues and risks.Nobody can have escaped the massive amounts of hype from learning technology vendors about Artificial Intelligence (AI). Although AI started to be used for the creation of learning materials in 2018, looking through the learning technology research for the year brings home the truth: hardly any L&D practitioners on the ground are actually using AI yet.
Just 9% of organisations are using AI tools such as chatbots, virtual assistants and intelligent tutoring systems, with the vast majority still only experimenting with how the tools can enhance existing programmes.
Major themes brought about by rapid enterprise introduction of AI include a lack of government regulation, insufficient company governance, concerns about bias and discrimination, surveillance, individual rights violations and problems with testing
While some innovative providers are making major progress with AI, the majority are a long, long way behind.
AI ‘in the wild’ on real humans where there is a lack of responsibility when harm occurs. All of these need to be factored into your decision making if you are looking to turbo-charge L&D with AI.
New AI products are coming into the L&D market regularly and early adopters are starting to experiment within their organisations and plot out effective paths to action.
On the whole, L&D people won’t need to become experts in AI overnight.
But we all need to understand the implications and risks.
Use 2019 to educate yourself on AI, and get involved with the conversation.
5. Mobile Mobile learning is now a basic requirement, but workplace support is lagging behind.
Responsive content is now a basic expectation of content buyers, who demand content that works across all devices as standard. It is the same for learning platforms, where most vendors now either have an app or use responsive design.
However, despite the big push from buyers for mobile support, actual adoption of mobile in the workplace is still sporadic.
60% of learners want their employers to use mobile learning - but only 30% have done so.
In the consumer world mobile is by far the most popular way of being online. Ofcom report that the average Briton spends 24hrs a week online, 62% of which is on a smartphone. Seven in ten commuters use their smartphone on their journey, but mostly for messaging and social media and, of course, video is hugely popular and podcasts are rapidly growing. The Learning and Performance Institute’s Ofcom data review concluded that organisations need to be where their learners are and ensure access to learning-related information on their phones.
Enable mobile support to make use of what providers now offer as standard.
Everybody’s still talking about xAPI, but it’s struggling to gain traction on the ground.xAPI has been around for over half a decade now. It consistently appears as a ‘must have’ in learning technology procurements, although very often the buyers then completely fail to exploit it.xAPI has not yet changed what L&D practitioners are actually doing at the coalface. Learning Record Stores (LRS) – introduced back in 2011 to help track learning activities across connected systems – have become a niche approach for specific projects, with xAPI providers failing to demonstrate compelling business cases or generate real results.
The main players in the xAPI LRS market have gradually repositioned themselves as learning analytics (LA) platforms with a focus on measuring the impact of learning, as they try to find their sweet spot with buyers.
6. xAPI
In doing so they have entered a much bigger market, where traditional Business Intelligence (BI) platforms reign supreme.
In the next 12 months, nearly three quarters of learning leaders are planning to invest in LA, however most are prioritising BI software over LRS products.
Most likely the main reason xAPI is failing to gain traction is its complexity. xAPI is just not easy for an L&D layperson –or learner – to understand. Corporate Learning Analytics’ 2018 research found ‘Understanding xAPI’ was one of the top challenges preventing the adoption of more robust LA.
So what does the xAPI gap mean for LA in the workplace, and what’s the best way forward? A good starting point is to connect up your learning technology stack, as the whole point of xAPI is to enable visibility into learning that happens across multiple systems.
Next, educate yourself in LA (see overleaf) to gain insights into your data from all those connected systems. And then you have a choice: either learn xAPI and use a ‘Learning Analytics Platform’ to probe your learning data, or if you’re in a larger enterprise, recruit your BI team to do it for you.
Despite the difficult outlook, it seems likely that xAPI has moved along the path to mainstream adoption and is currently sitting in what Gartner calls the Trough of Disillusionment. The valuable use cases are being trialled and iterated currently, and it’s probably worth maintaining a holding pattern until they emerge.
Just 14% of respondents were using an LRS in 2018, down from 17% two years ago.
7. Learning analytics Impact measurement is a long-standing problem in the L&D sector. Just one in three organisations use performance data to measure change and improve the impact of their programme. There is a continuing big L&D skills gap in the area of learning analytics and evaluating impact. It’s interesting that the focus is on proving the business impact of learning, whereas in learning analytics’ home territory of Higher Education, the focus is very much about improving successful learning outcomes for the student.
Fosway have recognised that we need to shift the focus of workplace learning analytics, and in their view “speed to
Too few people are measuring learning impact – and the measures of success may be shifting...
learning, action and outcome” should be the key measures of success for workplace learning, with an emphasis on competence, confidence, proficiency and performance. Organisations need to measure learning consistently across a variety of metrics, and use that data meaningfully to improve learning strategy and delivery.
Everything is already in place: measure across multiple tools in the learning stack and use data communication methods like xAPI to push data into a centralised Learning Record Store, learning analytics or business intelligence platform. We have the means to measure like never before, but knowing what to look at and making it happen are different problems.
Before implementing learning analytics, decide exactly WHAT you are going to measure, and what subsequent changes you can realistically make.
Evidence of learning impact still tends to be anecdotal. Robust measurement and analysis is a rarity.
8. Personalised learningPersonalised learning is the new normal and can fix engagement problems.Learning platforms have traditionally delivered one-size-fits-all learning experiences but this broadcast approach no longer suffices. Recent research is unanimous that personalised learning is the new normal among progressive learning platform providers.
The data we capture about learning experiences isn’t only useful for measuring competence, proficiency and business impact, but is also starting to be used to personalise the learning experience to deliver content tailored to each individual.A common theme from the analysts has been around using personalisation to improve engagement with learners. The tailored content mindset is a shift for L&D, and needs teams to look towards consumer psychology and social techniques to facilitate greater engagement and retain top talent in organisations.
While that remains a challenge, the rewards and opportunities should provide motivation. 85% of employees say they are unengaged at work but their engagement would improve by providing them with learning experiences when and where they want them.
Any personalised learning programme requires good quality data about the learners and the organisation. As such it is closely related to certain other key themes in that at the heart of personalised learning is a learning technology stack connected together using xAPI or similar. For organisations with large enough datasets, personalisation efforts can involve AI techniques such as machine learning, which of course comes with its own benefits and risks.
Get this right and the rewards could be transformational for your learning culture. You could be delivering learning at the point of need, in the right place, at the right time and to the right people.
A new breed of learning technology provider is standing by to offer engagement tools to deliver deeply personal learning at the point of need.
9. Instructor-led blendsYou hear so much buzz from vendors and colleagues in the L&D world about digital learning, it’s easy to think this is now the dominant form of learning at work. This is especially true if you keep in touch with the profession through social media. It’s the filter bubble at work – if it’s all you hear, it blinds you to the wider world and you assume it’s all everyone is doing. As we’ve discovered, few organisations are succeeding with social learning, few organisations are truly enabling mobile learning, not many people are doing xAPI and hardly anyone is measuring the impact of learning.
What everyone most definitely IS DOING is classroom training, and lots of it!
LinkedIn’s research found that ILT had actually gained share in formal training delivery between 2017 and 2018. But, they noted how larger companies are the most successful at reducing ILT events and increasing online learning.
Classroom delivery is where L&D teams are most well skilled and the format is still the ‘go-to’ method for formal learning. Investment is most likely to now be in blended and online, although lack of knowledge around technology is the biggest challenge to that.
While ILT remains dominant, there is clearly a desire to move to a more blended approach, with larger companies demonstrating consistent success at this. We will see a steady swing to a more blended approach in 2019.
Address your technical skill gaps because campaign blends are worthless if it cannot be successfully delivered.
But the reality is that face-to-face, instructor-led training (ILT) still reigns supreme.
Organisations with 10,000+ employees are hitting a 50/50 split of classroom and online formats.
10. Immersive learning
Immersive is still emerging – so why not dip your toes in and experiment?Few new areas have caught the industry’s attention more than immersive technology, the cool new kid on the learning technologies block. Immersive learning encompasses virtual reality, augmented reality and mixed reality, as well as high-end solutions like 360 video and simulations.
It’s early days in this space for sure. All the available research reinforces the view of an emerging collection of learning technologies – and all the signs are pointing in the right direction.
Investment and experimentation is increasing. 30% of L&D leaders are using immersive games and simulations today, up 10% from two years ago, with most just at the experimental stage. 15% are aiming to invest in AR in the runup to 2020.
Education and training is the one sector where demand for AR/MR most outstrips supply, and outside investment interest is shifting from VR towards a blend of mixed and augmented solutions and platforms.
Most interestingly, the research shows that some bellweather sectors are using immersive already: oil, aviation, healthcare, military and engineering are all leading the way.
So what’s stopping you dipping a toe into this market? The main barriers to adoption right now are cost of equipment and development and the time to build out these capacities.
A practical and common sense approach: learn about immersive experiences, research the area, locate a business problem where it might work for you and start small by experimenting and iterating.
And move now to build your future advantage.
We are at the stage where bold moves in this field can have outsize rewards.
11. Compliance trainingCompliance training remains the bedrock of L&D, but change is coming...With all the buzz in content around paradigm-changing technologies, it’s easy to forget just how dominant our old favourite – the mandated, annual compliance training course – still is.However there is growing evidence that compliance training is changing. What previously drove compliance goals doesn’t always link to better engagement, and there’s an estimated average 27% non-compliance rate in surveyed organisations. In a large enterprise that makes for a lot of people who don’t understand information security, workplace ethics, or a million other issues.
That’s an awful lot of organisational risk. Clearly, compliance training needs to become more engaging.
The response to the compliance problem is an increasing focus on executive-level training and emphasising culture change. Traditional compliance training augmented with communications programmes, spaced-learning, micro-learning resources, collaboration tools and mobile delivery, all to make the learning ‘stick’.
The opportunity here must not be overlooked. If compliance is going to establish a set of tools and practices to reliably shift organisational cultures on demand, then not only is it the key to unlocking all the L&D issues under discussion, it is also the best way to transform productivity and drive value enterprise-wide.
Transform compliance by embracing culture change, and augment traditional training with communications programmes, micro-learning resources, collaboration tools and delivering to mobile.
Three quarters of all formal training consists of compliance courses, and it is the ‘core driver’ for learning system projects.
12. VideoVideo is the new format of choice – and research is proving its effectiveness.We have seen how recent research has shed light on the changing face of elearning and the problem of learner engagement with ‘traditional’ elearning formats. 85% are not engaged at work, but say their engagement would improve by having the learning experiences they want, when and where they want them. But 49% of learners have had poor past experience with online, digital or elearning.
Much of what is covered by ‘new content formats’ comprises short, easily digestible resources, often described with the problematic term ‘micro-learning’. And much of this, of course, means video.
When it comes to learning content, all the data suggests you should be providing video options.
Video is THE big growth area in new learning formats. It’s hugely popular for under-35s and with audio add-ons, especially podcasts, gaining ground too.
The growth is set to continue. 59% of L&D Leaders expect to invest more in video through to 2020, and video features heavily in the mix among high-performance learning organisations who are integrating learning tightly into learners’ day-to-day activity.
All the research shows how video resources are the new darling of the elearning world. For younger generations, video learning is becoming a basic expectation, the learning technology providers have all embraced video in their solutions and the research shows that those using video to embed learning in the workflow are the most effective learning organisations.
If you’re not already on board with video, what’s stopping you?
Putting innovative learning to work.
+44 (0)1273 827676
@BrightTweet
brightwavegroup.com
Putting innovative learning to work.
+44 (0)1273 827676
@BrightTweet
brightwavegroup.com
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