eLearning Trends in 2021

elearning trends

What’s happened?

The 2020 pandemic has turned the world upside down: industries are faced with the need to change strategies that have been developed over the years instantly.

Education has become one of the most rapidly transforming areas. From an economic point of view, this is one of the industries with the largest financial turnover in all countries of the world.

As we know, the main transformation was the global transition to virtual space. It seems that there are no educational processes we can’t deal with online. Almost any course, curriculum, lab, and skills-building training become available to anyone with an Internet connection at home/office (although sometimes there is no need for it, if you downloaded an online version of content). These elements, together with the platforms they’re presented on, have formed an enormous eLearning ecosystem.

Expansion of the eLearning development is driven by the need of studying for everyone, every time and everywhere. 

eLearning trends can be divided into 2 groups: technologies and content. Let’s take a look at the most important of them for in 2021.

Technologies trends

Artificial Intelligence (AI)

According to numerous studies, we can say that AI continues to evolve and will remain as the leading trend in the technology space for many years to come. In fact, it’s a partial replacement with human brain what means growth of automation of many processes and routine tasks, which saves time and money. As these are the main resources of any person and business, AI will be one of the most significant investments in 2021.

Adaptive Learning

This technology provides a personalization by using algorithms, confidence-based assessments, and matching competencies.

With adaptive learning, employees can have flexible training schedules. Students can choose their own learning path. Thus, employees perceive this training as an opportunity and not as a task to be completed.

Adaptive learning ensures that participants see the right content at the right volume and at the right time periods. 

Personalized learning

Personalized learning can be implemented by providing research and activity data based on student choices as well as student performance. To help students choose the right learning modules, channels are used along with preliminary estimation or recommended learning paths based on previous choices. We can see that it’s being used in combination with artificial intelligence, assessment tools and other eLearning tech-items.

Content trends

Virtual Classroom Training

For many organizations, virtualization didn’t occur automatically. Most of them were in doubt about its viability and were skeptical of its success. The Pandemic has caused an interruption in remote and teleworking, forcing organizations to switch to virtual classroom learning. However, despite their expectations they found that it works quite well.

With virtual learning, you can run tests in real time, get a feedback at the moment, and teach classes for groups spread across geographic regions.

virtual classroom

Microlearning 

Microlearning allows you to study partially, quickly and efficiently. This technology can be considered as the “eat an elephant one bite at a time” principle. It’s the main keeper of time and money, so can be successfully implemented both in organizations and for self-study. 

Another advantage of microlearning is that the pieces of content can be created and applied in a variety of formats. These include video, gamification apps, quizzes, podcasts, events and more.

Continuous Learning Journey

It’s a new concept considered as a tacit understanding that people should learn constantly in order to retain the knowledge they gained during curriculum/course. In combination with microlearning, this approach can become one of the most effective method for self-development without interrupting your routine. You can study anywhere: in transport, during breaks at the office, on a walk, etc.

Conclusion

Doesn’t matter if it’s related with technologies or content trends, these trends will continue to influence on how people study and learn and in which way organizations and employees benefit from these interventions. While participants of eLearning processes will be able to apply the knowledge and skills they gained to their work, organizations will save financial and psychological resources for capability building and complementary education, if tools and techniques are implemented effectively. They should be used by organizations to lead a progress towards becoming more agile and adaptive learning organizations.

Work from home (WFH) growth proves that eLearning trends for 2021 will remain and expand as they will turn to competitive advantage for particular student, employee and brand, provides such opportunity.