Ask any self-respecting training manager what e-learning is and, these days, you should get a fairly comprehensive response. Whether they do much of it or not, and whether they like it or not, e-learning has filtered into the general training subconscious. E-learning is now mainstream.

Push the conversation a bit further and ask them what e-learning actually does, and the answer generally becomes a bit more vague. You might get a description of web-based training content being accessed and tracked via an online learning catalogue or learning management system. You might also have a discussion of using virtual classrooms to run interactive live presentations with learners in many locations. Frequently, our training managers will have some experience of these, and although the experience might be mixed, they will generally be thinking they need more of it.

This description might not be universal, but it is now the norm. Most organisations (particularly large ones) have used e-learning in some form, and most will continue to use it more generally. As I have said, e-learning is now mainstream, another tool in the training arsenal – or at least that’s what people keep telling me.

Having been commentating on the e-learning market since its inception, I have found it interesting to observe this gradual acceptance – from rampant hype to anti-hype and back to a kind of ‘business as usual’ feeling. Most new conversations I have can definitely be placed in the latter camp. But while use of e-learning as a tool for delivering learning may be generally accepted, I don’t feel the full implications of that acceptance are generally understood. Yes, trainers and training managers can now look at certain learning needs and envisage using e-learning to solve them, either directly or as a blended solution. But this is tactical. It is about the use of e-learning to solve specific problems, and while this is good, it is not enough!

You see, I believe the biggest impact of e-learning will not be felt in the e-learning itself. It will be felt in the rest of learning. In my mind, I think of this as ‘e-learning as a catalyst’ rather than ‘e-learning as a mode of delivery’. And the impact of e-learning as a catalyst of change for all learning is much more profound. Let’s think about some of the direct and indirect implications of the adoption of e-learning.

The economics of e-learning delivery are very different from traditional classroom training. E-learning costs much more to develop but much less to deliver, and it’s that cost of delivery model that is attractive to most organisations. Large numbers of learners can access the learning remotely, and we can track their completion. But remote delivery and tracking create waves of cultural change, and cultural resistance.

We worry about acceptance of e-learning and motivation to complete in ways that we didn’t with classroom training. Tracking provides great reporting possibilities and makes learning activity much more visible than it has ever previously been. But it also brings a lot of control-freakery with it as well: ‘You will do the training or we’ll report you’; ‘You must do the training or we can’t employ you’. E-learning didn’t create this trend for compliance and tracking, but it is magnifying it because it makes it so easy. But have you thought about the logical extension of the same control-minded thinking to lots of other on-compliance areas?

The shift to e-learning also results in discussion of shifting the responsibility for learning towards the learner. This is generally accepted as a good thing, but often proves in practice to be difficult. After all, most of those same learners have between ten and 20 years’ experience of having training done to them, rather than them driving their learning. But again, this shift to personal responsibility, and inherently with it, to personalisation of learning creates expectations we struggle to meet in other forms of training. E-learning is a big part in the process of re-engineering the relationship between the learner and learning. How will this change all learning in the future, not just the e-learning?

These are just simple examples of a significant change taking place within organisational learning. By thinking of e-learning as a catalyst of change and not just as a mode of delivery, we are forced to confront many other changes that will profoundly affect the way we run learning and development in the future. And there are many other implications, too: the way we budget or finance learning, the way we measure and value it, and the organisation and suppliers we need to support and deliver it. In ten years’ time, none of this will look much like it does today. You have been warned!

David Wilson is managing director of eLearnity, a leading independent learning analyst and consultancy, which he founded in 1996. He can be contacted on +44 (0) 20 7917 1870 or at DavidW@elearnity.com

Related News

• The role for new technology in HR
• Blended learning: the best recipe
• Tainted learning

Related Discussion Topics

• Recommendations for E-Learning creation packages
• Designing e learning programmes.
• Online ITN & Learner Evaluation system

Latest News

• Sector Skills Councils relicensing
• Skillnet is to run Ford's apprenticeship scheme
• Line managers are not equipped to interview effectively
• Promoting diversity in the Civil Service
• DWP improves its service to customers, says latest capability review