According to the last LinkedIn’s workplace learning report “our research shows that today’s talent developer is being asked to balance competing demands from executives, managers, and employees alike: They must play a critical role in shaping future workforce strategy, while delivering hyper-relevant content to support employee needs of today, and cater these vast efforts to a multi-generational workforce with varied learning preferences.”

It is very clear that one of the Talent Development challenge that we are now facing in most companies is linked to the ability to develop faster the talents and skills that the are required as part of the workforce and company strategy.

This challenge is also impacting the way we manage digital learning and is shaping new trends for 2019 and after.

1.The rise of Learning Experience Platforms (LXP)

One trend confirmed by Josh Bersin and many industry influencers is the rise of a new generation of learning platform called LXP (Learning Experience Platform).

According to Bersin, the LXP is more than a product, it is a set of capabilities with a Netflix-like interface that display learning contents using channels that you can follow and that support any type of content and media. In a way the learning contents become easier to find, more relevant and the platform is more fun to use.

2.UX and AI optimization to drive engagement

Alongside the rise of LXP is the integration of better User Experience powered by Artificial Intelligence that, even being at its premises, starts to provide interesting interface to learners to better advise them on the content they may need. Some learning aggregators and curation platforms starts to seriously work on this evolution and will soon be able to provide an innovative learning experience.

3.Social learning powered by learning communities

A third very strong trend in digital learning is the acceleration of social learning thanks to the dynamic of communities. When looking at the new types of learning tools and platforms, learners can now share, like, rank, comment and follow the contents and channels they like. This is creating a new way of learning that is in a way powered by the learning communities. It is important for the learning managers to be even more connected to this new dynamic to get live insights from the communities as well as to promote their new trainings.

4.Microdegrees rise to the top

Cait Etherington who is also a writer in the field of Education wrote in 2017 that “the future of education is the microdegree”. In 2016 the newspaper Metro also published an article to explain the added value represented by Microdegrees.

It looks like the offer of Microdegrees has been expanding since and several MOOCS platforms now offer them as a regular offer for learners. More importantly, in a period of disruption like the one we currently live, the duration of a skill is reduced due to the speed of change. It means that we will have to learn more, better and faster new skills. And that is precisely where microdegrees are incredibly useful. They are a powerful way to develop new skills quickly by focusing just on the most needed training. That is why we will see a strong increase of microdegrees and certificates in 2019.

5.Mobile learning to be more generalized

It is almost impossible to write about learning without talking about mobile learning. With the increased mobility of learners, as well as with the new mobile learning tools, the mobile learning offer starts to arrive at a level of maturity that will step by step make the learning contents available as mobile compatible and probably soon mobile first like presented in this article on the elearning industry website.

6.More moocs, but new open models

According to a Forbes interview of Deepak Mehta “MOOCs have been one of the most hotly-debated topics in the education circles over the past few years.”

What we can see on the education field is that the MOOCS are now installed as another way to learn and their offer is extending with many universities and business schools providing MOOCS to increase the impact of their courses. At the same time this allow the universities to develop their popularity and image.

So, the offer of MOOCS is increasing and with the microdegrees it is also creating a new model for online education. The way of assessing the work of learners is also evolving with some courses requesting to achieve projects that are then assessed by a teacher.

7.Augmented reality starts to be implemented

There was a lot of debate around the integration of augmented reality in learning. This new way of learning starts to take off with some projects being implemented in companies. Like this article from Eastern Peak explains “with more than 1 billion users expected to join the trend by 2020, it opens a pool of opportunities for educational institutions and businesses.” It is very clear that we will see more and more augmented reality projects applied to the learning field in 2019 and this is quite exciting.

8.New ways of looking at the ROE

According to a recent article from Stephen Baer in Forbes, there are several reasons for corporate trainings to fail, like the lack of interest, the information overload or…neglecting the real world by not reinforcing the new skills acquired on the job.

That is why it is needed to have a look, not only at the Return On Investment (ROI) of learning but also at the Return On Education (ROE). We will do a detailed article on the ROE but what is important is to remind that we have to look at the impact of the learning action on the job and in the team at different period, during the training, shortly after, and then several weeks after to assess the results and the ROE of the learning action and eventually to engage complementary training actions.

9.The compulsory role of data protection

Digital learning being based on the use of many online tools, connected to different HR systems, the question of the data protection is key especially with the new regulations applied in many countries. The Learning and Development teams have the responsability to make sure that they respect the new rules in terms of data protection and that they have strong processes to manage them.

10.The quiz renewal: new ways of evaluating the learning impact

An interesting new trend is the renewal of quizzes with the use of fresh, easy and friendly quiz tools that allow the learners and also the trainers to create engaging activities to evaluate the impact of their training.

Quizzes are now also used in between training sessions to make sure that the new learning are well memorized. They are also used to create engagement during the training sessions, and in some cases they are also used to create challenges to animate the sessions.

Conclusion

With the important disruption that we start to live in the world of work, it is very clear that learning and especially the digital learning will be a key topic in 2019. There is no doubt that these trends will contribute to shape the new way of learning that is emerging due to the transformation of the world of work and there are a lot of opportunities that are attached to these trends. It is very exciting and we will make sure to cover them in our next articles.