eLearn Magazine’s 2010 Predictions

Four members of Internet Time Alliance submitted their thoughts to eLearn Magazine’s 2010 Predictions.

Wave Crests
Google Wave is already set to become a very popular tool this year, and I think it represents the way that tools are going to evolve in the near future, that is that the social functionality found in standalone tools is going to merge and become amalgamated into more integrated “learning” tools. Also I think (and hope) we will see learning systems moving away from managing or controlling users and instead providing open learning environments that enable both formal and informal personal and group learning to take place.
—Jane Hart, social learning consultant at Centre for Learning & Performance Technologies

Move It or Lose It
This is the decade of time. Time-to-performance will become the dominant metric for learning. Businesses in 2010 will become faster-paced and more unpredictable. Quick and agile companies will overtake hide-bound traditional organizations. Speedy change requires rapid learning; workers will increasingly set the pace. Mobile, geo-aware, smart phones will provide performance support. We’ll focus more on nurturing learning ecosystems (“learnscapes”) than on finger-in-the-dike point solutions. As Elbert Hubbard warned, “The world is moving so fast these days that the man who says it can’t be done is generally interrupted by someone doing it.”
—Jay Cross, chairman of Internet Time Alliance

Break Out!
I’m hoping this will be the “year of the breakthrough.” Several technologies are poised to cross the chasm: social tools, mobile technologies, and virtual worlds. Each has reached critical mass in being realistically deployable and offers real benefits. And each complements a desired organizational breakthrough, recognizing the broader role of learning not just in execution, but in problem-solving, innovation, and more. I expect to see more inspired uses of technology to break out of the “course” mentality and start facilitating performance more broadly, as organizational structures move learning from “nice to have” to core infrastructure.
—Clark Quinn, executive director of Quinnovation

New Mode for ‘Learning’
The increasing awareness that learning is the result of experiences, practice, conversations, and reflection rather than a demonstration of acquisition of information will mean focus and effort moves away from the development of structured learning content and towards the implementation of new approaches for facilitating interaction and experiences through the workplace. This will challenge training and L&D departments to the limit, who will realize they need to change their modus operandi, get closer to their stakeholders and become more responsive or cease to be relevant. Speed-to-competence will become the key driver.
—Charles Jennings, director of the Internet Time Alliance and Duntroon Associates

Internet Time Alliance Learnstream