E-learning’s popularity is growing fast as the learning delivery method evolves to meet more complex learning needs.
by AnnMarie Kuzel
June 23, 2016
E-learning has been playing a vital role in workforce learning and development for several decades. It provides employees with the content and skills they need to be productive and successful on the job in ways that are accessible from just about anywhere at any time. It also allows employers to customize content to meet their organization’s business goals while spending less money on static training materials.
Still, one of the major complaints about e-learning has been its inability to cater to individual employees’ learning and development needs. “Quickly finding and accessing information contained in massive collections of instructional videos and the need to personalize the educational experience” are some of e-learning’s key barriers, said Manish Gupta, vice president and director for Xerox Research Center India. In other words, e-learning usually assumes that all employees will learn and comprehend the same information at the same rate without needing additional, customized assistance.
“Technology is changing at such a fast pace that an employee becomes obsolete very quickly if he/she is not keeping abreast with the new emerging tools and technologies” Gupta explained. Xerox, an American global corporation that sells business services and document technology products, recently created an e-learning technology that he said “enables teachers to create personalized e-learning material using MOOC resources and effectively deliver the content in a personalized manner to the students.”
Xerox’s new technology, which was created by Xerox Research Center India and licensed to Impartus, a video learning solutions company, aims to solve this personalization problem. The Xerox technology can deliver e-learning to employees and personalize the experience by identifying if and where an employee is struggling.
For example, if a user is repeatedly visiting the same content, Xerox’s technology will recognize that the user is likely struggling with this material and provide them with additional learning resources. The technology also offers video subject indexes that allow users to find specific content within a video. Employees can identify desired facets of training more easily, enabling them to revisit, review, and master specific skills without having to search through lengthy video courses.
E-learning has long been a popular workplace development tool because time after time it has proven valuable, allowing employees to comprehend skills and concepts quickly and become productive members in their organizations. This technology could help to bridge the knowledge gap between employees of various educational backgrounds and learning speeds.
Staying up-to-date with the latest e-learning technologies may be the only way to ensure that some employees aren’t left behind.
AnnMarie Kuzel is a Chief Learning Officer editorial intern. Comment below or email editor@CLOmedia.com.
