E-Learning lessons from the private sector

My attendance at the biggest UK coporate e-learning event earlier this year promised to be full of pragmatic tips and inside advice from companies¹ still suffering from recessional induced cuts in training² budgets.  What I discovered was a refreshing undercurrent, whereby companies are adopting new technologies, such as; Huddle³ and blogs⁴, to create internal knowledge sharing communites. These types of innovative approaches e.g.Dare2Share⁵, were spreading like a viral ad, as most in the UK are reappraising their underacheiving Learning Management Systems (LMS), or adding (free) Web 2.0 tools into the mix.  Companies such as PriceWaterhouseCoopers were making significant training savings using live webinar tools⁶ such as Adobe Conenct, or Elluminate.  Technolgoy is being used to save money, improve both business and training effiencies, but it’s needed a recession to literally force this! BECta⁷ in conjunction with the Towards Maturity project⁸ have released two new related reports on Work Based Learning. They both stress the importance of measuring impact⁹ and sharing effective practice¹⁰ to help us all implement and embed ILT effectively.

Useful links:

1. http://www.elearningage.co.uk/
2. http://www.trainingzone.co.uk/
3. http://www.huddle.net/
4. http://wordpress.org/
5. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gtVYkEdGtfo
6. http://wiki.rscwmsystems.org.uk/index.php/Synchronous_webcasting_tools
7. http://www.nextgenerationlearning.org.uk/
8. http://www.towardsmaturity.org/article/2009/09/02/what-every-ld-professional-needs-know-about-e-lear/
9. http://www.towardsmaturity.org/article/2009/09/28/towards-maturity-efficiency-indicator/
10. http://www.towardsmaturity.org/article/2009/09/12/evidence-change/

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