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On January 31 and February 1, we, George and Jesse from Précon e-learning, visited "Learning Technologies" in London. What did we see? The range of learning management systems and authoring tools remains large. In addition, microlearning is still popular, and augmented reality, virtual reality and games are increasingly being used for learning. 'Learning Technologies' is a trade show and conference focusing on learning in business. It is one of the larger fairs in the field of learning in Europe.
Authoring tool providers were numerous at Learning Technologies. Authoring tools are characterized by ease of use and by focusing on quick and easy e-learning development. You don't have to have a technical background to build an e-learning module. In fact, modifying an e-learning module is now as simple as modifying a text in Word. Adding an image? No problem: the tools automatically resize the image to the correct size. The image also instantly scales for tablet and mobile! Adding videos, questions and tests, it's all done with a few simple mouse buttons.
On the microlearning front, we came across a nice application from the cab company Uber. Ideally, Uber drivers can learn something while waiting for a customer. The result? Drivers were much better trained and Uber saves costs. For example, after the training, drivers were more likely to take routes they didn't know themselves. In the training they learned, among other things, to use Google Maps to determine which route is the fastest at that time.
The use of virtual and augmented reality for learning interventions is growing. The technology is becoming cheaper, so it is being used by a larger audience. We have seen several examples where these techniques are being used successfully: As an example of virtual reality, we saw a person assembling a satellite in a virtual world, with the help of someone else. Virtual reality makes it possible to instruct, correct and help, help without being in the same place. An example of augmented reality was from Dell. Using augmented reality, employees can see which screws on a laptop they need to loosen to replace certain parts. Now Dell employees don't have to know every laptop or grab a manual first.
We are also seeing serious games as a learning intervention more often these days. At the Learning Technologies we saw a leadership training as a game. You are dropped on a virtual island with a number of people and have to get off the island together by solving tasks. Very fun to do and you learn at the same time.
An LMS something new? Certainly not. Recent discussions even partially question the use of LMSs. On the market, however, you don´t see much of this discussion yet. We saw several providers of LMSs, with LMSs with built-in functionalities being very popular. What kind of functionalities did we see?
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