Top 3 New eLearning Trends Revolutionizing Online Education

Online education is changing every day with new eLearning trends emerging out of nowhere. Overall, we are noticing a bigger focus on personalization and customized learning instead of generic education. Learners worldwide prefer to learn what interests them instead of a general curriculum. With this in mind, let’s explore the major new eLearning trends.  

eLearning Trend #1: Decentralized Education and Training

One of the biggest new trends in eLearning is decentralized education. With this approach, learners own their education history. They own their learning data instead of having to ask their high school, college, or other institution for a certificate. Learners don’t have to go through a third-party organization to get proof that they completed a program. They are in control of the data on their education. 

Related read: eLearning Content Development: The Most Important Trends

eLearning Trend #2: Learner-Centric Technology

Another major trend is the rise of learner-centric technology. The result of this learner-centric technology is that fewer companies will be building LMSs. The market is pretty saturated for general LMSs, but there are opportunities for developing LMSs for specific industries and needs. This goes back to the need for personalization and its influence on new eLearning trends. 

Learners are the most important part of any course, and that means that you need to personalize the course to fit their needs and preferences. This is a common misconception, as many people mistakenly think technology is their problem when the issue is that they aren’t being learner-centric. If technology fails, it is likely because you didn’t focus on your learner, not that the technology was bad. 

Unfortunately, many of the current LMS systems and other eLearning tech companies currently don’t have enough data to offer the level of personalization that learners want. But major companies like Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, and Google do. They have all the data they need to create learner-centric eLearning tech. These big players are waiting to see which LMSs are going to win in this saturated market and either buy one of them or create their own. 

These big companies also have the user experience that learners want, especially in the case of platforms like TikTok and Facebook. In fact, people are already learning on Facebook and TikTok. Because of that, it’s likely that these major companies will start to take over the eLearning technology space. 

Related Read: 10 Best eLearning Tools & Technologies for Small Business

eLearning Trend #3: Institutions Becoming Less Important 

The last of these new trends in eLearning is a reduction in the importance of institutions. Personalization and decentralization play a part in this. While institutions are dropping in importance, subject matter experts are becoming more important. 

Simply put, learners know that they will learn more from a subject matter expert who is running their own course than they will from a professor who has only been at a big-name institution for a few years. Subject matter experts no longer need to work with a major institution like Yale or Harvard. They can just make their own online courses and be in complete control of them. This makes subject matter experts more appealing to learners. 

Related Read: 5 Key Differences Between Institutional and Value-Based Education

Conclusion

The major new eLearning trends are decentralization, learner-centric technology, and a drop in the importance of institutions. But you also have to make sure that you don’t fall into the trap of blaming technology when your course doesn’t work. If your course doesn’t work as expected, then evaluate its content and make sure it is learner-centric. This may also involve getting feedback from learners.