The imperative of education in the 21st century has become the so-called. e-learning, which means that form of education was fueled by the Internet and the use of new information and communication technologies (ICT).
E-learning includes a wide range from a simple computer and internet resources in education, over the ‘mixed’ or ‘hybrid’ ‘ learning – which consists of contacts in the classroom and Internet activities – to complete online learning that function as distance learning.
The great advantage of e-learning and distance learning in spatial flexibility: it does not bind to a particular area, the city or state, and all educational materials are by night and day available on the Internet.
In European Union countries the popularity of distance learning increases really fast which allows a complete study over the wire. If you have a computer and an internet connection and you are willing to set aside money for education, the world is at your fingertips.
All correspondence universities abroad are in line with the Bologna Declaration, a study usually takes three years. One of the most important and the world’s oldest university that offers a virtual study is certainly the University of London, known for its distance learning program. Today through e-learning system of he University of London study over 40,000 people from over 180 countries.
Gamification
Gamification has experienced strong growth in 2013 and the organization wholeheartedly accept this kind of employee motivation in learning. Games motivate players, forcing them to laugh, collaboration, responsiveness, connect, create strategies, encourage competitiveness. Games creates connection and encouraging reaction, it should be the result of the best learning materials. It is clear therefore that the natural development of learning is combination of materials and games, and companies massively implement elements of games in their e-learning courses.
Whether gamification is used as part of the strategy, for example through the addition of badges as rewards or monitoring results over a public board or display, it is certainly a trend that will be strongly emphasized in the future and that business organizations should not ignore.
M-learning
M-learning is recorded significant attention and interest even in 2013. The advantages of m-learning are well known and many, starting with the possibility to training employees at any place at any time, through the significant savings of time and money invested in training employees, interaction and collaboration through to enabling true joy of learning.
Planning and design of m-learning system, its development, implementation and control performance is not an easy task; even with the knowledge of methodological and technological aspects and blindly follow-up of all the rules there is a possibility of failure, we all want to minimize. On the other hand, the possibility of failure must be accepted with respect, considering that mobile technologies are growing at breakneck speed, and education of workers is changing radically.
Edgepoint Learning, elearning.net, eLearning industry and many others predict that in future, m-learning will grow further and there will be more interest in that kind of learning, especially considering that m-learning has a powerful potential to educate employees that are often temporally and spatially dislocated. Tablet and mobile devices are integrated in daily business activities and their power to transfer that knowledge becomes increasingly valuable.
Below you can check infographic about E-learning and distance learning trends for 2015:
