Guest Blogger:
Nitin Thakrar, Director of eLearning Studios, a ProTech strategic partner
Overcoming Key Learning & Qualification Challenges is Not Rocket Science!
Surmounting the challenges that can often prevent NFPs ensuring that their learners successfully complete their ‘learning’ programmes, is not complex. The key is to deliver learning solutions that learners enjoy, which fully engage them and which make it easy for them to ‘learn’ when they want to.
So, let’s take a look the key challenges NFPs offering learning, education and professional development services face and how they can be overcome:
How to deliver flexible learning solutions that meet the individual needs of the individual learner:
It is important to understand that today’s learner wants easy to access and easy to use learning solutions that are inspiring, fun and enable them to experience and experiment, problem solve and practice applying new skills.
Especially important is the ability to deliver solutions that incorporate learning into a learner’s day job. And for time poor professionals, making sure that learning really is easily accessible and secure – from any device at any time.
A one size fits all service no longer works. Modern learners are looking for a flexible, personalised experience that meets their specific needs. Delivering a flexible and personalised solution can be problematic as it requires a real understanding of who these learners are and their individual learning requirements.
NFPs now need to deliver sophisticated, intelligent and highly integrated solutions to ‘serve up’ flexible and personalised learning content at the right time, in a way that learners can readily consume. Solutions which are capable of defining and tracking the learner journey, at the same time as delivering e-learning and e-assessment capability.
How to deliver ‘e-learning’ solutions that enable learners to study where they want, when they want, how they want:
Technology is changing at an ever-increasing pace and it is imperative that membership and professional qualifications bodies keep up, especially if they want to meet the learning demands of Generation Y.
Generation Y learners are ‘digitally-savvy’ having grown up in an ‘always-on’ environment. The thought of receiving their learning content as a hard copy or sitting in a classroom attending a training course is highly likely to disengage them altogether.
They expect to access their learning content and to carry out their learning online and to monitor their professional qualification career path via a single view of their progress, in a digital format. They expect to access this data when they want, from the communications device of their choice.
NFPs must also engage with and manage learners to continually guide and prompt them towards achieving their desired outcome which also provides additional commercial opportunities for savvy NFPs.
Generation Y learners are more likely to expect e-learning content to be delivered in a variety of ways, tailored to their individual needs. For example, gamification of e-learning is seen as a growing trend that will continue to rise in popularity, alongside virtual reality.
More and more organisations across all business sectors are realising the learning benefits which Virtual Reality (VR) can deliver. VR is the most immersive learning technology giving learners a powerful sense of presence in a virtual environment. VR has been rapidly adopted by a wide variety of industries for learning and training in both subject specific skills such as Health & Safety training, as well as soft skills such as communication and teamwork.
How to deliver solutions that ensure learners are compliant with constantly changing legislation:
In a world where governance and compliance is seen as vital to the healthy management of any business, the ability to monitor and track the status of professionals performing specific roles within the organisation (e.g. audit, risk) as well as employees more broadly is of utmost importance.
E-learning has a key role to play as it is a highly efficient and cost effective method of delivering required learning content.
Delivering the learning is however, only part of the story. It is also necessary to identify when the learning is required, by whom and how effective it was.
To adhere to governance and compliance legislation requires highly integrated solutions that bring together the definition of the ‘programme’ of learning required to achieve or maintain compliance, together with the target audience for the learning. Learning content should be distributed in a proactive manner and monitored to ensure it is completed successfully.
There is no single system that can deliver these complex and diverse requirements, so integration is key.
Learners are no different from modern consumers, hence their demands will continue to increase. In a competitive environment, those NFPs that can offer e-learning solutions that engage and interest the individual learner, will undoubtedly reap the benefits.
Author & Guest Blogger: Nitin Thakrar, Director, eLearning Studios
eLearning Studios, an official ProTech systems integration partner offers a portfolio of learning technology design and development services including eLearning, Mobile Learning, Gameful eLearning Design, Apps, Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR), Serious Games and blended solutions.
Thakrar has extensive expertise in developing e-learning strategies gained from working with education institutions to ensure the effective implementation of these strategies which take into account the learner journey and how it adds value to the organisation.
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