Trends in the e-learning world

E-learning has been around for more than half a decade now. Many Filipino organizations, especially in the academic sector, have been getting on board the e-learning wagon. Those who have not are also planning to implement some form of electronic learning. So to help us all understand how e-learning is changing and moving our world, let’s examine the trends we have witnessed in the past five years or so. Schools which have been embracing this technological breakthrough for a number of years would make the best "specimens."

Trend: Customization

When e-learning started, there weren’t many options. Content came in a pre-designed "box." Learning Management Systems were not even prevalent. Basically, what you see was what you got. Now, sophisticated Learning Management Systems give us the option to input our own ideas and creative style into an already existing course; authoring tools allow us to create specialized content from scratch.

We now hear about intellectual property in the e-learning world. Schools, like La Consolacion Manila, which plan to release their own customized content for certain specialized courses now boast of ownership of content and imputing professors’ styles into the learning design. So who needs the boxed approach? This brings me to another trend.

Trend: Off-The-Shelf Content

Since we have already discussed the advantages of customizing one’s content, we now go into the so-called "canned" courses. These are titles already available in the market, pre-designed and ready to use, so to speak. The trend nowadays is to use off-the-shelf courses for three categories. The first is for general subjects such as finance, accounting, etc. These courses are not specialized enough for the schools to create their own trademarked courses. Because finance and accounting principles have not changed over the past many years, there is no need to "reinvent the wheel." AMA Education Systems adopted these online courses and was able to deploy e-learning to its students in the shortest time available. On the other hand, another category of subjects which are frequently subscribed from off-the-shelf catalogs are those that change so quickly. The reason is because schools cannot invest too much time, effort and resources in subject areas that keep changing. The perfect examples of these are software and IT-related subjects. Software versions become obsolete every six to eight months and so do their respective training materials. So instead of continuously having to update your content, you might as well just subscribe to what is already available. This is a fact well-known by Lyceum of the Philippines students with the recent upgrade of their curriculum from Office 2000 to Office 2003. The last category is for courses which need the stamp of approval of a governing body. For example, Oracle course content must, of course, come from Oracle itself. It is impractical for schools to use Oracle courses which are not at least recognized by Oracle. And because San Sebastian College values vendor certification for its IT students, it makes sure that the e-learning subjects it subscribes to are vendor-accredited.

The end-result and major advantage of using off-the-shelf content is the low cost, applying the principle of economies of scale – using the same course for a large number of learners brings down the cost per learner as evident with almost all of STI schools’ implementation of Office Productivity e-learning courses.

Trend: Learning Management System (LMS)

A few years back, Learning Management Systems (LMSs) were too expensive. Almost all schools could not afford a decent LMS. Now that LMSs are more affordable and schools are realizing the benefits of maximizing the features of the software, most academic institutions have chosen to upgrade their LMSs. Some major considerations of schools in choosing an LMS are the following:

(Note that there are approximately seven to eight major considerations of schools in choosing an LMS. This is a separate topic that will be discussed in future editions. I have named three below.)

Compliance

The Technological Institute of the Philippines (TIP), which is now ISO-certified, is very particular about international compliance. The two major governing bodies for accreditation are the AICC and SCORM. Therefore, TIP specifically chose an LMS with the approval of these international e-learning committees in line with its being a recent ISO-certified academic institution.

More Features

As mentioned earlier, schools are learning to maximize the features of their LMS. An LMS is not only used to deploy courses and assign users, but there are now endless possibilities. Some of these include being able to post and read announcements from professors and/or students, upload any document or file that the professors want their students to review, and provide the school a cost accounting function to check the e-learning system’s profitability.

Integration

Almost all schools are now computerized. Enrollment is the most common and probably the first to be computerized. At Isabela State University (ISU), plans of computerizing its entire system, from enrollment to report card retrieval, are in line with having a complete e-learning system, with an LMS that allows automatic retrieval of grades. In addition, its e-learning courses provide students access to the electronic learning world.

Trend: Intranet And Online Availability

San Beda Alabang has always prided itself in providing an up-to-date system in the delivery of courses for the academic development of its students. Four computer laboratories, inclusive of a Macintosh lab, host its e-learning system. San Beda College Alabang also believes that blended learning is the way to go. This is why the e-learning courses were made available not only to the classroom program, but to the online program as well, making the courses accessible even from the students’ homes.

Trend: Simulations

Thirty years ago, e-learning was delivered in static pages. The most "technically savvy" detail of a course would be graphics. If you present that now to students, they will surely get bored in less than a minute. With their exposure to all sorts of 3D video games, students will not be contented with just static pages and graphics. They need to practice to learn. That is why simulations are very important to schools. Schools make sure that before subscribing to e-learning courses, they check out how the content is delivered, how the learning design is arranged and if the methodology of teaching is effective. At EDNAS School Dagupan and San Carlos, Pangasinan, its grade and high school students are learning IT subjects through the use of actual software simulations imputed into the e-learning course. As a result, it has seen a remarkable increase in the learning curve of its students as they now "learn through practicing."

In these dynamic times, IT, and more specifically e-learning, will be ever-changing. But these changes need not be a cause for concern as they make technology in our schools better. All you need is an open mind to accept change, support from the management and a vendor which will help you through it all. Because at the end of the day, a successful e-learning world benefits all of us.

NOTE: All company names, their trademarks and copyrights are the ownership of the respective companies.

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Arlene K. Yap-Tan is the chief executive officer of Yapster eLearning Inc., which has been providing e-learning and classroom training services for five years to more than 80,000 learners around the world. With more than 1,500 subject titles, Yapster eLearning is accredited by local and international institutions. For more information, visit www.2studyit.com. For comments, e-mail at [email protected].