The E-Learning Revolution - The Gartner Group forecast on online training - Brief Article

Training & Development, Dec, 2000 by Patricia A. Galagan

The effects of e-learning on the training profession are revolutionary, challenging most of its basic tenants. The change comes from outside influences: new players in other disciplines, forces in the supplier market, and the kind of learning that technology is increasingly making possible.

According to Peter Drucker--who might be associated more with traditional approaches--it's all about e-learning these days. He says that traditional skills training will still exist in this new world, but the growth sector is in concept learning, in which "the trainer is built into the teaching (or learning) device."

Roger Shank, director of the Institute for Learning Sciences at Northwestern University, says that technology has given training "the possibility of one-on-one for every learner, the ability to stimulate, and the chance to try stuff out and fail in private."

The Gartner Group predicts that by 2003, less than 30 percent of formal corporate learning programs will employ the traditional classroom model. Clark Aldrich, an analyst with GartnerGroup, urges companies to "reexamine their core processes, including customer service and employee management, though the lens of an e-learning strategy."

As CEOs restructure their businesses around the Internet and require employees to gain new knowledge rapidly, e-learning becomes even more crucial. But Jeff Schwartz, a partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers, sees many training executives trying to complement instructor-led approaches with technology, instead of determining first how things could be done differently by using e-learning.

Galagan goes on to discuss trends in training brought on by thee-learning revolution,