It is January 2020, the start of a new decade, characterized by a proliferation of articles predicting trends that will dominate the learning industry. These articles always seem to put pressure on me to quickly learn new skills before my skillset becomes obsolete. Only one article predicted that HTML5 would replace Flash. Really! I decided to do that over five years ago! That trend was a long time coming.
This made me take another look at predictions from a long-term perspective. Considering how long it takes for popular trends to make a real-world impact, I selected four popular trends that will not become game changers in 2020. These are in no particular order.
- Learning Experience Platform (LXP) and xAPI
- Immersive Learning with AR/VR
- Adaptive/ Personalized Learning with AI
- Personalized Learning with LI (Learner Intelligence)
The first three have a high overhead that will slow their adoption. Most implementations require a third-party platform or special equipment, additional costs, and a learning curve. All four are relatively new to the industry with few cases studies and examples. Are these implementations useful and likely to become a valuable addition to the learning community? Yes, eventually. Are they worthy of our study and investment? I believe they are.
Which brings me to a New Year’s resolution. What can we do in 2020 to advance our skills in a meaningful way? If you have the resources to invest in an LXP, VR, or AI, that is great. If not, we can start designing personalized learning courses without the high costs or steep learning curve. You can quickly learn about the LI Adaptive Design model and download free templates from LearnerIntelligence.org. The experience of designing adaptive courses now will make it much easier to adopt AI and xAPI as they mature and move into the mainstream because many of the skills are similar. You can wait a trend to develop and play catch-up, or you can be a trend leader. What will your New Year, resolution be?