Professional Learning Has Gone Digital For Good

It certainly feels like digital learning is the new norm with students taking Zoom classes and a 150% year-over-year increase in adult learners migrating toward this futuristic method of knowledge and skill development. EdTech companies were greeted with a massive influx of organic demand, leaving sales teams and early investors frothing for new venture opportunities. After steady annual gains, the industry had finally broken out on a global scale with some unparalleled growth in … *check notes* … 2018??

No, this is not a typo. Despite ubiquitous declarations of this is unprecedented and everything we know is uprooted, the digital learning space was gaining massive momentum during the ‘pre-Covid’ era, as educators around the world saw value in leveraging technology to deliver learning programs. The increase in demand and importance of digital education was punctuated with necessity; global in-person gatherings have always been limited. There are far too many compelling statistics that illustrate the popular support for EdTech’s growth, which is timely, because it is tasked with filling a gargantuan global role for evolving education as we know it.

This all leads to one simple insight: Learning has changed for good, and for the better.

EdTech investment outpaced many other industries in 2020. There are now 20 EdTech unicorns (billion dollar companies) and more of these companies are raising hundreds of millions of dollars by the Series. A few years ago, the pundits on CNBC would have made a case against what was a formerly speculative market. You’d hear authoritative snarky quips along the lines of, “you’ll never replicate the value of teaching someone face-to-face.” Now everyone wants a piece of the action as the new standard of learning as ushered in a digitized era of education.

Learner expectations have been set for a while with almost one-third saying they had taken some form of online class prior to 2019. Even in in-person-focused programs like engineering, students expect access to digital lectures, notes, textbooks, office hours, and electronic submissions of assignments and tests. It’s easy to see why many learners preferred digital learning before the pandemic.

The benefits of online learning were augmented when most education and training programs shifted to a completely virtual realm. Convenience, broader and open access, user-specific pacing, and flexible scheduling highlighted learner impacts. Meanwhile, educators and institutions benefited from administrative automation, modular curriculum implementation, and generation of novel data and insights on learners — all of which provided highly efficient program delivery.

Many programs are expanding beyond simple content digitization, with digital workbooks that include engaging activities, multimedia content, instant messaging, gamification, and micro-credentialing. The massive uptick in technology available to organizations has led to proportional innovations around user experience and content delivery tools.

While some education and training programs will always find core value with face-to-face delivery, digital delivery will be a necessary supplement to keep learners satisfied and their programs engaging. It is likely that learners will demand remote access to educational resources as a prerequisite for their registration in the coming years. It is simply becoming unreasonable to not offer virtual learning, given the technology available.

There’s good news for programs that are lagging behind the trends: It’s easier and more affordable than ever to implement technology in learning programs. Content digitization takes weeks not years, and intuitive UX design allows even the most technologically inexperienced program managers to master their digital channels.

At this rate of e-learning adoption, soon enough, virtual reality will be the new standard for professional learning. A techie can only dream…