7 Reasons To Use More Technologies In Learning And Development

The undeniable truth is that there has been a huge rise in technologies in the last decade or so. Technologies transformed our world and, guess what, learning approaches have gone through lots of transformation because of that too. People are facing new and exciting ways of learning delivered online in a virtual environment. The learning process is offered through online courses, virtual classes, and 1-1 online consultations now. Since online learning has conveyed emotional engagement quite successfully, it just keeps growing. Online learning is serving up a whole new universe of fresh opportunities to those who want to learn.

Digital learning is on the edge of its popularity today and has been appreciated by many businesses, industries, corporate establishments, and mega conglomerates. Online learning is utilized by the majority of nonprofits, private and public companies, small and medium-sized enterprises. Why is online learning so appreciated? The answer is simple – online learning equals an opportunity for growth and expansion.

Moreover, it is evolving into something bigger than just an entertaining way of absorbing knowledge. Digital learning has proved itself reliable and effective for the delivery of the most up-to-date information to employees. This is so contributive to the process of fostering new ideas, professional growth, and overall success that companies just can’t say “no” to online learning.

In this blog post, we’ll talk about reasons why the latest “serious learning games” and systems of management of virtual reality keep gaining popularity. And, yeah, forget about Multi Open Online Courses or so-called MOOCs. It’s history now. Let’s look at the reasons why the newest technologies should be used for the development of online learning experiences. We’ll cover the reasons why technology is engaged in online learning. And why it has been heavily utilized by many companies at the workplace today.

Reason 1. Technology triggers new personalized learning styles.

Obviously, at work people get engaged in the same professional processes. Or they are united by the same set of professional goals. But still, each one of these people would clearly use his/her own individual strength and learning approaches which help them the most to absorb knowledge. Whenever it comes down to learning, you can’t treat every member of staff exactly the same way. For example, one person would get a good grasp of everything learned only with practicing. And another person learns the best by reading, writing everything down, as well as going over his/her notes over and over again. So, if you would take a closer look at the people who you have on staff in your company, you’d see that there is an issue in terms of effective ways of learning. And most likely the whole training needs some improvement. This is when learning and development or, so-called, L&D strategies come into play.

Frankly, L&D strategies allow shifting away from the outdated learning approaches (where everybody is treated the same) to more vast, as well as practical learning solutions. This becomes possible with the effective use of technology. Technology provides all the means to monitor the personal learning performance of students. Then all collected data is applied to digital tools and online resources for being recorded. Consequently, each student gets an opportunity to learn at his own pace and approach learning with a personalized style.

It’s already a proven fact that the information absorbs much better when learning management systems involve such effective authoring tools like learning games with gamified content. Learning games have been highly effective in learning environments. This approach makes learning fun. Still, learning games are capable of developing excellent learning strategies. These strategies effectively cover any topic required by the training program. Learning games deliver impressive outcomes to both – participated employees and employers.

Reason 2. Technology makes learning flexible.

Let’s pretend you have about 500 employees on staff who you need to get through training on the newest updates for corporate policies. These updates were created for the latest “work-from-home” requirements, which are extremely important now because of coronavirus. The biggest challenge here would be to omit those popular in-person meetings somehow. Why? Because of all these coronavirus restrictions, in-person meetings are no longer possible. That’s where technology becomes handy with virtual broadcasts and Zoom meetings.

Sure, this solution doesn’t make everything easy either. The reason is that there are always some people who would forget to switch a camera on during those Zoom meetings. Plenty of folks would immediately feel bored and not willing to learn. The other won’t engage and retain information. We are not even talking about a huge volume of questions that managers have to deal with during virtual meetings. Not to mention all this time that goes to waste while they try to connect or call the right person who is able to give all the answers.

But what about engaging everybody into a game? Just arrange a particular time when employees need to log on to a training session all at once and give them about an hour for going through everything. You can program learning games in this process if you think it will help. Set a duration for those games and make them as long as is necessary. While your staff will be too busy playing a serious game and moving up to the next level, learners will be memorizing all-new ‘work-from-home” policies while playing a game.

Some people need more time to get everything done, some less. On average, 60 minutes is enough for most people to complete everything in the given session. Of course, some people will eventually fail without being able to move ahead to the next level. In this case, he/she just can go through the tough section all over again and as many times as it’s needed for passing.

This learning style is called “the streamlining approach”. The HR staff makes sure that everything is covered and learning material is understood correctly. Whenever the HR team sees that people are having a hard time with a particular level in the game, they have a chance to make all necessary adjustments as fast as possible.

By conveying technology to streamline learning processes, it is possible to cut any noise out. You can sort out all the information in order to provide everything in digestible formats just to make it easier to remember. Obviously, technology saves a great deal of time and money. This is very much appreciated by the HR staff since it frees up more resources and lets them focus more on other important tasks. For example, finding effective thought-solutions to support those staff members whose health suffered from COVID-19. Or to develop effective measures for supporting people who are getting back to their workplace after the quarantine.

Reason 3. Technology delivers adaptive learning by welcoming AI.

When you think about AI (or Artificial Intelligence) technology and its integration into different work processes, the first thing that usually comes to mind – it is very expensive. The other problem is that it’s really tough to understand AI technologies. And some people can’t really get a good grasp on them. This makes it difficult to put AI into actual use on the job.

Some folks might not even have heard of AI ever before. They wonder – what the heck is this anyway? Let’s put it simply. AI analyses streams of data and then builds models for making all kinds of predictions. AI derives conclusions by anticipating certain events that might take place in the nearest future. What AI has to do with Learning and Development solutions? Actually, AI offers effective ways of resolving problems that even large corporations face nowadays.

Imagine a large business with thousands of members on the staff in the customer support department. All these employees need to go through training to update skills in customer support management. For example, they have to learn about new changes that took place in GDPR legislation. Here come AI-backed learning management systems for delivering excellent learning outcomes. These systems achieve outstanding results by combining learning programs with a game-based approach. Everybody develops his own unique way of learning without any extra work and no hassle. This is an excellent substitute for lengthy webinars, workshops, massive emailing, or Word docs containing a huge amount of tasks that nobody really wants to read.

An outline of AI-backed technology capabilities used for L&D systems:

• Allows a simultaneous and effective interaction/cooperation with different departments (from customer support service to HR department);
• Monitors the overall training performance of each staff member;
• Identifies individual skills by collecting, recording data; then using this data for building data models that are easy to consume;
• Adapts learning processes adjusting them to the needs and requirements on the personalized level;
• Make sure that each participant meets all learning outcomes required by the training session.
• Ensures that the training process has been delivered properly.

Those employees, who couldn’t catch up with learning, will be supported by AI-backed learning solutions particularly appropriate to them. No secret, some people do have a hard time focusing during learning. Or they can’t overcome certain barriers during the learning process. In this case, the AI-backed technology will identify what particular issues people ran into and provide appropriate assistance with the additional support. Eventually, these team members get through the training successfully reaching their learning goals.

Reason 4. Technology delivers instant feedback to learners.

No secret, we live in a fast-paced environment today. And most people expect to get everything done or delivered to them with just a blink of an eye. It almost seems like everything becomes instant now – instant coffee, instant messaging, instant gratification, etc. People are willing to spend less and even less time on training. But there is always the other side of the coin. Many folks become demotivated with ease or lose interest if they can’t seem to get something instantly or right away. Again, learning technology helps by:

• Building smart applications;
• Creating time management software;
• Offering gamified content in learning which is conveyed into serious games;
• Providing instant feedback, whenever a participant clicks on this “done” button.

Instant feedback can come in flashy pie charts (which employees like so much). Pie charts are handy for measuring achievements. Feedback also comes in scorecards to show proof that they’ve been doing great. It can be shaped in the format of leader boards for demonstrating success. At the same time, employers are also very much interested in getting feedback to make sure that L&D strategies have been delivered properly. And the other reason is to make sure that teams experience constant improvements during training.

No matter what kind of technology was chosen for building a training program (whether it was just a stand-alone tool or a whole learning management system). Still, it will be able to deliver and collate learning material smoothly. As a result, L&D teams will be provided with actionable feedback, which is great.

Reason 5. Learning became mobile because of technologies.

A global prediction is that in the nearest future there will be not less than 4 billion people with smartphones on hand. Since all virtual resources (social media and learning platforms) can be accessed on mobile phones now, this makes mobile learning (or mLearning) progressively eminent for workplaces too. Most websites are so responsive in design today that can be easily downloaded on your mobile phone or any other mobile device that you use.

No wonder why many people use mobile devices for learning on-the-go and for accessing any downloadable content to use it later offline. Needless to say, none of this would be possible without technology. mLearning would never come into play if there was no power of technologies engaged in learning processes. Thanks to technologies, we can already see an enormous positive impact on the learning outcomes and learning development systems.

Reason 6. Cloud-based technology provides access to learning anywhere.

As cloud-based technologies become progressively popular, companies use “the cloud” for storing data, as well for interactions. Since cloud servers can be found in data centers all over the place, this makes it accessible through the Internet from any location in the world.

Today, cloud-based technologies offer awesome learning solutions to those businesses, which already use cloud technologies heavily. Why is the cloud so great in terms of learning? Cloud-based learning steers companies away from linear or even restrictive styles of training. As an alternative, it offers personalized and all-in training that can be accessed from anywhere and everywhere in the world. As long as there is Internet available.

Reason 7. Technology provides effective solutions for efficient time management.

Most workplaces face the challenge of busy work schedules. This puts lots of pressure on people who have to look for ways to juggle those priorities without leaving anything behind. Consequently, time pressure convinces employees to put L&D systems at the top of the priorities list. Why? Because many staff members recognize professional development as a very important or even vital aspect of any job. Even LinkedIn’s recent statistics stated that not less than 94 percent of employees want their employers to make investments in their professional training and development. This is a crucial aspect for many workers, which can actually affect their final decision whether they want to stick with the company for longer or not.

Here is how learning technologies resolve issues of dull and ineffective training which employees have been avoiding actively:

• Offer personalized, flexible, cloud-based training that fits into schedules effectively;
• Capture and retain attention with intensive gameplay sessions;
• Provide quick interactive quizzes that deliver outstanding results;
• Teach challenging or complex learning material in exciting, but yet, relevant ways.

Finally, there is no room for shyness or embarrassment in a virtual learning space. Everything is set up with a purpose to diminish the feeling of fear of failure. Online learning provides lots of opportunities for constructive and collaborative work while going over the mistakes and correcting them. Those, who have never been confident group speakers can start doing exceptionally well and get a good grasp on the topic.

Conclusion

Technology is essential for learning and effective L&D strategies. But one important thing that needs to be always kept in mind is that all the data needs to be used correctly and responsibly. Only in this case technology will provide a massive help for businesses that utilize L&D strategies. The primary goal here is to develop an excellent learning and development program that will be most effective for upskilling and challenging employees on a regular basis.

Every employer wants to see his company flourish. And it doesn’t really matter what age range of workers you have on staff. Everybody will contribute once they’ve gone through the effective training. So, adopt technology wisely and responsibly because it’s important for both – new and experienced workers. Invest your efforts into L&D strategies and you’ll cultivate a great work commitment among employees. Odds are they will be coming to work with a great deal of excitement each day feeling a great dedication to their job.