Dive Brief:

• Steve Penfold, Customer Success Director at Elucidat, an eLearning authoring platform, and contributor to eLearning Industry, shares 6 ways that modern day learners are evolving through the use of new technology.

• Penfold says, “There was once a time when you learned primarily while sitting in a room, listening to a lecture, and perusing assigned readings in paper textbooks. Now, in modern learning environments, the information and skill-acquisition paradigm has evolved to incorporate technology, and a plethora of knowledge sources can leave learners feeling overwhelmed.”

• Penfold urges employers to update their employee learning efforts with more mobile-friendly LMS platforms. He points out that while 70% of modern users use smart phones. Only 12% of corporate education is mobile-compatible.” 

Dive Insight:

The challenge for today’s corporations is to capture learning when and where it happens the most. Penfold mentions that, “The largest amount (52%) of learning occurs at the point of need, or when the learner requires missing information.” Another 47% of learning takes place on weekends and evenings when people are simply browsing for information on mobile devices using the common search engines. 27% of people engage in learning during their daily commutes to and from work.

Statistically, 80% of learners prefer quick online searches as opposed to 40% who absorb information through video webinars and podcasts – deemed too time consuming for attention deficit adults.

According to the cited report The Consumer Learner at Work, produced by Towards Maturity in conjunction with learning provider Filtered, 76% of learners rank quality of the learning materials as priority, while 57% are driven by the need to enhance their careers through earned certifications.