Learning Platforms Are Evolving; Is Your Strategy Keeping Up?

When I think back to the earlier days of my career in elearning, I’m amazed at how “simple” some of the things were in hindsight.

Over the course of a decade the technologies I used to create and host content changed and advanced, but the core task of “create a course, upload it to the LMS” was usually at the foundation of our elearning strategy.

We went beyond the course to support informal, social, and performance support often, but those were always additional resources, technically disconnected from the elearning course that was seen as the core element. The environment around what elearning was in our organization was in many ways limited by the technology landscape we had available to support it.

It was simple then, but the world of learning platforms has exploded in recent years to become much more complex.

It starts with advancements to the LMS platforms we already use, as social, informal, and performance support functionality has been increasing added to increase the value of these systems. There are also entirely new types of platforms emerging including Learning Record Stores, Learning Experience Platforms, Knowledge Management Systems, Microlearning Platforms, & more.

Each of these platforms adds a unique value to an organization’s learning and performance strategy. Where yesterday’s learning infrastructure was built largely around a single technology, the infrastructure that powers tomorrow’s learning orgainzations will likely be built upon a complex ecosystem of multiple technologies working in tandem.

While this new technology landscape is exciting, it can also be overwhelming. For senior learning leaders, understanding what these technologies do and how they enhance workplace performance is critical for making budgetary decisions and building strategies. For designers and developers, understanding the technologies people and how they will use it within their workflow shapes many of the early decisions on what types of solutions need to be built.

Today’s learning professionals need to immerse themselves in this new world in order to properly support it. It’s with this need in mind that has driven the Guild to publish its upcoming Research Report exploring the evolving world of the LMS and Learning Platforms.

This report will explore what people are using today, what they plan to use tomorrow, how important each of these different technologies is to their orgainzations, and more. It’s a report that will help you better understand where learning technology platforms are going, and what you need to do to support them.

This report is based on input from members of our field like you, and we invite you to add your perspective to the report by completing our brief LMS and Learning Platforms Survey at the bottom of this post. Taking a few minutes to complete the survey helps you in two primary ways.

• As you complete the survey you reflect on your answers and the decisions you’ve made related to the questions.
• Your input adds to the pool of responses, making the overall data findings stronger for all who access the report.

We invite you to take a few moments to complete the LMS and Learning Platforms survey. Help yourself, help your peers, and help our industry harness the potential of the new learning platforms landscape.