What are the top three e-learning trends to look out for in 2015?

The e-learning landscape is changing rapidly. With tablet sales predicted to outpace PC sales in the next 12 months, 2015 could be a key year for growth in the e-learning industry – both for businesses and individual learners. In this blog post we look ahead to the three key trends to look out for.Desktop with tabletMobile learning will explode in popularityAccording to projections by Gartner, a total of 320 million tablet sales will be made in 2015, compared to 316 million PC sales. Thats going to put a lot of mobile technology in the hands of people who’ve never had the opportunity to access e-learning in this way before. Just as the concept of Video on Demand is changing the way we watch television, the idea of Learning on Demand (or Courses on Demand) is likely to lead to a seismic shift in the way learners access training and development materials online. A number of short course providers have sprung up in recent years and content tailored specifically to mobile learning (short, bite-size and interactive) is going to become increasingly available for every subject area or interest. BYOD will become accepted in the workplaceThe explosion in tablet and smartphone usage is rapidly changing working practices. The days when handheld devices, such as mobile phones, had to be kept out of sight in the workplace are surely behind us. Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) is a concept that has been around for a couple of years but many businesses have been reluctant to embrace the concept, mainly for data security and IT support reasons. However, as more workers are getting their hands on the technology, organisations are beginning to see the potential for mobile devices to increase collaboration and productivity. As BYOD policies become formalised, expect to see staff encouraged to make use of their own technology whether working in the office or remotely. e-learning for onboarding will become the normInducting and training new employees is a challenge for businesses both small and large. With an increase in flexible working practices, such as part-time and remote workers, online training can play a key role in getting new staff up to speed quickly. Training can be delivered at a time to suit both the business and the new employee. It can be scalable and cost effective and, combined with principles such as BYOD mentioned above (e.g. allowing staff to access unfamiliar training on a device familiar to them) will shorten the learning curve for new employees and let them focus on their job from day one.