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During the height of the dot-com boom, e-learning was touted as the way of the future. And even in the midst of the dot-bomb, the sector bucked the collapse of the IT industry, promising cost savings for cash-strapped blue chips.
But on Wednesday a number of top industry executives, from Ireland and abroad, discussed the present state of the sector as well as its future status, admitting that the industry was not living up to expectations. Kieran McBride, the chief executive at Irish localisation company Transware, may have summed up the notions of some attendees best when he said, "The e-learning plane has not left the runway; the ship has not left the slip; there just isn't any content."
In the wake of the dot-com collapse, the sector was pegged as a major cost cutting tool for companies worried about their bottom lines. "Unfortunately the CFO is a heck of a lot more suspicious with claims about technology in general than he was three or four years ago; and perhaps rightfully so," said Greg Priest, chief executive of Irish e-leaning giant SmartForce.
Nevertheless, Elliott Masie, the person behind the Third Annual International E-Learning Festival and head of the New York-based think-tank, the Masie Center, told ElectricNews.Net that the e-learning sector is in fact at the point where industry leaders thought it would be four years ago. "Although demand seems to be high, we are still in the early days," he said.
Moreover, he, and most of the other speakers at the three-day event held in Dublin's Burlington Hotel, remain confident of where the industry is going. Masie paints a picture of an e-learning environment where learning becomes an integral part of any business process, is easy to use and runs on standard technologies.
What Priest, Masie and some of the other executives also envision is a world where e-learning applications are deployed in a plug and play environment, and corporations who wish to train employees can select different applications from different vendors. Another point the speakers made was that e-learning will eventually be seen primarily for its ability, not to cut costs, but to make workers more productive, easier to train, and smarter, Masie said.
Still, most of the panel agreed, in one year's time the e-learning world will still look much the same as it does today, which according to end users is fairly disappointing. In fact Masie pointed out that despite some of the hype and predictions about what users can expect in the future, the number one application currently used for developing new e-learning content is still PowerPoint.
But he told ElectricNews.Net that in three years, the use of applications such as instant messaging and even games would make the sector much more compelling. "In a few years time, I think the killer e-learning 'app' will be simulations, which will grow out of the use of games," Masie said.
Also over the next few years, big industry players such as SmartForce will continue to hunt for acquisitions, Masie predicted, commenting on the firm's proposed merger with SkillSoft. "I see them making one or two more acquisitions after that," he said. At the same time bigger, more established software firms will enter the fray, Masie believes, pointing to the likes of SAP, PeopleSoft and Oracle.
Other forecasts by Masie include the use of e-learning tools for everyone, from patients to steel workers and from office managers to consumers.
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