Businesses need to take a more targeted approach to e-learning, according to a recent industry round table discussion. The panel agreed that, as the e-learning market becomes saturated with mobile applications, businesses need to provide employees with more focused learning opportunities to see greater benefits.

Jon Toothill, client services director at Lightbox Education, said, “With regards to technology supporting learning, it is important to consider what people actually want to learn. At the moment there seems to be an app for everything, but how many get used and how much of the e-learning collateral out there is on subjects that people actually want to learn? This is what should drive us.”

Michael Wilkinson, director at i-education, added, “It’s about empowering people to make the best choices about how to access learning, how to capture learning and how to connect with other people to explore that further. It’s about providing the right tools, whether it is using a mobile device, taking a video, audio diary or even a photograph.”

Ultimately, it was agreed that the technology must support the learning and not vice versa. Unlike in the past when it was the technology that excited people, businesses must adopt a pedagogue approach to continue to reverse this.

The panel at the round table discussions, held in association with UKFast, was completed by Gavin Hubbard, market strategist at LearndirectTony Lowe, managing director at Webducate, and Dan Sodergren of Great Marketing Works.

Comment: The findings of this round table panel raise some important issues and seem in sympathy with the story below (The rise and fall of ‘e’).