Encouraging Mind-blowing 2013 eLearning Stats: Needed new approach

Our belief: At Vignettes Learning we use stories in eLearning; however, we make them interactive. The emphasis is getting learners involved in the story and not just telling the learners the story.  
Synthesis. This blog presents exciting stats on the steady growth of the elearning sector. These encouraging facts and figures may give elearning developers added perspective on the other levels of elearning which they can further explore and develop.

Certifyme.net lists “The Top 10 statistics about the eLearning Market 2013.” Highlights include:

1. eLearning is a $56.2 Billion business and is likely to double in size before 2015.
2. The U.S. and Europe utilize 70% of the world’s eLearning, but Asia Pacific is gaining ground.
3. The fastest growing eLearning markets are Vietnam and Malaysia.
4. 7% of American Corporations use online learning.
5. 72% of companies surveyed, report that eLearning keeps them on top of their industry changes.
6. In 2011, 51% of companies did at least one training session with eLearning to more than 50% of their employees.
7. Corporations save 50-70% when they replace instructor-based training with eLearning.
8. eLearning classes are generally 25-60% shorter in duration than traditional classes.
9. 23% of employees leave their jobs because the position lacks opportunity for development and training.
10. Online education is proven to increase knowledge retention by 25-60%.

The world is awakening to the wonders of eLearning. This is great. What we need to caution ourselves about is the tendency to step back just as we are moving forward.

Do we invest time to think through the elearning courses, or do we just replicate conventional classroom paradigms in our Moodles? My suspicion is that the early attempts of elearning adopters were for the immediate transfer of content into elearning format. This was understandable during the starting phase of the elearning industry.

In the early years of elearning, less thought was given to organizing content to make them engaging. Eventually, elearning professionals realized that just doing conversion without rethinking the content for elearning produces boring learning material which learners are not inclined to complete.

While the stats mentioned above are encouraging, elearning developers must continue to move forward: throw out the superfluities of the conventional, but keep the essential. Take advantage of the current technologies, tools, software and hardware that can further innovate the industry.

Read my related blog:
“Brain Freeze: Does your eLearning System Cause Learning Paralysis?”

References:
Important Statistics about the eLearning Market for 2013