The e-learning landscape has certainly changed since its mainstream inception in the 1990’s. When it first became popular, most online training was in the form of text with a few graphics. This type of training was often unaffectionately referred to as “e-reading”. It did not have much instructional advantage over print-based training materials, although it did provide ease of modification, a lower cost of deployment, and increased speed of delivery. As e-learning became more popular, many companies began creating “catalog courses.” These courses were developed and sold as “off-the-shelf” training and covered various topics from accounting to network administration. Many of these courses were also e-reading in nature, but some raised the bar and began including interactive practice activities and animated content presentations. While these catalog courses enjoyed some initial popularity, so many companies developed the courses that they quickly became a commodity. Several of these catalog course companies did not survive the technology sector downturn in 2000 and 2001. Consequently, the catalog course companies that exist today have decreased the amount of their offerings and/or focused on specific markets.

Even during the reign of the catalog course giants, another e-learning trend was starting to gain a larger share of the market. This was the custom e-learning offering. Customers began to realize the value of e-learning courses that were built specifically for their training needs. Many of the e-learning courses that are being developed today are custom courses. Companies have chosen to outsource this work to e-learning companies that specialize in custom course development and have the instructional and creative staff necessary to create high-quality courseware. As custom e-learning courses have gained in popularity, the media technologies used to augment and deliver the training have also improved. Custom e-learning companies are now competing to offer the most visual, highly interactive, media-rich e-learning courses available. This trend will continue as company networks and home broadband access are increasingly able to handle the high network bandwidth these courses require.

It’s obvious that the advantage e-learning provides to organizations has made it a popular choice for training delivery. The advantages of mass distribution, tracking of learner performance, and interactive courseware, to name a few, have provided e-learning with staying power in the training industry. Of course, most companies are not switching entirely to e-learning for their training needs. Many have chosen to adopt a “blended” approach, by which they use e-learning when it is most appropriate and instructor-led or other methods when they provide a distinct instructional or business advantage. For example, a sales manager may want to provide a week-long instructor-led training session but does not have the budget or time to pull his sales force out of the field. Instead, he may choose to create a course that includes both an e-learning “pre-work” course and a one-day instructor-led workshop. Topics that would normally be delivered via a lecture can be studied by the sales force through the e-learning course before the workshop, allowing the sales manager to focus the workshop on training that is more easily facilitated by face-to-face interaction, such as role playing activities. These blended approaches are becoming an increasingly popular way to provide a “best of both worlds” training solution.

So, if e-learning is here to stay, what does the future of e-learning look like? Many experts in the field say that the future of the e-learning industry is simulations. A simulation is an interactive computer program that simulates some aspect of the learner’s environment or job tasks.