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Read more Alan Hiddleston
Enterprise Account Director
D2L
Continuing professional
development: enabling a
learning culture
Professionals across a wide range of industries
undertake required continuing professional
development (CPD) every year. Not so long
ago, CPD would have meant committing to
face-to-face training for a number of days in the
year. This still happens, but expectations of
learning are changing, and membership
associations and training providers are
evolving to meet these expectations.
They're responding with digital learning and
training that members can undertake on their
own terms, at their own pace. This involves
much more than simply taking face-to-face
content and putting it online. It starts with
understanding how the way people learn has
changed, and then getting underneath what it
takes to deliver a truly engaging digital learning
experience.
Evolving the learning experience
To attract new members and customers, and
retain existing ones, the learning offering
should be relevant to today's market, and the
learning experience should be exciting and
engaging. To deliver this, organisations are
having to make a digital transformation to
evolve the learning experience and culture for
members and customers.
Adaptability is the cornerstone of modern
digital learning so next generation learning
management systems now provide scope to
tailor and customise learning pathways. This is
set to gather pace as analytics and machine
learning support ever more sophisticated
approaches to customisation.
Interactive and engaging
Content that is interactive and makes use of
multiple formats including video and
techniques used in gaming (such as progress
tracking and reward and recognition), can
engage individuals, even when large numbers
of learners - spanning a broad range of
learning styles - are being trained. A move
away from static content, which is generally
heavy on text and low on interactivity, and
towards a look and feel popularised by online
platforms, such as streaming services and
social media, can help engagement levels.
Digital learning needn't lose the benefit of the
interaction that is highly beneficial to the
process, and which comes naturally in the
classroom. Learning platforms provide the
tools to promote discussion and social
collaboration when training is no longer faceto-face.
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