The big question: What are your predictions for learning in 2008

In addressing this month's question on the Learning Circuits Blog, I was tempted by an observation made by Stephen Downes in his review of last year's eLearn Magazine predictions:

... there are two major types of predictions: one, which identifies a current trend, and says it will continue; and the other, that identifies something novel or unexpected. It seems clear that the former predictions are easy and safe and not especially useful. The latter, while not as safe, were much more useful to people.

Guarded because, like Oscar Wilde, I know I can resist anything except temptation, I decided not to be useful to people but to be honest in my forecasts. I believe learning and development, particularly in the corporate context, to be a curiously conservative profession, which does not rush to make changes of any nature, however convincing the arguments. I believe that we also have to consider the likely economic context, at best difficult and possibly recessionary. As we all know, training budgets are the first to go and we could see some scaling down this year.

So, here's what I think will happen over the next twelve months:

1. Classroom training budgets will be squeezed and instructors may be forced out to join the ever-growing army of technophobic freelancers peddling the same solutions they've been offering for the past 30 years.
2. What classroom training there will be, will be brief and to the point.
3. Where asynchronous e-learning is used - and it will probably be needed to compensate for the reduction in classroom capacity - the emphasis will be on rapid development of the 'good enough' variety, with tightly-squeezed budgets. I'd like to think that subject experts and generalist trainers will be enfranchised as rapid e-learning authors, but progress along this path will be slow.
4. We'll see more online rapid e-learning authoring environments come on the market, perhaps even open source.
5. At the higher end of asynchronous e-learning, we'll see increasing use of serious games and simulations, but progress may be hindered here by tighter budgets in some sectors.
6. For those corporates who don't need a top-end LMS, we'll see an increased use of Moodle and similar open source platforms as a simple and low-cost means for delivery of online and blended programmes.
7. An ever growing proportion of enlightened learning and development professionals will be sold on the vision of informal and bottom-up learning, the concept of connectivism and the general benefits of Web 2.0. In many cases, they will receive a baffled response from their customers. If they're lucky and are given the space to experiment, they'll be confused about what - if anything - they're supposed to do to make it happen.
8. Synchronous e-learning will continue to grow and open source variants such as dimdim will help bring down the cost. Hopefully the pedagogic model for the use of this facility will be more collaborative and less instructional.

I'm sorry, but nothing startling there. On the other hand, I'm optimistic that I won't be far out when Stephen Downes and others come to check these ideas out come December.

And a happy new year to you all!