The explosion of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) is one eLearning trend that we’ve experienced in the past decade. And New trends are being predicted for 2020, but what are the trends that have stood the test of time?

1. Gamification

Gamification is the process of taking something that already exists – a website, an enterprise application, an online community – and integrating game mechanics into it to motivate participation, engagement, and loyalty. Game mechanics refer to things like leaderboards, point-scoring, and rewards. These aspects of gamification get learners involved and motivate them. Today gamification incorporates the excitement of technologies like augmented reality and animations to make learning more engaging. Gamification is used widely in eLearning and is expected to grow. The global gamification market was valued at $5.5 billion in 2018, and it is estimated to grow 30.31% over the next five years.

2. Personalized learning

All learners have different learning needs and learning capabilities. The industry knows and accepts that students have specific needs and that “one size fits all” has not worked for a long time now. Personalized learning means that students have an option about what course they want to study, and they can also choose how they want to learn, and how much time they want to devote to their studies. Personalized learning engages learners more meaningfully and empowers them to set their own learning goals. With this approach, corporations also find that their employees are more committed to learning and that they achieve higher completion rates.

3. mLearning

Mobile learning or mLearning happens when learning content is accessed using mobile devices. Students today can have access to study materials like video lectures, slide decks, and question banks on their smartphones. mLearning gives learners the freedom to study anytime, anywhere. Using a smartphone to study, your study materials are on hand wherever you go, on your commute to work or in line at the grocery store. Learners can download all their study materials on their phones, tablets, or computers so that videos will play without the need for internet connectivity.

In terms of using a smartphone for studying, a great benefit is the ability to study in short bursts. For most employees, time to study is minimal. That limitation disappears if you can study in short bursts between meetings and during lunch breaks. Some observers even predict that the future of adult learning lies in mobile learning.

4. APIs (Application Programming Interfaces)

Where would the world be without APIs? Not as far along as we are currently. An API is a set of definitions and protocols for building and integrating application software. API stands for an application programming interface. APIs simplify software development, saving time and money.

By using API’s, developers don’t have to write every line of code from scratch; they can use an API that was already written by another software developer. This speeds up development in all spheres of programming and makes it possible for different products and services to communicate with each other and work together. Without APIs, there would be no instant messaging and no Netflix.

 5. Change from Flash to HTML5

eLearning has moved from Adobe Flash to HTML5, and that has been its saving grace. HTML5 is the mark-up language for presenting and structuring the content of the World Wide Web. Remember Flash, that program that invariably crashed just as your video started playing? What a pain. HTML5 does away with that frustration.

For Flash to work, an additional plug-in must be installed, while HTML5 is supported by browsers natively. HTML5 also facilitates data storage that can be accessed offline, whereas Flash requires a lot of processing power, so it delivers content at a slower speed. On the whole, HTML5 has been more successful than Adobe Flash at making access to online courses easy for learners.

eLearning has seen many trends come and go over the years, but these five trends seem to have become timeless.