The digital space is bigger than ever. Nowadays, half of our lives happen on the Internet. Social media networks, information, and all the time spent online is making us evolve, some would say. As everything evolves, so does the learning world. Let’s take a look at five of the most important learning tech trends we’ll be seeing in 2017 and beyond:

Why limit the benefits of design thinking to product development? This specialized way of thinking creates out-of-the-box solutions to problems when it comes to designing new products and services. It has shaken things up in the business world, and its methodology has proven to be useful and applicable to most industries. Now it’s time to bring this method to the eLearning development realm! With design thinking, you’ll be able to analyze all processes and all users more thoroughly to get a well-rounded, integrated view of your course’s impact and how to optimize it. Here are two of the most important lessons you can take away from design thinking:

One of the biggest challenges that any operation deals with is new hire training. Your company likely has a specific way it wants things to be done, and there are often a lot of processes in place too. If you’re dealing with people who’ve been in your organization for a long time, it can be easy to forget how many functions of your business you don’t think about on a daily basis. With a new hire in place, however, you’ll likely be facing some questions about what to do and why it’s done that way. One solution that’s growing in popularity is microlearning.

We’ve come a long way in the ways of corporate training and learning. The history of corporate training and development dates back to 1872 where Hoe and Company established factory schools to help train machinists during the Industrial Revolution. By 1917, corporate training had expanded into “Show, Tell, Do and Check” method from Charles R. Allen where he would walk his shipyard workers through complex processes. By the 1950’s and 1960’s, computers help introduce virtual reality and technology-assisted instruction. As the world becomes more innovative, so are the ways we learn in school, at our jobs, and in life. Gone are the days where onboarding and corporate training is a one size fits all video for employees to learn and engage in. Today, corporate training programs have the choice, from microlearning to custom eLearning development, on how to best train their incoming workforce. As such, these training programs will most likely incorporate current digital trends to not only help engage top talent but help them grow within their career and stay with the company longer. Below are four digital trends that are impacting corporate training and learning, and why organizations should consider incorporating them.

If you assume students are only learning from eLearning courses, you are failing to leverage a huge part of the learning process. Ask yourself where do you learn? Most of us might answer “in a classroom”, but, in reality, the majority of learning comes from other places, like Personal Learning Networks. And these networks are personal, meaning there are no two PLNs that are equal; each of us has a unique range of people we learn from including peers, coworkers, supervisors, experts and other professionals. Today more learners use tools like Google and Wikipedia to acquire new skills and knowledge. They subscribe to personal and professional blogs. Or they ask questions through their social media networks to get the most relevant answers from the members of their PLN.

Social Learning is not a new concept that has just come out of the factory—cloaked in layers of jargons and giving off the appearance of something that is impossible to wrap your wits around. We have been learning socially since ages and doing great at it; we just didn’t know it till Albert Bandura’s Social Learning Theory started to gain prominence in recent times. According to this theory, we learn best when we observe another person and imitate his behavior and actions. When we see our “role models” better their lives and that of others with their actions, we are inspired to learn more. You follow your favorite blogs to learn new ways of writing and how the masters play with the language. You follow art and photography sites to pick up Photoshop tricks and learn DSLR hacks. At work, you observe your peers and seniors to learn the tricks of the trade. We read self-development write-ups to learn how the achievers in our society begin their day, keep away distractions at work, and remain consistently productive. We are learning “socially” almost always. It has been proven that Social Learning is an effective training strategy for the workplace too. What is exciting is that with the advances in digital technology and the influx of social tools, the “social” element can be easily incorporated into eLearning. Because this concept is gaining ground steadily, you would want to know more about it, how your organization can implement it to create more effective training modules, the myths that surround this concept, and how to design an immersive learning experience. Luckily, experts have penned tons of material on Social Learning, and we have cherry-picked 10 of the best resources on the Web to help you find your way through the sea of information out there. The following resources are for you if you are new to the world of Social Learning.

ATD International Conference & Exposition 2016, the world’s largest event dedicated to training and talent development was held last week. A massive turnout of over 14,000 L&D professionals attended the annual 4-day conference which included keynote speakers such as Brené Brown, Simon Sinke, Jeremy Gutsche and many others. Networking opportunities and a chance to learn about cutting-edge techniques and trends also greeted attendees of this world-class event. Even if you weren’t able to attend, you can still catch all the leading thoughts, opinions, and insider insights of industry professionals who tweeted about the event using the hashtag #ATD2016. And we’ve captured the highlights for you here:

It’s time to get serious about playing because when it comes to eLearning, gamification isn't just for fun. While it’s commonly assumed that gamifying your eLearning courses is merely a pleasant distraction or attention grabber, it is far more useful tool than people tend to give it credit for. According to educational video game designer Marc Prensky “students now learn differently than students did even a generation ago” and "you can't hold people's attention the way you used to.” And because of this attention problem, games are becoming more important than ever in making effective eLearning courses for the actual and coming generations. As gamification makes seemingly mundane tasks fun, using it appropriately can boost participation rates in eLearning courses, increase employee motivation and even improve retention. In this post we will take an in-depth look at why gamification can make your eLearning courses more engaging and effective.