The Institute of Adult Learning (IAL) had their biennial learning symposium in July this year. As a learning solutions company, it was imperative to attend such a symposium to not only socialise with professionals from the learning and development field, it is also to see how adult training or more importantly adult learning is transforming in Singapore. As part of the company's effort to update ourselves, which includes empowering close to 50 of our staff by sending them for ACTA, attending the Adult Learning Symposium was definitely a must for eLC. The Institute of Adult Learning (IAL) had their biennial learning symposium in July this year. As a learning solutions company, it was imperative to attend such a symposium to not only socialise with professionals from the learning and development field, it is also to see how adult training or more importantly adult learning is transforming in Singapore. As part of the company's effort to update ourselves, which includes empowering close to 50 of our staff by sending them for ACTA, attending the Adult Learning Symposium was definitely a must for eLC.
Theme for this year's Adult Learning Symposium is about Transforming CET by looking at Innovation in Workplace Practice and Learning. It unquestionably resonates with many of us at eLC as we continually strive for innovative learning solutions with emerging technology to meet our client's learning requirements in the most efficient and effective manner. The next thing that gotten us all excited is how the Singapore Workforce is now ready (or is compelled to be ready) to embrace eLearning as part of their training. In order to increase or even maintain the current productivity, and at the same time ensuring the workforce is constantly kept up to date with training, there is no better solution than eLearning.
This notion of how eLearning is important to training the workforce has been sanctioned by Minister Tan Chuan Jin's address in which he announced that "eLearning will become a staple that underpins our future CET framework. eLearning enable our workers to skill up in a more targeted and effective manner...". While we get all excited that eLearning is going to be more prevalent in training, as a learning solutions company whose solution is guided by good pedagogy, we also want to be mindful that the eLearning solution should still abide by good design strategies to ensure learning through eLearning is just as effective, if not more effective, as face to face training. It will be pointless to embark on eLearning blindly and end up having a mammoth of information that is already available to us on our palms via the Internet.
LearningSpace.SG to train Singapore's most valuable resource, our people, online.
So how is it going to be done? Minister Tan continued by announcing IAL's Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC) to help build the capabilities of adults educators to be eLearning ready. "WE ARE ALL READY!" shouts eLC as ensuring our staff is eLearning ready with both basic understanding of pedagogy and the use of two of the most popular eLearning tools are part of every staff's induction programme. What got us further pumped up were presentations on the use of technology to facilitate learning, particularly the keynote on the use of Augmented Reality (AR). AR, which is seen most often in marketing efforts, has lots of potential in the skills training domain. Again, eLC is proud to say we have started our AR research to address learning gaps, and will continue to provide innovative solutions that will empower our clients.
Using AR for Authentic and Situated Learning.
"Besides being an eye-opener to what others are doing in the training and development arena, this symposium has also shown us many opportunities in the year ahead. We at eLC are ready for it!" Enthused Michelle Cheak, Head Instructional Designer.