A Learning Management System is a software that provides infrastructure, tools and context to deliver an online learning and orientation solution to its learners. These platforms have been around for more than 20 years and have changed very little in that time, but the pandemic has accelerated their transformation. According to Trends Market Research in their April 2021 study, the global NextGen of Learning Management System (LMS) market is expected to reach $40.36 billion by 2026. To achieve this goal, the LMS will disappear in order to be reborn into LXPs (Learning eXperience Platforms)!
LXP is far beyond the experience of classic online learning
Learning Experience Platforms go beyond the needs of training departments and focus more on the needs and experiences of the learners. They are even centred on the learner and his/her experience with a central objective: to facilitate content curation, provide personalised learning paths and other types of recommendations. To do this, they integrate algorithms and artificial intelligence allowing adaptive learning based on the learners’ big data. This is a big deal, given the multitude of possible educational paths.
LXP draws its power from big data analysis
Based on the learner’s usage and profile, LXPs will gather large amounts of data in order to recommend content according to the user’s behavior on this NextGen platform. But not only! It will also advise the learners according to the skills already acquired, those they want to assimilate or those necessary for their evolution towards a targeted job position or simply a new skill. These platforms enable the learner community to be much more involved in their training and employability by giving them the freedom to choose their training modules from a quantitative and qualitative catalogue. However, beyond the catalogue, this may raise the problem of the pedagogical quality of the pathway thus established if there is no parallel academic evaluation of the system.
LXP is augmented thanks to social learning possibilities
Social learning is a collaborative mode of learning that enables the development of knowledge, skills and behaviours through connection to others – collaborators, colleagues or peers, learners, trainers or tutors. Numerous studies have shown that effective teaching methods are those in which the learner is actively involved in learning (active learning). In this case, social learning breaks down the dehumanised aspect of traditional e-learning solutions by reintroducing the learner into the learning process.
The synchronous or asynchronous use of digital media and advanced functions makes this possible across the LXP.
The advantages of integrated social learning:
- Foster the commitment of each learner by encouraging natural interaction between participants around the content and activities
- Encourage the sharing of knowledge and know-how to create a virtuous dynamic
- Increase productivity with integrated authoring tools for creating tutorials, quizzes, surveys and multimedia files
- Optimise training creation and management efforts thanks to the collaborative spaces dedicated to trainers
LXP is learner-centred
By bridging the gap between the worlds of education and business, LXPs enable a rethinking of the learning experience with more human interaction through advanced digital tools that in some ways go beyond technology. It could also change the way we learn to learn in the next few years…
This post gives the views of its author, not the position of ESCP Business School.