E-Learning as Revolution or Evolution?

Based on recent academic literature, this report will argue that contemporary trends in e-learning respond, mostly, to an evolutionary process occurring in organisational Learning and Development. This relatively new methodology of training seems to have emerged from the need of finding cost-effective practices informed by cognitive theories that may offered reassurance for their return of investment. When compared to other alternative teaching modalities, it becomes evident that e-learning principles have strong similarities with programmed learning, especially that which advocated the use of machines for delivering instructional content. As a result, increasingly complex applications of new technology which incorporated mobile and even virtual devices seem to have produced a fully functional customisable training tool capable of operating just-in-time around the world. In this coming-of-age, the literature around e-learning appears to have generated new definitions for L&D theory and practice, consequently shifting organisational expectations of what instructional design should achieve when addressing knowledge, attitudes and skills required at the workplace.