Auckland startup launches 'revolutionary' online platform for bite-sized learning
New Zealand businesses now have access to 'bite-sized' e-learning modules after Auckland-based startup Modlettes officially launched its online platform today.
After four years in the making, the company has produced peer-to-peer "modlettes" - small training modules with the goal of making online learning easier for businesses.
The modlettes can consist of video, audio, graphics, text and quizzes. Any staff member with permission can create a modlette for their organisation with a few touches on their smartphone, the company says.
Docebo's E-Learning Market Trends - Forecast 2014 - 2016 Report forecasts that the e-learning industry is worth around $70 billion worldwide, and is increasing by 8% per year. The Asian market is expected to grow at a faster 17% per year.
This, the company says, is because e-learning has numerous benefits and is more effective than classroom learning, as there is 60% less learning time needed and six times higher information retention rates.
Modlettes managing director Colin Dawson says that training has been decentralised to take the focus away from top-down learning and instead encourage knowledge sharing across peers and superiors.
"That means the best qualified people within an organisation - as opposed to only the most senior - can create Modlettes to teach their colleagues about their field of expertise. This new model of training can translate to tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of dollars of savings for the businesses who use Modlettes. Staff training and knowledge sharing has until now been a costly and logistically difficult exercise, but not any more," Dawson explains.
Modlettes' belief that human capital and knowledge sharing is substantiated, with one IBM survey stating that 71% of CEOs believe human capital is the leading source of economic value.
Robyn Viljoen, Modlettes sales director, says the research shows that the knowledge economy is important - and it pays dividends.
"Big companies typically spend upwards of $60,000 on e-learning software. SMEs don't have that kind of money, and they don't need to with Modlettes because our plans start at less than three dollars per user, and our peer-to-peer system is far easier to use than the clunkier Learning Management Systems out there," she says.
Modlettes clients have been singing praises too. NZ Laser Training manager director Ruth Nicholson says she was quoted $20,000 to build an e-learning platform similar to Modlettes, but with Modlettes those costs are just $900 per year.
"Modlettes has helped reduce the stress of business administration by sending clients to the portal to read and process pre-reading materials prior to attending our face to face courses. They then sit written tests online instead of on paper, and these are marked automatically by the system," Nicholson says.
"The system has also allowed us to expand our business and offer our classes to people who can't make the face-to-face classes, which has been great for business," she concludes.
