In the year 2000, technology-based delivery of instruction accounted for just over 16 percent of all learning hours provided in organizations responding to ASTD research surveys. In 2006, that number was projected to be near 40 percent, having more than doubled in six years. Naturally, that begs two questions: Will the balance of instruction continue to tip toward online delivery, and will classroom instruction eventually find itself in the minority?

"The technology growth trend in our research has been exclusively positive," says ASTD Research Analyst Andrew Paradise. "Many organizations find that, although the initial cost of technology-delivered learning is high, content is reusable, the technology frees up instructors, and requires fewer staff. Further, we also found that the cost per learning hour consumed has declined, from a high of $56 per hour in 2003, to $42 per hour in 2005."

These findings don't surprise BMF member Marguerite Samms, director of the Institute for Learning and Development at MultiCare Health System in Tacoma, Washington. Samms is responsible for the design, development, and delivery of more than 150,000 hours of learning annually at MHS, which won an ASTD BEST award in 2005. At that time, 75 percent of instruction was classroom-based, and the remaining 25 percent was delivered via multiple methods, including technology.

"The amount of instructor-led training we deliver will remain the same, but our online offerings will continue to increase," Samms now says. The use of the classroom is very intentional at MHS, and is reserved primarily for change management initiatives, for courses in which high levels of participant feedback are desired, and for those in which connections need to be built across the organization.

Samms notes that MHS is making a concerted effort to build computer fluency among all of its employees, even finding innovative ways to incorporate mouse skills in such bedside tasks as blood testing. She also notes that much of MHS's 12-week residency program for nurses is now online, and features a simulation center for practicing critical-thinking exercises.

Ford Motor Company and General Motors Service and Parts Operations both won ASTD Excellence in Practice Awards in 2005. Ford's Six Sigma Green Belt training leveraged technology by moving knowledge-based activities to the web, and reduced participant training time by 20 percent. GM's revamped technician training uses video, web-based, computer-based, and interactive distance learning technologies to communicate information about the automaker's increasing number and complexity of product models.

The American Management Association recently converted its trademark instructor-led management courses to a blended delivery model. A white paper on blended delivery on its website explains, "AMA's core business is instructor-led classroom training. AMA was interested in a blended learning approach that would respond to a number of changes in the market, and mark a change in educational strategy."

The AMA conversion may be further proof of a trend noted by Bill Thomasson, senior manager of global learning services for Computer Sciences Corporation in Falls Church, Virginia. "The last bastion in e-learning resistance was with respect to senior management," he says. "But the realization that we are far better able to deliver online today, coupled with the withholding of money for travel, has caused a realization among senior management that e-learning is not only for the masses."

However, college students, often early adopters of new methods and methodologies, may also be early rejectors. It will be interesting to see how the "perfect storm" of e-learning, described in a November 2006 article in Educause Quarterly, plays out. The authors, Kyong-Jee Kim and Curtis J. Bonk, write:

Online learning environments are facing a 'perfect e-storm,' linking pedagogy, technology, and learner needs. Considering the extensive turbulence created by the perfect storm surrounding e-learning, it is not surprising that opinions are mixed about the benefits of online teaching and learning in higher education [E]xcitement and enthusiasm for e-learning alternate with a pervasive sense of e-learning gloom, disappointment, bankruptcy and lawsuits, and myriad other contentions.

Higher education uses online delivery heavily for instructorled, synchronous or asynchronous, virtual classroom experiences. ASTD research results indicate, however, that most corporations use online delivery primarily in the same ways the AMA is using it: for pre-work and online assessments, and sometimes to facilitate a community of learners during and after a course: Self-paced online learning represented the largest proportion of all technology-based delivery, accounting for 60 percent in 2005.

"Classroom instruction will continue to be dominant for us," says Nicholas Igneri, director of learning technologies at the AMA. "We believe that the real power and purpose of online delivery is in preparation and assessment."

Another interesting trend to note in the results of the 2006 State of the Industry Report is the increase in the use of delivery methods classified as "Other," up to nearly 5 percent in 2006 from less than one percent in 2004. Samms reports that MHS is doing quite a bit with "other" delivery methods:

"Ours is an overt strategy: to move learning into the workflow, which we call 'walk-in' learning," she explains. "Walk-in learning consists of structured, organized, predetermined learning tasks to be accomplished, that are embedded into the workflow." For example, a preceptor (or nurse trainer) might carry a laminated card that lists several discrete learning points that can be accomplished at a patient's bedside.

Thomasson notes that CSC is also expanding its "Other" delivery methods. "Our consulting troops are leading the charge, because they are infrequently in the office and must take advantage of learning whenever and wherever they have time." CSC's Learning Place is a performance support tool that includes 6,000 digitized texts employees can use in a search-and-learn interaction.

"Referenceware is key to shifting the stigma of the 'e,'" Thomasson says. "It's really about learning and making a body of knowledge available."