E-learning is a teaching and learning modality that exploits electronic media and devices to facilitate access, evolution and improvement of the quality of education and training. E-learning in education and training is a fact.
The rapid progress of e-learning in recent years is a fact. There seems to be an international agreement that the e-learning market will show rapid and significant growth in the coming years. The values of this growth oscillate between 7.6% and 9.5%.
In the global e-learning market, we find that this growth reached $ 35.6 billion in 2011. If we look at the most conservative data on growth in the global e-learning market, that is, estimated annual growth of around 7.6% Then projected revenues for 2020 amount to $ 68.8 billion.
The growing demand has repercussions on the number of professionals who wish to train in this discipline and on the number of organizations that see new opportunities in e-learning. For example, currently 77% of organizations in the United States offer online training to develop workers' skills.
The information and communication technologies used in e-learning make it increasingly:
- Visual
- Sensitive to touch
- Based on the game
- Immersive
- Collaborative
- Social
- More digital and resource-rich
- More explorer
The educational sciences has the leadership in the development of conceptual and theoretical frameworks to explain e-learning and its ability to contribute to the construction of knowledge in students. To analyze the teaching-learning process mediated by information and communication technologies have been developed theoretical frameworks that complement each other:
- Behaviorism
- Cognitivism
- Constructivism
- Connectivism
- Autonomous learning
E-learning has contributed to reflection and knowledge about how learning is learned and taught so that pedagogical tendencies take relevance beyond the areas in which they were traditionally situated. The volume of data offered by e-learning contributes to this expansion.