Smartwatches, fitness trackers, smart glasses, connected headbands. I’m all for wearable tech. I love gizmos and gadgets and I feel pretty cool when wearing them, but some of these pieces of equipment do come with a high geek factor.

However, that geek factor is diminishing daily as the numbers of wearable devices hit the mainstream in greater and greater numbers.

The International Data Corporation predicts an increase of more than 160 per cent in wearable device shipments this year over last.

We, as a learning industry, have to catch this wave on the way up. It’s an opportunity for the continued growth and infiltration of eLearning into the everyday lives of the workforce. This is a chance for further seamless integration and the blending of eLearning with this technology.

How is this going to be situated in the eLearning field? That’s the question.

Our eLearning is mobile friendly, but what about accessing it on a smart watch? How will our LMS scale to a screen that small? What are the drawbacks? Advantages? When will these devices be independent enough to be considered a standalone device?

There’s plenty of opportunity to meld this technology to learning at work.

Think of an airline maintenance employee working on a jet engine. With wearable tech they could quickly access the diagrams and procedures they need, review them, perform the necessary tasks and then review their work all without leaving their workstation.

New policies, procedures, prices…all could be delivered quickly to your staff and they could all make use of that material as soon as it’s delivered to their wrist or glasses. Having instant access to a parts catalog or inventory list while dealing face-to-face with a customer will make for an excellent customer service experience.

Wearable learning is going to be great for on-the-job training. Think about how easy it will be for a new hire to learn about the company, standards, processes, and people by having all that information at their fingertips while doing their job. No more constantly referring back to information packages, it’s all right there.

In an earlier blog we discussed microlearning, and this is another area where wearable learning can perform flawlessly. A workforce connected through wearable tech can learn on-the-go as a group.

It’s the future now. Where we go is up to us.