Factors influencing technology evolvement in E-learning

A few months ago, I've started to research the subject. I'll skip for now the "why I started it" and move directly to the current bottom line of my research.
My first question was: what are the factors influencing the technology evolvement in E-learning in terms of software products. Meaning, what factors influencing e-learning software vendors and their software products?
This is the list I came up with based on my research:
1. M-learning
Mobile technologies have rapidly entered the E-learning industry market. /* off the record: according to the Ambient Insight report, in US the demand for m-learning packaged content is growing by 25.8%, the demand for m-learning services is growing by 36.2 %, and demand for m-learning technology is growing by 7.6% */

The need for M-Learning acroos the entire E-learning industry is constantly growing, as it is no longer considered (by far!) as a mean of delivering distance education on small form factor devices, or as E-learning “lite”. Comprehension of mobile learning benefits, from accessibility and portability, to collaboration options it provides, led to the new level of demand for E-learning software. Many vendors, offering software products for E-learning industry, have been porting their existing products and integrating new products to handhelds and mobile devices.


2. Addressing the needs of diverse learning styles and modal preferences
One of the most challenging aspects in creating E-learning software is the ability of the end-product to appeal to a variety of learning styles and modal preferences. It is evident, that the integration of contemporary technologies with interactive multimodal delivery has provided greater variety in the way that course content can be presented, and thus addressing a wider range of learning styles and modal preferences. As a result, the market demand for extended visual content of E-learning software is constantly growing.
The use of multimedia and hypermedia in software to be used in E-learning industry, along with the latest technology trends, has become almost crucial to the success of the products and services offered by software vendors, catering the sector.

3. Access to technology and resources
Inadequate infrastructure to support the technology has found to create significant barriers to technology adoption and integration, especially when it comes to the adoption of e-learning in the education and academic verticals. The lack of specialized technical support from instructional designers, technicians, graphic designers, media specialists, and librarians has been frequently cited as a reason for academics’ non-adoption of technology.
In order to overcome these barriers, software vendors are challenged to develop their products (regardless of the product complexity) to be as lite as possible, in terms of installation, usage, maintainability, accessibility, and management, along with ease and seamlessness of the technical support.

4. Integration with third-party applications
There are hardly any isolated applications that do not require the import and export of data from external systems. For E-learning software, it is an absolute requirement that information will appear ASAP in the database of Information Management System, or other system used. Various workers, such as librarians, teachers, administration, and of course students (this array is just an example) work with different systems in the scope of ther institute/corporation/firm etc... Most types of architecture for software products for E-learning industry now support even real-time integration with various external systems. Even if there is no integration needed in the current version, the next version of the software may require that. Possibility of synchronization with various Information Management Systems is a huge advantage for any system today, and it will be a must tomorrow.

5. The impact of standards
The impact of standards developed tremendously during the past decade, especially in education sector. For example: ten years ago, very few states had standards in history. Today, though, many teachers have history standards they are expected to teach, sometimes accompanied by high-stakes accountability tests. And while state standards and accountability systems influence the history classroom, many teachers would also cite the federal accountability system established by No Child Left Behind (NCLB) as influencing K–12 history instruction. Strict demand for standard compliance force vendors to develop and design their products according to those standards.

The second question was: where the pedagogical aspects of E-learning implementation meet the technology daily "revolutions"? Is E-learning 2.0 (and up )) ) will be the answer to that one? Or, perhaps, semantic web could?

So, what do you think about the list of five?
Also it would be nice to get a feedback on the second question of my research )))

By J.G.

/* If you're a member of (E-)learning network Group on LinkedIn, you're welcome to comment on the discussion I've initiated there. Of the same name, naturally. */