We have all seen it.

You are reading an article or on your favorite social network and see the infamous title:

Is “Insert Popular Industry Here” Dead?

Or in my case, the article I came across was “Is eLearning Dead?“ by an industry professional I have a lot of respect for, Karl Kapp.

Naturally, the click-bait worked on me. I clicked, I read, and I disagree.

Let me get something on record: I appreciate the amount of thought that Karl used in his article. He approached the subject from multiple angles and cited different sources. Certainly a more valiant effort than most articles of this nature.

While some may agree based on Karl’s definition that elearning may be dying, I look at it in an entirely different way.

The industry isn’t dying. It’s thriving and (this is the important part) it is adapting.

Perhaps a better word for “dying” in this context is “changing”. An industry must change in order to adapt to new technology and trends.

By way of example, the article differentiates mobile learning and elearning.

I have also seen others include mobile learning under the “elearning” umbrella – which recognizes the uniqueness of mobile learning but also contributes to the overall industry.

The elearning industry is adapting and mobile learning is taking a more prominent place as the growth driver – that much is true.

This has resulted in new, mobile-centric trends like micro-learning to emerge. As I made in my 2017 elearning predictions, I think we’ll see a ton of innovation in this niche which in turn will drive the entire elearning industry.

Implying that the elearning industry is going to die because one facet of it isn’t growing as fast as it once was is like saying the music industry is dying because people don’t buy CDs anymore. It has just evolved.