Welcome to my Blog, here I will be bringing you the latest developments for  e-learning in the Food, Drink and Hospitality sector.

Hello, good evening and welcome (I sound like David Frost, the illustrious broadcaster and knight of the realm), when I am in fact merely Lesley Ord, operations director of Virtual College. 

I’d like to introduce the Food, Drink and Hospitality e-Academy, which is a division of the Virtual College, and our eight Academy.  I feel like I have “grown up” with the Virtual College… there were a mere 13 of us when I started back in 2000, and we now number some 67 individuals…(which reminds me, must investigate our module on team working).  

The Virtual College was founded in 1995, and we have all seen online learning change exponentially since then.  Back then the big challenge we had to face was selling the concept of online learning verses face-to-face, you will note the use of “e-learning pioneers” in our company literature, we were seen as very radical and potentially “nerdy.” We are not without the scars.  

Well here we are in 2010 – just.   (no, sorry, not, just still here… but it’s only just 2010… it’s all in the way you say it)  and we have notched up nearly 300,000 online learners across many different sectors. 

So, you’re in, or have contacts with, the Food, Drink and Hospitality sector.    

Did you know that, according to the report published by the Office for National Statistics in Aug 2009, covering the previous three months, 70% of UK households had broadband access, that’s 18.31 million UK households accessing the Internet, and of that 70%, 75% of men and 73% of women access the Internet every day or almost every day. What for? And how might that affect you?  

Well 69% were using services related to travel and accommodation for example; 78% were finding information about goods and services.  Of interest to us as an e-learning provider, 40% were uploading self created content and a mere 8% were doing an online course (there’s a big market out there still).  Unsurprisingly, 90% were sending or receiving emails.

 

Of those men who had purchased goods or services online in the three months leading up to August 2009, the most popular item was films and music (52%). However, the most popular purchases made by women were clothes or sporting goods (54%). So men are at home listening to music, while the ladies are off to the gym in their new leotards, sounds about right to me. 

 If you’d like to see the full report from the Office for National Statistics, drop me a line and I will forward the link.  

We’ve got our own statistics gained from our feedback survey of over 20,000 of our online learners.  I’ll share some of those with you next time. 

In the meantime, feel free to ask me questions via the system.