No other industry undergoes change as quickly and as often as IT, nor has as much impact on our personal and professional lives. While progressions in other support functions such as finance and HR can offer greater efficiencies for businesses, advances in IT can change the very nature of business itself - and, indeed, our lifestyles. AI, big data, cloud computing, blockchain, database automation; innovations in IT are coming thick and fast, and all across the technology stack. How can today’s IT professionals keep pace with an industry in a state of perpetual evolution? The Time for IT Learning is Always Now Not only are there more technologies to learn, more quickly, but in today’s fast-paced and always-on business world it is increasingly difficult to find the necessary time to keep skills up-to-date. Developing and maintaining existing systems, managing new projects, IT planning, implementations, upgrades, optimizations - not to mention all the day-to-day tasks in between - combine to overwhelm today’s IT workers and keep them from engaging in dedicated learning time. Yet each day that you are not learning about the latest technologies is a day when your knowledge and skills become more obsolete. Your market value and career prospects are inextricably linked to your ability to keep up with the latest technologies. Whatever you are working on right now, make sure you’re working on your knowledge development. The Classroom No Longer Cuts Costs for IT Traditional classroom-based training has many benefits, but it is not suited for a paradigm of continual learning or for the busy working schedules of today’s IT employees. Classroom learning sometimes needs to be scheduled months in advance depending on course availability and employee working priorities. Also, group training sessions run at a set pace which is unlikely to be the optimum learning speed for you. Many parts of the course may not even be relevant to your specific job role in your organization. With business and IT needs rapidly changing, can you be sure that you will use all your classroom training immediately after the course delivery? Will you need to refresh some learning in the near future - for example, immediately before implementations and upgrades or when solving an emerging business issue? The limitations of one-off group classroom learning make it highly impractical for many IT professionals today. Digital Learning for the Digital Age Digital training is rapidly gaining in popularity as it is ideally suited to meeting the continual learning needs of time-pressed IT staff. Check out these fascinating statistics about eLearning, courtesy of the eLearningindustry: Experience the following benefits of digital learning: Learn only what you need, when you need it - without having to sit through an entire course or spend time traveling offsite to do so Consume course content at your own pace - pause and repeat segments as often as you need Develop new skills on your own schedule - take your training in chunks and spread it over several days or weeks as your work calendar allows An increasingly significant advantage of digital learning is its location flexibility. Learn from the comfort of your desk, staff training room, or home office. Perhaps you’re frequently on the move, traveling between business locations or client project sites? Or how about on your daily commute? Wherever you are, your opportunity for digital learning is right there with you. Digital learning also enables you to learn five times more material for every hour of training. Because of the way the materials are presented, you get to consume information in smaller, more digestible chunks, making it easier to consign things to memory and understand how concepts interact with each other. To help you on your journey to excellence, Oracle University's Learning Subscriptions offer the latest in digital training to meet all your learning requirements. This subscription format provides one year of access to high-quality content delivered by Oracle product experts. It's an extremely cost-efficient way for you to learn anytime, anywhere. Subscribing to the New Paradigm With structured programs designed for your specific job role or IT function, Oracle Learning Subscriptions are continually updated as the technologies evolve, ensuring you are always among the first to learn and apply the latest Oracle features and functionality. Furthermore, the always-available, highly-searchable HD videos are an ideal solution when you need that quick refresher or to dip into learning content to solve an immediate business problem. If you're working toward earning an Oracle Certification, you can immerse yourself in the topic. Take a closer look at Oracle University’s: Technology Learning Subscriptions for the latest range of product, solution and industry training Cloud Learning Subscriptions for all things Oracle SaaS, PaaS, and IaaS The speed and breadth of IT innovation are only set to increase. Digital learning offers the only practical way for IT pros to stay on top of emerging technologies. Treat yourself to continual education with Oracle Learning Subscriptions. Editor's Note: This post was originally published on October 2, 2018, and has been revamped and updated. You May Also Like: Microlearning: the Next Big Thing in Corporate Learning From the Classroom to Digital Learning PaaS/OCI Learning Subscriptions: More Content, More Certifications, More Value