Fantastic. We made it. I really wanted to reach the 25 year mark and now we are there, I’d like to think that The Learning Rooms will be around for another 25 years. If we are, the only certainty is that we will be a very different organisation to the one we are now.
Let me tell you a story or maybe it’s a fable. It’s definitely a story with a few lessons in it. However before I do, I have got to thank lots of folks for making it happen. The staff in The Learning Rooms are the most wonderful I have ever come across. For the most part, it has operated as a sort of co-op to which everyone brings their special talents. Ann [Financial Controller] and Ryan [eLearning Director] with twenty years plus service get a special mention and so should Rosemarie [Learning Services Manager]. People have come and gone over the years but all have played their part. I am grateful to each of them.
Our customers and clients have given us incredible support, some of them have been with us for all that time. Our joint venture agreement with the Health Management Institute of Ireland for more than fifteen years has been a source of strength as well.
So the story begun in April 2001. The business was set up as a HR consultancy with the intent to develop online learning courses. Computer-based learning had begun in the 1960s. Elliot Massey has coined the term elearning in the 1990s when the emergence of the internet gave rise to great possibilities for new educational methodologies.
An early sortie into the eLearning marketplace was with a series of eLearning training programmes in the late 2010s on infection control primarily directed towards the health services and most hospitals in the country used them. They were released on disc format and in many cases we had to provide portable DVD players to hospital staff so they could do the training.
A lot of water has flowed under the bridge. Since then we have undertaken bespoke elearning development projects for a wide variety of clients at home and abroad. The subject areas of bespoke work have ranged from Dignity at Work to Weather Forecasting. The challenges have kept us motivated. A recent programme was translated into twenty-two languages. Our objective has always to provide an engaging and informative learning experiences meeting in accordance with best international practices in relation to accessibility.
We apply the same standards to our own catalogue of more than 80 management, personal skills and compliance based eLearning courses.
Like other businesses, we have experienced difficult periods over the last twenty five years. The financial crash around 2010 hit us particularly hard as we were in the process of launching a major project which had to be shelved and technology had moved on by the time we were ready to get going again. Covid was not a bundle of fun either although it gave a bit of a tailwind to the acceptance of eLearning.
Today the great challenge and opportunity takes the form of AI. I’ll back our super team in The Learning Rooms to grasp the opportunities which AI brings and harness its strengths to develop products and services for our clients and customers. It’s the best way we can thank them for sticking with us.
Conor Hannaway
Managing Director
