The reason why e-learning is getting popular is the advancement that it has done through technology. The knowledge acquired remains more or less similar but the ways and means to provide it, have undergone a change with eLearning. There have been several apprehensions related to eLearning:
- It is boring
- No engagement
- No incentives
- Not interactive
These apprehensions however don’t hold true in the present time. The reason is that eLearning has evolved itself with time. This has been done to make it more interactive and bring more engagement. It might be curious to know why engagement is so necessary. For this, we can consider the following:
- Physical presence automatically draws attention towards the ongoing thing. But when you are online and not being seen by anyone the chances of diversion become high. Once your mind is distracted then completing a course within time and that too with the best knowledge gain is a little doubtful. It is therefore very important to make the learner engage in the process rather than make it a one-way communication.
- Lack of engagement can make the task tedious and would take a longer time to finish that too with no effective knowledge transfer. If the learning process is more engaging then it creates an interest in the learner and gives the desired results.
Thanks to technology that has innovated itself to give us various means to make eLearning more engaged through, personalization, gamification, discussion groups, quizzes, etc. but at the same time it is also necessary to keep a few things in your mind before designing an engaging eLearning content. Here are some such things for your reference:
- Have a predetermined and crystal clear objective
- Know your target audience well
- Try to be interactive rather than just delivering your content
- Make them involved and create more curiosity
- Keep it organized
- Providing more visuals
- Make them realize the importance of course
- Give them the realization of achievement after completing the course
- Provide different incentives
Given are the most important pointers to create highly significant and effective eLearning content. These factors should be considered before curating the content.
LMS (Learning Management System) helps you design collaborating and engaging eLearning. The following major provisions or features of LMS can make your content more engaging and interactive:
Presentation: Engagement is directly proportional to the presentation. It matters a lot when it comes to visuals. The more appealing the presentation, the more engagement would be. It is your presentation that gives the first impression to the learner and not much explanation is needed to explain the importance of a first impression. It thus becomes important to present your content that is more interactive and attractive. Certain factors that can add up to the presentation are:
- The visuals: there are minute details associated with the presentation such as color, font size, page layout, orientation, alignment, etc. these are though small things but have a significant role to play. For example, if the font size is not properly, the background color is too dark, the font color used is not read properly, etc. these create hindrances in engaging and thus make the content less desirable and less appealing.
- Imagery: use of images, flow charts, diagrams, etc. makes the content more attractive and also helps grab the attention of the learner. The chances of getting distracted are reduced and at the same time, it enhances engagement.
- Videos: Adding videos and other reference links can increase engagement significantly. People are more engaged in what they see compared to what they read. As not everyone prefers reading. Reading along with the videos enriches the learning process.
Interaction: Interactions play a key role in engagement. It is always important to interact with the learners. This is one of the best ways to keep them involved and maintain their attention throughout the course. This can be done through various means:
- The courses can be made interactive by making them appear as a discovery. The thirst that content creates within a course as well as between different courses holds the learner intact for a long time. The more curiosity created the more learners’ engagement would be there to quench the thirst.
- A problem-solving approach can also be a way out to make it interactive. This keeps the learner involved in the process.
Gamification: This is the most important and the best way to drive engagement. People enjoy more and engage more when such things are included in the courses. This keeps them self-motivated and more involved. A few gamification techniques can be:
Leaderboards: this gives a sense of leading and winning to the learner. The competitive environment created through quizzes and tests among the learners motivates others to improve and perform better.
Certificates: acknowledgment of what the learner has achieved gives them the incentive to achieve more. This gives them satisfaction and it also adds value to their skills which they can update in their resume as well.
These factors drive engagement in eLearning. And this task becomes easier with LMS. You can consider choosing a compatible LMS for your industry. Feedback, reports, tracking, currency unblocking for new courses, are other few pointers to be included once the foundation is built. These can make eLearning not real but more than that. An experience that is just not an experience it’s an e-Experience.
