Elearning companies are devising new ways to attract audience attention.

But some myths need to be cleared about these modules.These myths are as follows:

Myth No.1:Brain games boost short term memory 

Brain games are quite popular among learners. It’s because it is believed that they are good at enhancing someone’s short term memory. People can play these games, but that won’t increase your short term memory. If you want to become better at doing what you do, you should try doing that task after repeated time intervals. So if you enjoy playing games, you can do them but they won’t boost your short memory. 

Myth No.2:Evaluations measure how the elearning will improve the performance at work

The elearning companies want to measure the response of their learners to the elearning course. For this purpose, they are shown the smile sheets. But, although the survey results can be in favour of the elearning course, it does not mean that the learner’s performance at the job will improve. 

Sometimes, the evaluations are also poorly designed. The results of such evaluations depend on who cared to answer them. If someone has liked the course, but fail to respond to the evaluation, then you won’t know. All the learners may not answer the evaluation. Only a minority do. So, the results don’t provide any useful information. 

At the time of answering such evaluations, the learners don’t know how they will apply the information gained through elearning on the job. Therefore, we can’t say, whether the elearning training was useful or not. 

Instead of trying to judge the elearning outcome right after completion of the course, the performance of learners should be measured after some time. Their performance modifications can be measured to know how much information they have retained from the elearning module. 

Myth No.3:It is the same thing as completing a course as learning from it 

Completing the course is not the same as learning something from it. The myth about elearning is that once learners have completed the course they have learnt something. It’s not true because although it is easy to measure how much time, the learners spent on the course through SCORM metrics and whether they have completed the course, they might not learn anything. Therefore, SCORM metrics are not important indicators of how much learners have learnt. Learners must imbibe something useful from the course and for that it has effective. 

Myth No.4:Any interactivity in the module would do

An elearning course must have interactivities planned properly to make learners interested in the course. You can’t have frivolous games in the elearning content like graphical hoops to make sure that the learners take interest in the content. Participating in such games won’t make learners recall the content and remember it. So, there should be intelligent games included in elearning such as scenario-based learning which makes learners apply the knowledge of the module. Through such games, they become thorough with the module. 

Myth No.5:Graphics keep learners hooked upto the course 

An elearning course must have a clear navigation design. It’s not important to put too many efforts into graphic design so that learners are unable to understand how to move through it. If the learners can’t figure out how to navigate the course, they can leave it midway leading to a waste of resources. 

Even the use of fonts, font size and colours is important in this regard. Too much animation in the course with complex fonts can make learners lose interest.  

Myth No.6:Modern learners don’t like to read

It’s a myth that modern learners don’t like to read the content. According to a survey done by Pew Research, a large percentage of adults have read some book in the last year. Millennials also go to a public library to read books. So, if your elearning material is not getting the response from Millenials as it should, it’s because the content is not important for them or it already includes content known by them. It is not because they dislike reading. 

So, the content should just include the core, to encourage reading. Any other details should be included in the form of supplemental resources in the content to be consulted by the readers if desired. 

So, elearning companies should get rid of these myths while designing a course.