19 Apr 2023

maximize retention after an elearning course

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5 ways to ensure knowledge retention after an eLearning course

There has been an upsurge in the companies learning needs. But it’s not enough to offer e-learning courses. Companies must also know how to make employees retain them.

Whatever has been learnt in an elearning course must be imbibed by the learners. For this, they must be sent tasks which involve repetition.

For example, multimedia has an impact on the human mind. It’s true that people remember images and videos more easily than text. In fact, animation can explain the most complicated of matters to human beings.

The same concept applies to quizzes where the learner can apply his knowledge and improve, and this way, he recalls the knowledge.

Techniques to ensure knowledge retention:

Active learning:

Active learning involves ensuring that the learners discuss with the trainer. It’s like holding classroom sessions with the trainer when the elearning is over.

There the trainer can ask questions from the learners, like giving them case studies to solve. The active learning approach is crucial because it involves both parties, i.e. the teacher and the learners.

If the learners are facing problems with whatever they have learned, they can ask the trainer about them. The active learning sessions can take place until the learner is fully clear about the concept. They can involve a single session or several sessions.

Use of micro learning:

The elearning course must be designed keeping in mind that the energy levels of the learners are not high after working at the job. Hence when at the end of the day, the learners log on to their PCs, they must go through a well-designed and crisp course. Whatever the course is, it should contain only relevant information so that the learner does not end up watching useless information. So instead of a long course, divide it into smaller modules.

The course must consist of micro-learning modules such as brief videos which learners can watch and understand easily. Whenever the course is too much lengthy, learners don’t have time for it and can’t even remember it. For example, a course with longer modules containing impertinent information can cause cognitive overload. Apart from small videos, some portions can be managed through podcasts also.

Reflective learning:

The learners must also get a chance to reflect on the information. Reflective learning is also crucial to ensure that the learners don’t forget much. Hence classroom sessions are important where the learners can be asked to question each other so that everyone recalls the concerned information. The students also get to know what information they are unable to recall or apply and hence need a revision of the same topic.

For the same purpose, it’s also necessary that the eLearning vendor includes a quiz after every module. Quizzes in an elearning course are a better way to make learners retain information than summative assessments because it makes sure that the learners remember just the relevant portions. When the learners can’t score passing marks on a quiz, they must review the module repeatedly. If the learners commit a mistake in a quiz, they need to go through the same material. When students cannot use their learning to solve the problem, this can be done by the teacher to ensure that they understand the material better.

Spaced repetition:

Spaced repetition is a useful technique in the case of eLearning because it ensures that the learners can easily remember concepts taught in a course. This is done through flashcards. The company can get such cards based games. In such games, the learners are shown flashcards which have difficult concepts frequently but less tough concepts only randomly. This ensures that the learners can retain the intricate concepts.

Use of stories:

Learner retention can be improved when a story is told to them before a concept so that they can relate to it. It’s better if managers tell such anecdotes because they know the real-world situations of the jobs where such knowledge can be applied.

The e-learning courses must be interspersed with stories where simulations are shown to employees about the course.

To conclude:

Self-paced learning is not an easy task. It’s important that the learners are guided about how to manage time so that it does not take a toll on their health because they are managing their job along with the course. Hence the e-learning course must be designed properly because if it’s not, the learner has to grasp extra knowledge, which he does not require for performance at his job.

01 Sep 2021

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How to use proper aesthetics in an e-learning course?

Elearning courses have become so pivotal in teaching the modern-day generation of today. But the aesthetics of such courses play an important role in drawing the attention of audiences and even deciding the retention rate.

What should an e-learning course designer keep in mind before finalizing the design and handing it to the multimedia team for execution?

Using the buttons in the course

Buttons are an important element of the course because they aid in navigation. So, their colors need to be attractive so that are noticeable. But don’t forget to label the buttons so that the audience knows their purpose. If a learner has to find out what a button does, he is likely to leave the course due to its ambiguity. So the course does not serve its aim of making the learners learn.

Using visuals like images and videos

Images also pull a learner towards the course. However, infographics are the best way to summarise the material. The visuals should be used judiciously in an E-learning course, because too many images can reduce the attention of the learner. The learners should not be shown any irrelevant images and text because they can feel distracted. So, concise communication is the key to a result-oriented e-learning course design.

Excessive use of images

The bandwidth required by a course also decides the learner’s interest. Bandwidth is how much data can be transferred over the internet in a certain amount of time specified as megabits per second. When the images have huge sizes in MB due to their resolution, high bandwidth is needed to transfer them from the server to the learner’s PC, resulting in slow loading speed.

It is because, when due to low bandwidth, the data transfer takes a lot of time, users get frustrated and log out of the LMS. Similarly, the loading speed of the course in the browser would be low when there are too many videos. The video clips should have clear graphics, but the resolution should not be too high so as the image requires too much storage space. When the LMS pages take excessive loading time, the employees can get bored and cause them to abandon the course. The resolution should be low so that the image loading time is not high. An infographic is a better way to depict information rather than multiple images so it’s better to use it.

Don’t include complicated graphics

The use of graphs is also warranted in the E-learning course to drag learners. It’s because charts can be used to inform concisely. While designing graphs, you should be clear about their purpose and you can’t include too many variables. A graph should be 2D for the learner to understand it well. It’s also better to have a color key in case you have bar graphs so it improves comprehension.

Don’t use upsetting images

There should be a sensibility applied while using images because any profane images can hurt the sentiments of learners with specific cultural backgrounds. As such, they may not feel comfortable while browsing through the E-learning course. The learners may feel that the course is deviating from its learning objectives.

Lack of collaboration between designers and developers

The biggest problem is that the instructional designers and multimedia developers don’t work together. While the instructional designers have come up with an idea, the developers should guide them on whether its application can hamper the usage of the e-learning usage, for example, including a 3D graph isn’t a good idea for learners who lack time and may not have the intellect to understand it. The use of too much animation can also affect the loading speed because it requires too much bandwidth. So all this guidance can only be provided when the multimedia developers correct the ideas of instructional designers.

31 Mar 2021

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Want to grab the attention of audience through an elearning course? Learn how?

Do you know how many mobile devices are used these days? The students and the learners are scrolling them for content. However, it’s important to keep some important tips in mind before switching to elearning on mobiles:

It’s important not to use the same content that is used in class.

In elearning, the content needs to be short and specific.

You need to take into account the different aspects of an elearning course like the pictures and the learning objectives of the target audience. So, the content of the instructor-led training should be modified for use in elearning.

The elearning must be used for interestingly training employees and students. So make sure that there is no unnecessarily needed information in elearning. The matter should be built around stories. When the audience gets to listen to such stories, they can assimilate the information into their system. Also, stories always have a real-life touch to them due to which audiences can take interest in them.

The aim behind creating such interesting stories for students is to ensure that they can learn something new and build their job skills.

Keep it brief

There is never a specific formula to decide how much should be the length of a training course.

Short attention span

James Cutting, a famous psychiatrist found out that human attention span is very limited. It cannot focus on a topic for a long time. It requires something to capture attention. That’s, why, quizzes, games, and videos must be introduced in the course from time to time so that the learner’s natural attention span is maintained.

Get the course to be of a perfect length

Also, the courses need to be of a perfect length. This implies that employees don’t have much time to focus on training courses. So, when the content of a long course is segregated into bite-sized modules, it implies that they can get time out of their busy schedules them.

Employ interaction

Most people would choose elearning rather than a lecture. So, it’s important that they feel included in it. There has been so much innovation in the elearning industry over the last few years due to authoring tools. Now, there are so many options available before elearning content creators such as progress bars, leaderboards, and badges that involve the learner in a course. The following kinds of interactivity can be included in a course:

Passive interaction:

It’s very important to be included in a course so that the learner can easily go through it. This includes the navigation of the course, the screen transition and how games function.

Limited interaction:

Some extra features can also be included in the course to make sure that the learners take complete interest in it. This means hyperlinks can be included in graphics. There can also be links to resources not belonging to the course. You can also include a drop-down menu in the course that learners find easy to use.

Moderate interaction:

There is the use of animated videos, animation, and audio with voice intonation to attract the attention of the audience.

Simulation interaction:

This is one of the best ways to make a course interactive. It combines the previous three levels of interaction. It also has gamification, the use of multimedia, and an avatar to guide the user through a simulation or the video.

This is how elearning can involve different levels of interactivities for the user.

10 Aug 2015

Blogpost, eLearning creativ technologies 0 comment

How to motivate learners in E-learning?

Motivating learners through e-learning courses is not an easy task to accomplish. In simple terms, motivation is defined as the process that initiates, guides, and maintains goal-oriented behaviors. Motivation provides a reason for doing something.

In the e-learning context, learning motivation should be the reason or desire for one’s learning. The e-learning reason should be designed in a well-structured manner that will motivate learners to learn more effectively and resist less. If an e-learning course fails to provide a reason or engage the learners, it means that it has simply failed. Here are 5 tips that will show a smooth path to my readers in motivating their targeted audience in the e-learning process. Moreover, my tips will also answer the following two questions.

How to develop learner engagement in the process of learning, which is the main concern.
How to avoid drop-outs in your e-learning courses?

Tip 1 Catch hold of Learner’s attention: Grabbing your learner’s attention has a major impact on the e-learning environment. The important things to remember here are first, content should stimulate your learner’s curiosity and second content should be relevant.

Online learning takes place in an ambiguous environment that makes it adopt the learner engagement strategy. Under this, the training should not be revolved around knowledge awareness, but it should involve action by the learner in between the training.

Knowledge check questions from within an e-learning course are a prominent example of checking the learner engagement in your course. Using various resources of e-learning such as video, audio, avatars, music, and animations also serves as a significant effect on the learner’s mind.

Tip 2 Course should be well-structured: To avoid drop-outs in your e-learning course, make it well-structured. An excellent blend of various online resources should be made to achieve e-learning objectives and goals. A designer should clearly state the expectations of the e-learning course. Moreover, the course should be accompanied by the guidelines and instructions, total number of assignments, contact hours, peer interaction posts and projects to be submitted for the course.

Tip 3 Boost the spirits of your learners by your presence: The problem of drop-outs occurs majorly because of a lack of an online support system for learners. Regular communication with the learners is key to success.

One must make sure to participate in online discussions on social media like Facebook, LinkedIn, etc. This will allow learners to exchange ideas with each other and definitely enhance their knowledge.

Tip 4 Monitor and Feedback of Performance: The performance should be monitored very carefully, as providing an e-learning course to learners is only half the work done. The critical aspect of an e-learning course starts when performance is monitored and feedback has to be prepared.

The e-learning courses must be interspersed with stories where simulations are shown to employees about the course.

What should an e-learning course designer keep in mind before finalizing the design and handing it to the multimedia team for execution?

In elearning, the content needs to be short and specific.

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