15 Jun 2022

Blogpost, eLearning creativ technologies 0 comment

How to make employees hooked to B2B elearning courses?

Elearning is now creating huge waves in the corporate world. B2B elearning courses are bought by companies to train customers and employees.

The B2C scenario involves the learner signing up for the course; it could be a student or an employee looking to broaden his horizons. But the company is not responsible for the course fees.

However, in the B2B elearning, the company gets a course created for all its employees and other stakeholders. Everyone working for the organization has to complete the course. The business incurs the fees of the course and hence wants an ROI.

B2B elearning is quite different from the B2C version because the company has control over the course here. There is no choice before the learner whether or not he should go through the course because it is mandatory for him.

The business needs to provide course access to so many employees, and for renewal, it must pay a monthly fee if more employees join the company. Since the businesses spend so much on getting such courses for their employees, attention needs to be paid to engagement.

The elearning courses need to apply the Hook model created by erstwhile Stanford professor Nir Eyal so that the learners feel motivated to finish the course. This model explains how the learners become ardent about using an online product in 4 stages, trigger, action, reward for the effort, and finally investment, so the product is now more suited for the learners.

This model has the 4 following stages:

Trigger

The first stage of this model is the trigger, where employees need to be given a push to apply for the course. Every employee needs a different kind of external trigger, such as the course signup link sent in an email, to get enticed into signing up for a course.

When users start using a product or service for the first time through a trigger, they get attached to the service. It’s just like giving the trigger to a learner through banner ads about new courses on the company’s intranet.

Once he gets curious about the course due to the banner ad, he will watch its preview on the LMS by clicking on the ad.

Thus, the learners become emotionally associated with the product evoked every time it is used. Hence using this product soon becomes a habit because the users develop an internal push to use it due to their emotions.

Action

Since the user has already started an internal urge to use the product, how to ensure he takes the necessary action. The companies can ensure that taking action is relatively easy for the user; hence the app must have a simple user interface. Thus, taking a user’s ability into consideration is crucial while designing elearning courses or an elearning app.

Hence, the elearning courses library must be designed in mind that it’s a smooth experience for the users. They should face no barriers in signing up for the course after they have a glimpse of it. Hence the LMS must have an easily accessible search button.

Also, the learners can be motivated to finish the elearning courses when it’s in the form of easily understandable and short modules that don’t require much time commitment.

Employees also need notifications about how much of a course is left and what’s the deadline for mandatory elearning courses.

Reward

The course might not require much effort from the user to access it, but the user must also be engaged with the course. It’s only possible when the user gets a reward that gives him a due reason to pursue the course.
For example, when learners are acquainted with the benefits of finishing a module which implies scoring better elearning assessment grades than others, they feel excited to go through a course.

Investment

The user is now asked for some form of contribution from him. This means he is required to give feedback which ensures that the elearning courses will be created per his needs. So the next time he is given an external trigger in the form of the course link, he will click on it too.

The user can be asked for his detailed opinion about the elearning courses and how they led to his professional betterment. The learners also have to show some solidarity with the course, and as a result, they can share the course link with their friends and get some points for referrals. Such efforts show the course creators how much learners have liked the course. When users express their preferences regarding the course, it offers a better option to the course creators for future modules.

18 Nov 2020

Blogpost, eLearning creativ technologies 0 comment

How elearning is to be provided in regional languages?

Today elearning has become more focused on developing courses for various languages. Earlier when Edtech(educational technology)came into the picture, the focus was more on teaching coding to those aged between 7-12. Now, educational technology is faced with a new challenge, how to provide learning to Indians who speak 22 languages.

This is the basic challenge before elearning websites, is how to cater to this huge population.

The Indian population apart from these 22 languages also speaks 19,500 dialects. It’s important to make sure that there is enough content available in Indian languages.

The user base which uses Indian languages to surf the internet is growing at a faster rate than those using English. The former is 18% while the latter is 3%. As per more of these statistics released by Google, internet users using Hindi are growing to grow at a faster rate than those using English. Even the Bengali and Marathi-speaking users of the internet are growing at a fast rate. Therefore, the difficulty is to provide content for these regional users.

Elearning companies are trying to find a solution to this problem:

Lectures in local languages: For the benefit of those children who want to use the internet in Hindi or any other regional language, it’s better to have lectures or elearning videos recorded in local languages.

Online classrooms: These are also a way for children to learn subjects in any regional language. Virtual classrooms are the same as any other classroom except that the teacher and student are connected via a teleconferencing tool.

Modules which are translated: Modules can also be translated for children so that they can understand the content in their language.

Tools of translation used in elearning modules: Some elearning tools have options for users to see the subtitles in their languages. If parents are helping children to study at home, then such translated subtitles can also be of use to them in understanding the video and explaining it to kids./li>
Elearning courses can include regional language games: These games are quite useful for children in times of the pandemic when they are missing hanging out with friends. When they play such games, they enjoy work spirit. But for developing these games in elearning courses, an elearning company needs regional languages specialists.

Interaction with parents: It is also important to see that there is interaction with parents in the native language who don’t speak English very coherently. This will make sure that the onus is on the parents that the kid takes online learning seriously.

This way courses can be developed for kids in regional languages. The elearning courses providers in India are getting ample support from the government to develop content in the regional languages
The National Education Policy 2020 wants to convert the village-based education system into a digital model. This will become possible with the Digital India framework which plans to provide internet access universally

The scope for education in regional languages has also increased because the National Education Policy 2020 says that the kids till class 5th should be imparted education in regional language. Hence, this indicates new challenges for elearning course providers.

27 Oct 2020

Blogpost, eLearning creativ technologies 0 comment

Simulations help employees learn

The corporate world has expanded to a significant extent. The processes change all the time. This implies corporate companies need to train their employees all the time, which can be cumbersome. The solution lies in making use of e-learning programs.

The eLearning has become quite effective over time. It’s interactive through games and hence motivates the learner.

To teach employees about the software which is in demand, simulations-based e-learning is in high demand.

Doing what we learn is an important part of the learning experience. For learning and doing the learners need to process all the information gained by them. The Kolb’s learning cycle can be categorized into 4 stages which are as follows:

Doing or Concrete experience
Reviewing or reflective observation
Concluding or abstract conceptualisation
Planning or active experimentation

So, through games in simulation, learners have a concrete experience as they watch the simulation. Then the reviewing or reflective observation part checks what they have learnt. So, this is how the whole cycle works.

The difference between e-learning and other forms of training is that in the latter learners don’t get to practice what they have learnt. So, its a waste of time making them go through heaps and heaps of data.

There are many kinds of simulations which are available for the corporate learners now.

One-time Simulations: These kinds of simulations are used in courses that offer learning based on software. The users can also modify the responses they get in such forms of learning. So, they can learn the complex workings of software quite easily with such simulations.

Since such simulations are one-shot, the learners don’t need to watch them again and again. Most of the times, these simulations are about the software or a website. They can teach the learners how to go through a website for a defined purpose. An example of such a simulation is:

The user can learn a certain functionality like how to fill taxes through a website. (Concrete experience)
The user can then fill details in the website correctly to pay taxes, so this requires some action from him. (Reflective observation).

Simulations with various outcomes: The learner can also be made to go through simulations which have interactions with different outcomes. The learner can choose any response in the interaction but they have to arrive at the right outcome.

In these kinds of simulations, the learners are shown a scenario for example, in which there is an altercation among individuals. So, the learners are given a situation and they have to choose the best possible outcome. So, no response is wrong, but different outcomes lead to different results and the learner gets to learn them.

He gets to know how to make decisions in real-life based on outcomes. For example, these interactions can be built for managers to see how they react in a real-world situation.

Microworlds: There are virtual 3D worlds created for the user. The user has to get in touch with this 3D world. These kinds of simulations are very useful for those learners who have to be taught about real-world rather than new software.

So, this is how the simulations are the most effective ways to learn for today’s corporate learners who lack time and need brief action-based simulations.