eLearning Best Practices: 4 Keys To Producing eLearning People Love To Consume

eLearning Best Practices: 4 Keys To Producing eLearning People Love To Consume
Summary: In today’s eLearning industry, it’s not enough to have brilliant information. Here are 4 eLearning best practices to produce learning experiences that people love to consume.

4 eLearning Best Practices To Produce eLearning People Love To Consume 

In this digital age, we have now grown to expect the freedom to curate what, when, and how we consume our media. In this “curated world”, consumer expectations that have influenced industries such as music, TV, and publishing are now causing a revolution in higher education.

But it’s not enough to have brilliant information. What matters most is that people actually consumeimplement, and truly benefit from packaged expertise. To ensure this, you’ve got to cut through the noise by delivering exceptional learning experiences online that users actually love. Here are 4 eLearning best practices to produce eLearning people love to consume.

1. Before anything else, create learner personas. 

Similar to the concept of buyer personas in the marketing realm, learner personas help you understand the motivations behind your target demographic. It is best to ask questions like these:

  • How does this group of people most often consume information? (Social media, television, etc.)
  • Does your demographic tend to be more visual, or do they prefer reading longer articles?
  • Knowing the above information, how does this affect the design of the eCourse?

These are vital questions to ask when steering the production of user experience. Recognizing who your learner is and how they interact within the digital realm may change the balance of video vs. text, or it may help you realize you need to include a student forum so that students can freely discuss content with each other. Paying attention to your learner’s preferences and likes will naturally make your eLearning more enjoyable.

2. Create mobile engagement. 

Extend the learning experience beyond desktop modules and into mobile devices. No matter how good your course is, it’s easy for learners to get sidetracked on their desktop or laptop. Engaging your audience through their phones allows you create more diverse amounts of content. Here are some simple ways to get started:

  • Learners already play many popular games through their phones. Developing a skill-based mobile game gives the learner a short break from heavier course content.
  • Provide reminders, helpful facts, or inspirational quotes through text messages. Better yet, text them a link to video content that is supplemental to the information you’re teaching.
  • Provide a playlist of songs a user can access while on their phones. They can listen to thoughtful music as they’re taking your course.

3. Stimulate implementation. 

In the Instructional Design phase of course creation, make sure each lesson has activities and exercises a user can easily practice. Beware of placing too much focus on the basic presentation of information rather than curating a beneficial experience. The mark of a good course is that it pays equal attention to influencing the implementation of the learner as it does providing high-value content. At the end of each lesson, challenge users to stop and do the exercise before moving forward. Simply giving information does not mean the user has actually learned anything - putting an activity into practice means actual influence and application.

4. Tap into the competitive spirit. 

While a traditional classroom includes grades and a scoring system, eLearning has elements of gamification. This absolutely requires utilizing a good Learning Management System that triggers achievement badges, progress bars, leaderboards to fuel competitive spirit, and quizzes that stimulate retention. Including a leaderboard and a points system to score against other players incentivizes learning in a new way. Gamification has steadily become one of the most talked about new aspects of online learning. However, the experience of a game within a course must be designed so well that each piece is purposefully and actually fosters retention in students. Remember that thoughtful instructional design and planning will produce a game blueprint that achieves this goal.

Now, more than ever, it’s vital we create digital learning experiences people love to consume. Creating an intuitive educational flow means that the experience must be designed so well that each piece seamlessly and enjoyably flows into the next. This requires the implementation of eLearning best practices and a unique approach to Instructional Design in order to retain learners, so that what you create truly impacts the world.