How To Overcome The Common eLearning Challenges
Whether your audience consists of corporate executives or college students, there are various roadblocks that can prevent learners from actually absorbing the content and the key aspects of your eLearning deliverable. So, you as an eLearning professional have to consider a wide variety of eLearning challenges such as lengthy to-do lists, hectic work schedules, and a number of other distractions, prior designing your eLearning courses.
- The lack of learners’ motivation.
One of the most common eLearning challenges that eLearning professionals must overcome is an overall lack of learner motivation. It might stem from learners who aren't enthusiastic about the content or aren't interested in the subject matter. To overcome this hurdle, it's important to make the eLearning course as engaging and inspiring as possible. Even topics that are dry or boring have the potential to become exciting and effective if you know how to make them relevant and interesting for your learners. Scenarios, eLearning games, and videos are great ways to achieve this. All of these give learners the opportunity to immerse themselves within the subject matter, rather than just reading about it. - The busy schedules of the learners.
In this day-and-age, it seems that everyone is running short on time. There aren't enough hours in the day, and there isn't any room in the schedule for learning. Many people are hesitant to take an eLearning course because they think that they won't be able to go at their own pace or that it will require a great deal of their time. You can overcome this by ensuring that your eLearning course is in bite-sized chunks that they can access whenever and wherever your learners are ready to learn. You should also avoid lengthy text blocks or cluttered pages within your eLearning modules. By doing this, you give them the chance to more effectively acquire and retain information, thanks to the fact that they have a direct say in how much or how quickly they are exploring the content. Keep in mind that these learners are on-the-go, and don't have a lot of time to devote to the eLearning experience. As such, you'll need to grab their attention from the start with visually compelling graphics and images, and keep them engaged with multimedia elements which deliver key pieces of information clearly and concisely. - The belief that learners should be tech savvy.
Not all of the learners are going to have the latest and greatest tech gadgets, nor all learners are going to be “tech savvy”. And the truth is that there is no reason to be! This perception is yet another eLearning challenge. However, this can be overcome by ensuring that your eLearning course is available on a wide range of devices and platforms, and that it is in fact easy to navigate. Your eLearning deliverable should also be free of any multimedia elements that may be difficult to use, or those that can't be controlled by the learners conveniently. For example, you shouldn't include a video that the learners cannot pause or adjust the volume, regardless of whether they are watching it on their laptop or mobile phone. In short, keep things simple, but meaningful, when integrating multimedia into your eLearning course, so that you appeal to a broader learning audience. - The belief that eLearning offers no support.
It is a general misconception that eLearning courses offer no support for their learners. In fact, this belief prevents many individuals from enrolling, even if they are highly motivated to learn and have the time to do so. To overcome this eLearning challenge, be sure to have a solid support system in place for all of your learners. Offer them an FAQ that can help them remedy any common issues, and email or instant message support for more complicated questions or concerns. It's also a good idea to encourage peer collaboration. For example, you can set up a forum where learners can collaborate with one another if a problem arises, or divide the learners into groups and ask them to give feedback. Let them know that working on their own doesn't mean that they don't have access to support when they need guidance or advice. Bear in mind that one of the most significant advantages of eLearning is that you can work at your own pace, while still being able to benefit from the experience and skills of your online peers, even if they happen to be in other regions of the world. - Learners can't see the real world implications of the eLearning course.
Sometimes a learner is not able to see the value or benefit of the eLearning course, and especially how the subject matter is going to help him/her in the real world. For learners to become truly engaged in the overall eLearning process, they have to be aware of how the content is going to translate in real world settings. Even the most informative eLearning courses aren't going to be effective if learners aren't made aware of how the material can help to improve their lives, either personally or professionally. To tackle this eLearning roadblock, you may want to integrate simulations or eLearning scenarios that help the learner to see how they can apply the information they've learned in real life. You can also offer them real world examples, or group collaboration projects that are based around problems or issues they might encounter regularly outside of the virtual classroom.Design the Best Learning Experience For Your Adult Learners With The Most Engaging Branching Scenarios!Discover, choose and compare the top eLearning Authoring Tools with Branching Scenarios Functionality!
By overcoming these common eLearning challenges you have the power to create effective and enlightening eLearning courses for your learners. If you are able to address all of these hurdles, you'll help your audience to see that the real mistake would be not reaping the rewards your eLearning courses can offer them!
Would you be interested to know the most common mistakes in the development of an eLearning course? Read the article 10 Common Mistakes In The Development Of An eLearning Course to find out!
Additionally, in the article Top 11 eLearning Mistakes That eLearning Professionals Should Avoid you'll find a helpful list of the top 11 eLearning mistakes you'll want to avoid. These eLearning tips will allow you to circumvent the pitfalls of eLearning design and development, so that you can move forward on the path to eLearning success.
Want to learn about the common corporate online training mistakes? The article Top 9 Online Corporate Training Mistakes You Should Avoid highlights the most common mistakes that you should avoid when developing you next corporate online training course.
