How do we define the success of an eLearning program? Is it by uptake or completion rates? Or by assessment scores? Or by learner feedback ratings? Or none of the above? D, none of the above.
For us, successful eLearning is effective eLearning. It’s eLearning that helps an organization to achieve a business goal or solve a business problem. And it does this by helping individuals align better with the organization and perform their tasks or roles better. Effective eLearning is also eLearning that has faith in adult learners’ capability to think and understand, and engages them accordingly.
Learner engagement has been a buzz word in our domain for several years now, and is interpreted to mean different things. In fact, many confuse interactivity with engagement, so an eLearning program that’s highly interactive is automatically considered to be very engaging. Because of this, interactivities based on game shows like ‘Who Wants to be a Millionaire’ or others are seen as ways to help develop highly engaging eLearning. However, unless used meaningfully, such "game" templates can do more harm to your eLearning than good. This is the key point of my tips for creating successful eLearning.
1. Who "Really" Wants To Be A Millionaire?
There’s hardly anyone in your workforce worldwide who hasn’t been exposed to the format of this TV quiz show. However, just wrapping your assessment in this "game" template does not make it engaging for your learners. Frankly they are all adults and I bet they can see through the noise quite easily. At the end of the day, take away the "game" frills, and it’s an assessment for them. For all you know, the seriousness of the assessment is taken away by imposing a game template onto it. Don’t get me wrong here. Games and gamified solutions are great for learning but sticking assessment questions into a game-like template is hardly either of those. In my view then, no one really wants to be a millionaire in such cases.
2. Interactivity Of The Head And Not Of The Hand
Perhaps it's the meaning or nature of "interactivity" that we should re-look at, for a moment, in the context of engagement. For many, "interactivity" means to click or to tap somewhere on the screen in order for something to happen. That’s what I call “interactivity of the hand". We should instead be focusing on "interactivity of the head" by trying to engage learners’ minds instead of just their hands. Even giving them something to reflect over, or getting them to think in a particular direction based on pointers, can be considered an "interactivity", despite there being no clicks, taps, or drag and drops involved.
A great example to drive this point home would be a fiction novel, let's say Dan Brown’s ‘The Da Vinci Code’. It keeps readers engaged for hours without a single "interactivity of the hand". It engages the mind and the imagination instead. It makes readers try to work things out for themselves. And that is the real engagement that we should all be striving for. If we achieve that, all our eLearning will be much more effective.