Making e-Learning Effective

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Summary: An effective e-Learning strategy would result into the desired change. As told by Dr. Felice Leonardo Buscaglia - Change is the result of all true learning.

The e-Learning concept is now 13 years old, it started in 1998 and since then organizations along with many training institutes have leveraged on its benefits to deliver training and reap benefits. In 2011, 77% of the American Corporations were using e-Learning. It is the second most important training method within the organizations. A survey result showed that e-Learning helped their business to adapt more quickly to change, an increase of 11% on last year and increasing number of organizations are adapting e-Learning to help their business move forward. For more important eLearning Statistics you may want to read Top 10 e-Learning Statistics for 2014 You Need To Know.

4 Important Factors of e-Learning Effectiveness

These facts indicate the benefits of e-Learning. However it is important to know how effective the e-Learning strategy is and whether it is yielding the expected return on investment and change. The effectiveness of an e-Learning initiative depends on various factors:

  1. Content
    An effective learning can happen only if the content is up to the mark and meets the end user requirements. The learners must be able to satisfy their question ‘What’s in it for me?’ A positive answer to this question will ensure an acceptance of the content and an intended learning from it. The content must not be too long, the best practice is to break it into small chunks and present it along with relevant media assets.
  2. Delivery platform
    It is important that e-Learning is delivered through stable and robust delivery platforms. A Learning Management System is an ideal platform. It should be easy to use and accessible any time. Users should be able to utilize preferred devices to access the content over LMS.
  3. Analysis and feedback
    The Learning & Development department must be able to pull reports from the LMS and perform data mining to understand the trend and must perform feedback analysis. Implement the changes to keep the learners engaged and seek continuous user feedback from them.
  4. mLearning
    The mobile devices in today’s world cannot be ignored as they present an opportunity for effective learning. Study shows that learning on mobile devices or mLearning increases motivation, 70% of the students surveyed in the study reported this behavior. An increased motivation would result into effective learning and delivery.

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Originally published on February 6, 2014