eLearning is a learning solution that is very handy and effective in this era. Especially in the long lockdown and work from home time in covid it increased immensely.
In today’s online society, digital learning provides several advantages to both learners and employers. No matter what profession you’re in, there’s no doubt that its popularity has surged in the last decade.
We all are always working with laptops and computers. Digital devices have become essential in our daily lives. We can easily get world class learning information by just some clicks. The Internet can give us better learning experiences than any other methods.
In this article we’ll discuss the most constructive and functional methods or solutions for elearning.
What is Custom Learning
Custom learning is an educational strategy that seeks to tailor learning to each student’s unique strengths, abilities, and interests. Custom learning is an experience where you can blend technology and your creativity to learn something unique and fruitful.
Custom learning emphasizes on a specific audience, their learning style, and skill level. And it gives the best training solution to meet their needs. It takes a student-centric approach, allowing the learner to select the mode of learning. It emphasizes the resources, and learning objectives depending on their interests.
A customized learning path provides learners with a personalized and extremely important learning exercise. It is tailored to their level of skill and areas of interest.
There are various kinds of custom learning. But today we’ll focus on custom learnings which focus on eLearning.
Web Based Learning
Web based learning is the most convenient and flexible eLearning solution. You can learn any information within a few seconds. You won’t need to take extra classes at the university or in a training center.
Websites provide you the freedom to study whenever and wherever you desire. It does not confine learning to a certain location and facilitates material anytime they choose. Websites are filled with rich contents and many topics are vastly described with images and videos. This gives eLearning a new dimension and makes it more dynamic and interesting.
Since, internet is a big place there are a variety of websites available with amazing features. A plethora of information and tools can be obtained through web based learning. The number of infinite websites and their functionalities can make a person skilled. Just enough to prosper in an educational institute or in a workplace.
Blended Learning
Blended learning is an eLearning solution. It mixes online instructional resources and prospects for online engagement with conventional in person classroom approaches.
This eLearning sector focuses on delivering interactive and even personalized learning techniques and experiences. And those are controlled and altered by the learner. The student gets the most discretion in deciding the path of learning.
There are several routes of blended learning. A learner can choose any of them. And they can assist the learner to achieve the same goal. They can prepare towards the final completion of the course as well as learning something new.
A great example of Blended learning is the Learning Management System or LMS. There are multiple LMS available and very popular for online learning. You can create courses and achieve learning goals. You can track your learning progress with the help of elearning courses available in the Learning Management Systems.
What should you exclusively look in Blended LMS
- An authoring tool for course creation, management and arranging the course materials.
- A full independence for creating custom content of courses and having the ability to edit them.
- Add social learning tools for communication purposes. In this way, a student can get a learning company.
- Assessment and report tools which would give the very essence of in person classes.
- Integration of platforms like zoom, google classroom, microsoft teams etc. is also very important for arranging meetings, webinars and direct classes. This will result in a seamless interaction between the students and the teacher.
Usually Blended learning helps a person become an instructional designer. The course design and development of all instructional materials, including lectures, user instructions, brochures, and work aids or other resources. This is the responsibility of instructional designers. You as a teacher will take the role of that.
Please note that the goal of a blended learning model is to utilize the qualities of conventional and online learning approaches. The main objective is to provide your learners with a more interesting learning experience. You’ll get the best of both worlds with this approach. Ultimately both learners and instructors will be benefitted.
Blended learning can also be used for compliance training. There are some policies in the corporate organizations to train employees with certain courses. It trains your staff on the rules and regulations that apply to particular job roles or sectors.
As an employer you can build eLearning courses for your employees.
Check out MasterStudy LMS for Blended Learning Solution.
Mobile Learning
Smartphones have become an integral part of our life. You will hardly find a person without a phone in their pocket. Since it is a pretty important tool for communication, why not use it for learning.
Mobile Learning is not only a flexible and convenient tool but also a high quality one. We might think that mobile phones will have limited resources than desktop computers or laptops but we’d be wrong. Mobile phones will not only provide unlimited web based knowledge but also many applications. Smartphones have been coming up with various apps adaptable for different resources.
One can learn a generous amount of knowledge just by using knowledge related apps. Learning a language, creating brainstorming ideas, general knowledge apps and many more skills can be developed just by downloading apps.
Employees in the corporate world are increasingly on the road or working from home. It makes corporate training sessions difficult, unpleasant, or even sometimes impractical.
You as an employer can design mobile learning segments that your employees will find entertaining, accessible, and highly effective. And this can be done by utilizing the strong phenomena of the smartphone and broad Internet network.
Advantages of Mobile Learning
- Smartphone applications offer many methodological approaches for learning which helps in the long term.
- Freedom of studying despite place change.
- Ability to create content and edit them.
- Interactive learning with apps and social media.
- Real-Time user feedback for learning and understanding any subject.
- If you are an employee make sure that all of your staff have access to the required training and information.
Immersive Learning
Immersive learning is the practice of learning in a virtual or artificial environment. The atmosphere allows learners to become thoroughly engaged in their study as if they were in a real-world learning environment.
This method of fast learning by utilizing the emerging technology of spatial interfaces. With recent advancements in technology, computers have become more powerful. Many virtual reality equipment are becoming popular.
“Extended Reality” is fairly a new concept. It combines Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality and Mixed Reality. It is becoming a learning choice for more educational institutions and major corporations.
Learning something using AR/VR/MR provides enterprises with unique and far-reaching potential. It develops real experiences that allow learners to engage with the environment. They can acquire information and skills through real-world interactions and problem based learning.
Overall, in this age of multitasking, it is easy to attract attention. But it is extremely difficult to keep learners interested throughout the course. Using these technical equipment will help immensely with that.
Providing students with a genuine learning environment is quickly becoming very competitive on the eLearning platforms. Immersive learning increases the participation rate among students.
Everyone ought to get bored with traditional ways of learning. With the emergence of the technological era we are always searching for new methods to learn something. Since, the immersive learning method allows learners to interact both physically and virtually, learning becomes more interesting.
Another thing about this method is that it increases problem solving skills. With the help of problem based learning one can improve their critical thinking, principal making skills etc.
The virtual reality environment can help with creating real life scenarios for students to understand the depth of a problem. And employers can use these techniques to assess employees. Or teachers can use these to assess students.
Advantages of Immersive Learning
- Opportunities to attain real world problem solving skills with the help of a virtual setup environment. This not only lessens the risks of the real world. Also, the simulations are accurate. The real activities don’t get harmed within these practices.
Examples: Plant growth simulations, autopilot practices, military battle simulations, surgery simulations etc. - This learning process aids in the mastering of a habit by involving supervised practices as many times as necessary.
- Since a trainee can practice as much as they want this helps with the confidence level. Virtual Simulations help people to stop being nervous when a real life situation occurs.
- Not all people can train or practice at the same pace. In order to face the complexities of the real world every trainee needs to train hard. A learner can receive personalized teaching while progressing at their own pace using this learning experience.
- This method gives a terrific platform and opportunity for learners to train interactions and hone skills. They can learn wherever and whenever they have access to the eLearning platform.
- This method eliminates the border limitations. A trainee can be in a continent and role play the real life scenarios from another continent. Distant learning has become very easy due to this learning method.
- Finally, people can interact all around the world and learn so much more than just textbooks. This makes the students/ trainees ready for the real world.
So, this learning method isn’t just a conventional method where people go through a bunch of information and download them. This is a vast experience of gathering knowledge. It is primarily about making the learning format easier. This is why virtual learning environments and simulation training are often used.
Microlearning
Microlearning is another custom eLearning method that is basically intended to save time. Microlearning helps to increase engagement during learning. If a course is learned through smaller modules and short term activities the result becomes more effective.
The perfect microlearning segment is one that is immediately accessible and entertaining. The easier the approach you use to learn something, the long term the knowledge stays.
There can be many methods for microlearning. Some of the methods are,
- Smartphone learning apps
- Detailed image series
- Brief podcasts or video lessons
- Quick Quizzes
- Strategic Video Games.
This learning method is engaging because it can be utilized any time of the day regardless of place or environment.
Why eLearning is Necessary
eLearning isn’t only a fancy word or something that is unthinkable. eLearning has become a part of our life. Some of the reasons why eLearning is important are,
- Rapid process for training students or employees.
- Reduces the cost of arranging physical classes and physical course materials.
- The outcome of eLearning methods are very productive.
- eLearning helps with collaboration among co-trainees and students.