According to Renub Research, the online education market, also known as the eLearning market, will reach $350 billion by 2025. The exponential growth will surely provide quite a few opportunities for entrepreneurs and teachers who want to create eLearning solutions. The problem is it is a crowded market. If you cannot stand out, you cannot gain traction.
The perfect way to stand out is to develop interactive eLearning solutions rather than run-of-the-mill courses. Custom eLearning development is not that difficult. You just need to know what you need to incorporate into your eLearning solution before launching it. Here are 5 tips that will assist you in making your eLearning courses much more interactive than a normal course. With higher interaction, gaining traction becomes easier.
1. Include an element of reciprocation
The best way to make it interactive is to ask your viewers and students to participate in it. There can be quite a few ways to do so like:
• Pop-up windows
• Drag-and-drop Windows
• Multi-option questions
• Interactive PowerPoint slideshows
The goal here is to gain active learners rather than spectators. Using these features from time to time will help you make your courses interactive. If you use your videos or text courses, they will become monotonous. In that case, it will be difficult for students to complete them. Your goal of reaching out to more and more students and educating them will become exponentially difficult due to the same.
Instead, when you use these features in your eLearning solutions, you can make them easier to grasp. Including these elements is the first step that you need to undertake.
2. Use your storytelling skills
Many teachers and entrepreneurs claim that there is no space for storytelling and eLearning. They simply present the facts rather than storytelling. Continuously presenting facts in your eLearning solutions makes them a lecture. Nobody likes to attend long boring lectures.
That is why there is no other option but to improve your storytelling skills if you want to create interactive eLearning solutions. Storytelling can help you captivate your audience for a long time.
We understand that you might be thinking, how can you integrate stories in your solutions?
We are not speaking about fictional stories. An example of good storytelling can be a day in your student's life or the progress of one of your students after completing your course. Any story that you can incorporate into your eLearning solution is good enough.
Of course, when you back it up with graphics and videos, it becomes even more interesting and interactive. Therefore, instead of shunning storytelling as a useless tip, you need to incorporate it.
3. Use 360-degree videos and images
Everyone uses regular videos and images. If you, too, use the same, there is nothing interactive about your eLearning solution.
A much better approach is to use 360-degree media for your eLearning solutions. Instead of using 360-degree videos all the time, you can use them in specific parts of your eLearning program, like when you're covering a real location. That will undoubtedly break the monotony of theory and make your eLearning solutions much more interactive.
You need to also remember that 360-degree videos are precursors to virtual reality. Once you familiarize the audience to consider with 360-degree videos, switching over to virtual reality in the future becomes easier. That will certainly open up new pathways for growth. According to Forbes, augmented reality and virtual reality are the future of eLearning. Thus, when you're switching over to 360-degree videos using bits and pieces, you embrace the future. Additionally, you can also make your eLearning solution more interactive. It is a win-win situation.
4. Use Branching
If you have been in the eLearning industry long enough, you will know that many courses are customized to the student's needs. Have you ever wondered how the creators do so?
The answer is through branching. Simply put, the course progresses according to the choices which the student makes.
Confused?
The most common and simple example of branching is asking the student a question with two options. The right one takes the student to the next lesson, whereas the wrong answer prompts them to a more detailed explanation of the present topic. Once the student goes through the detailed explanation and additional learning, they are once again asked to answer a different question with multiple choices. If they answer that question right, they progress to the next lesson.
However, the branching need not be between right and wrong answers only. You can provide your students with multiple options to help them progress through the course at their own pace and preference.
Using branching scenarios, you can provide numerous options to your students. It certainly makes your courses much more interactive. They let the students decide the direction in which the course progresses.
What better way to make your eLearning solution interactive?
When you couple branched scenarios with graphics and videos, you have the perfect recipe for an interactive eLearning solution. Thus, this is a tip that you cannot ignore if you want to create interactive eLearning solutions.
5. Make it 2-way:
Most eLearning solutions rely on one-way communication. The issue in doing so is that the students often get bored. Bored students are not likely to complete the entire course. A much better way is to opt for two-way communication. There are plenty of tools at your disposal to make your eLearning solution a two-way street.
These include:
• Live chat boxes
• Comment feature
• Quizzes
• Forums
The more options you provide your students to interact with you and others, the better it is. You should provide multiple interaction options because not all students will be comfortable with just one or two options. Some students might prefer live chat boxes to forums. Consequently, you need to provide them with multiple options to let them choose the best for them.
Two-way communication can open up interaction with other students as well as course creators. The best thing about these two-way interaction tools is that they are not that difficult to integrate into your eLearning solutions. Thus, it is high time that you think about integrating these in your eLearning program.
As you can see, making interactive eLearning solutions is not that difficult. You need to know how to proceed with it. With these five tips, the eLearning solutions that you create will be much more interactive than an average online eLearning course. It is time to make eLearning fun for your students.
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