How To Easily Create Interactive eLearning Courses – 5 Important Tips to Remember

 

Interactive content building plays a big role in the creation of engaging training programs. As an Instructional Designer, you know that one of the top challenges you face in your L&D projects is making up for the lack of human interaction.

You’re not the only one.

The latest elearning trends put a huge focus on content interactivity to better engage your learners and get the most out of your training.

We have put together our top 5 ways to help you present your learning content interactively and give your trainees a dynamic learning experience.

 

1. Make Use Of Interactive eLearning Templates

 

Bringing your digital training  to life can be done quicker with the help of Interactive eLearning Templates. They are designed to allow the learner to interact with the training content at numerous touch points, they help ease the course formation process quite significantly and they can be used on demand without any programming. This concept originates from real-life interactive human learning activities, like problem-solving, exploration, storytelling and reflection.

 

A great interactive template library needs to span across a comprehensive variety of categories, like presentations, games, simulations, scenarios, assessments, and more. When exploring interactive templates, it’s important to ensure that they are SCORM compliant in order to integrate them with your LMS. They are designed to help you make training more interactive, but they should not make the process  more complicated.

 

2. Use The Right Tools

 

Creating interactive courses does not have to take away a big chunk of finances or other resources from your company. Easily create interactive content by engaging powerful authoring tools and coupling them with your interactivity builder.

 

The right authoring tool should give you the flexibility to construct dynamic and engaging learning by offering at least a few of these key elements:

 

Dynamic video capabilities. Learner expectations driven by social platforms like YouTube dictate for high quality tutorials. The right authoring tool for your business should give you the ability to easily record, enhance and deliver video content in a LMS compatible format (such as SCORM).

 

Powerful learning analytics. Data collection is crucial in understanding how well your learners are absorbing the content but it’s only valuable if it can be viewed and accessed with ease. Ensure the authoring tool you are using gives you the ability to capture and analyze learner data for an easy L&D program optimization process.

 

Customized branding and design. Your unique branding plays a big role in reinforcing learning. Naturally, humans are more engaged with concepts they are familiar with so make sure that your authoring tool allows for easy look customization.

 

Mobile capabilities. In today’s fast pacing world, learners need to be able to engage with content at various times from different places. It’s all about facilitating an on-demand modern training experience.

 

LMS compatibility. Building interactive training content is only as effective as its delivery. Check for LMS compatibility when prospecting authoring tools and course builders. Most of them, like Elucidad and Gomo, will deliver your content in a LMS-friendly format, usually SCORM.

 

In return, ensure your LMS has SCORM compatibility. Some LMSs can also be considered authoring tools since they have authoring capabilities built in them. Articulate storyline, Adobe Captivate and SkyPrep LMS are a few examples of LMSs that offer authoring tools.

 

Build interactive elearning courses with SkyPrep Today!

3. Keep It Close To Real-Life

 

As cliché as it sounds, there is no replacement for real human interaction. But you can get close to it.

 

With most digital courses being comprised of text, video, photos and audio narratives, it’s important to use these elements in a real life-like way when possible. Use real people images, incorporate circulating news and provide personalized videos when permitted. This will customize your learners’ experience, making their learning more relevant and evoking emotional responses. As a result, their engagement levels will be significantly increased.

 

4. Get Social

 

Gone are the days when social interaction was reserved for the “outside of work activities”.

 

Social learning is one of the best ways to boost trainee engagement and interaction. Allow your learners to work together with their peers through the use of social learning activities to enhance their training experience. Encourage them to participate in discussion forums, offer feedback, share resources and ask  questions. It will help them better understand the training content and build on the taught knowledge. In return, it will help you get an insight on how well they are absorbing and applying the content.

 

The use of social media platforms  is a great way to enable social learning but not the only one. If your organization has a no social media policy or if your trainees are not avid social media users, a knowledge sharing platform like BoostHQ can be the perfect solution. It allows your trainees to share resources, comment, ask questions, and upvote answers. Its ideal use is in tandem with your LMS for an informal, interactive training.

 

5. Guiding an Interactive Training Program

 

Transforming your passive training into an interactive program can be easily done with a few active learning techniques:

 

• Exploration Screens. Allow learners to look for and find desired information in courses by interacting with the screen.  Easily implement this by adding buttons and clickable tabs.

• Exercises: Enable your learners to apply what they have learned through interactive exercises, such as as dragging items, organizing information or filling in the blanks.

• Avatars: Deliver a “human” touch to your courses. A great way to use avatars in learning is in the way of a chatbot designed to support learners and help them retain information better. It can present, introduce and discuss concepts or even offer tips for the students engaged in the course.  

• Simulation and game-based learning: Games and simulations give the students the liberty to assimilate new knowledge faster and in a more interactive way. It can be as simple as implementing a leaderboard for high performance.

• Role-play: Practicing real-life scenarios where students are forced to think critically and apply their experience will enable them to better retain key concepts. Make your role-playing projects as close as possible to the authentic encounters your learners have to better equip them for daily situations.

 

Final Words

 

Research has consistently shown that active learning techniques result in a higher learner engagement. Unlike passive learning, where trainees simply watch and read, interactive learning allows them to incorporate real life scenarios, collaboration and problem solving, resulting in better content assimilation and higher performance.

Through the use of ever-evolving technology, interactive learning programs can be easily created in-house to augment your corporate learning and development.

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