Powerful Tools That Will Help You Get People To Love eLearning
Let’s look at some features that can make people fall head-over-heels in love with their learning.
1. Gamification!
First up is gamification (game-if-ick-ation). It basically involves applying gaming techniques to non-gaming environments to make everything that bit more fun and enjoyable.
Gamification tackles the problem that all eLearning courses face: engagement. If an employee is engaged, they have a positive emotional attachment to their training, which profoundly influences their willingness to learn and perform at work. Engaged employees generate 43% more revenue [Gallup] and take just 2.69 sick days compared to unengaged workers (6.19) [Hay Group].
But getting employees engaged in their learning is tricky. There are many hindrances; a lack of motivation, being too busy at work, having too many distractions, a lack of rewards and bland and unexciting learning materials.
Game-based learning solves these problems. It involves the use of badges, achievements, and awards to celebrate successes and the completion of eLearning units; leaderboards to foster healthy competition between colleagues; and other gaming techniques, like timed exercises and ‘50/50’ quiz options, to build excitement and engagement.
It really works: gamification of the Deloitte Leadership Academy triggered a huge 46.6% increase in the number of users returning to the site daily, and a 36.3% rise in those returning weekly.
We found that gamifying Spicers Academy – the Sales Academy we created for Europe’s leading wholesaler of office merchandise – resulted in an 80% increase in traffic and boosted sales knowledge by 24.7%. This is proof that gamification isn’t a fad, and it’s definitely nothing to do with Angry Birds!
Gamification lets you put the fun back into learning. It gets people pumped, motivated, engaged and loving their eLearning!
2. Personalisation!
Here’s another way to get people loving their eLearning, and it follows on from the user experience hierarchy we saw earlier: make the learning personalised!
As we said, this can be done by encouraging learners to input their real-life work experiences and scenarios into the eLearning. The Discovery Method makes it fun and interesting for workers to learn as it uses their names within the eLearning—everyone likes to be a little bit famous!—and makes it relevant to their day-to-day lives by referencing job titles / real co-worker conflicts and encouraging learners to plan actions that they can start implementing straight away.
Getting learners to use their own experiences to fuel their learning makes them enjoy it so much more. They feel more connected to and engaged with the subject matter and are more likely to retain it.
Personalisation isn’t just about inputting experiences. It’s also about making the learning journey itself personalised. Learners will enjoy their learning more if they are able to go through it at their own pace, however they see fit. Good eLearning makes this a possibility – learners can access their eLearning whenever and wherever they want, be it on their mobile phone, tablet, or laptop, and can leave and pick up where they left off. They can learn in their living room, lounging on the sofa, cup of tea on the go, and a cat at their feet. Who wouldn’t love that?!
3. Clear Pathways!
Which would you find more enjoyable: embarking on a car journey of undetermined length, on an undetermined route, with undetermined hazards in a car that you’ve never driven before… or embarking on a car journey in your old faithful with the help of a sat nav after you’ve checked the traffic reports and have seen it’s a clear run?
In the same way, won’t you enjoy eLearning more if you know what is expected of you, how long the units will take, what tests and assessments you’ll have to do, and with a clear ‘light at the end of the tunnel’?
A good eLearning platform allows learners to see their progress at a glance—how many ‘points’ they have, how many more they need to ‘Level Up’, where they are on the leaderboards—are they still beating Betty from South Division?
We know how important a clear pathway is, so we developed Game Changer – it’s a gamification feature that not only adds an element of teamwork and fun to the learning, but keeps everyone on track. Your team can only progress to the next level and unlock the next eLearning units if everyone has completed a set amount of eLearning and achieved a specific number of points. This encourages team members to work together and make sure they keep learning at the right speed, helping the team upskill and gain new knowledge together. Awesome.
4. The Perfect Scenario!
When a learner falls in love with their eLearning, they are:
- Motivated
- Engaged
- Eager to learn
- Happy to commit to learning
As a result, they:
- Are more productive
- Spend more time on the Academy/LMS/eLearning
- Log on/access eLearning modules more often
- Share the love – recommend the eLearning units to colleagues
- Encourage others Share knowledge – more eager to help others develop their skills
- Interact more on the Academy/LMS – post comments, ‘Like’ posts, share their progress on social media
- Upload more content
- Rate the eLearning and their Academy more highly
- Love their eLearning, would recommend it and are willing to shout it from the rooftops
- Learn more and become more successful, saving the company money.
As you can see, if you get people to fall in love with eLearning, you’re on to a winner!
Ta-daaa!
Want to find out more? Download the eBook Fall In Love With eLearning - How To Make Your Learners Love Their Online Learning!.
