E-learning services are thriving across the globe. It provides an immediate insight into the performance by discovering the strengths and weaknesses of a person in a whole innovative way. It may help to keep progress in a loop by using the real-time and relevant data for empowering the learning and teaching experience. It transforms a person’s intellectual growth and readiness into a focused insight by discovering the exact needs of a person and addresses the problems more efficiently. The ability to cover the distance through multiple locations, multiple learning paths, flexibility, consistency, and collective social interactivity are few of the advantages and scopes of e-learning worldwide.
Since online learning has no specific boundaries, it can also create an exemplary work in corporate sectors for different domains including corporate training and learning. Many of the fortune 500 companies are moving at a fast pace adopting the e-learning tools to enhance their corporate learning and boosting the productivity exponentially. A large number of e-learning platforms launched through MOOCs(Massive Online Open Course-Ware), which helps to get the best courses across the globe within their own comforts. Clearly, e-learning is making its mark in schools and universities through the continuous expansion of the internet and mobile network connectivity for accessing world-class content available any time, any place, and anywhere.
If you too are impressed by the massive capabilities of e-learning platforms, this article will definitely give you an intuition about the top four aspects you can consider while choosing an e-learning platform for your cause. Here are they:
The technology must have a few characteristics for better teaching and learning experiences. The secret to a successful implementation of an e-learning platform is to choose the correct software which satisfies the needs of online learning. The following technological aspects can be used collaboratively to provide successful features to an online teaching platform.
● Programming Languages
● Authoring Tools
● Learning Management Systems
● Learning Content Management Systems
Most of the online learning platforms are based on Java, Javascript, PHP, C#, Node. JS, PEARL for better interactivity and flexibility.
The authoring tools are designed in such a way to overcome the difficulty of instructors for using the programming languages. The learner and instructor need not be thorough about the coding, as the tools are visually oriented. The software helps in taking care of functionality in the background. There are various authoring tools provided by many vendors in the market. These tools can help in creating a lesson or a whole course and give immediate feedback to the learner.
As the authoring tools couldn’t provide long term storage of the performance data, they can not monitor the performance of learners. To tackle this, Learning Management Systems come into the picture, which specifically provides the performance of the multitude of a learner. The instructor and the learner can hold discussions and interactions with many learning activities through an LMS. It also helps to store and deliver documents, images, videos as well as third-party applications. The system can be interactive between faculty and students in a both synchronous and asynchronous manner.
LMS demands high-speed connectivity and bandwidth. The unique features of an LMS include analytics, assignment submission, discussion forum, grading, online calendar and many more. The factors to consider while choosing an LMS include cost, ease of use, appearance, ability to integrate information system with the management system, and a suite of supports(course design, upgrades etc). Adaptability and management are the keys to ensure the future success of an LMS implementation. The LMS should be designed in less bandwidth intensive with a proper educational focus and low cost. The system should be familiar and easy to use, serve as an online classroom with discussion forums.
A Learning Content Management System is a platform that allows creating, manage, host and track digital content with extensive search capabilities. This may include tracking record of videos, images, sound files, and documents. An instructor can find, track, and locate the assigned keywords easily with the system. It specializes in facilitating creation and delivery in the same place. In addition, One can expect detailed analytics through an LCMS.
The online learning platform needs to be designed and implemented with an amazing browsing experience for the convenience of users. They always want to watch a video in the same manner as they watch it on online platforms like Youtube, and like to fill the online application forms like the general websites. The professional learners and instructors will never use if the UI is difficult to navigate. The software needs to be very simple, efficient and understandable for the learners, instructors as well as for administrators.
Regardless of what type of software you are using for the e-learning solutions, the ability, usability, modularity, and accessibility with better understanding are quite necessary. The system should be easy and convenient to use and content should be in a structural manner. Make sure you are comfortable with the adaptability of both the content and the software. The learning technology should offer flexible distribution to access easily.
The whole world is witnessing transformation towards collaborative learning due to the immense benefits of it. Thus we see most of the e-learning platforms are using the tools for chat, online groups, social networks, audio/video conferencing, and social bookmarking for better usability. However, just-in-time learning also helps to access the content for both learner and instructor. The e-Learning platform should be compatible with screen readers for better accessibility, which helps to read the words on the webpage to an individual who is unable to see the text format.
With the ever-increasing fast rate of online learning, the complete software must allow you to create content for all devices. It should have the cross-platform functionality which can help in optimizing the content for different screen sizes with device-specific tweaks. The upsurge of the scalability occurs with the ability to store and reuse pages or even the complete modules, which allows a user to work consistently. The collaboration and features of the review allow team members to work on projects together. It develops ultimate support between the online instructors and learners to persist in the course of study. It is quite difficult to find a completely compatible solution for every LMS in the market, however, selecting a vendor who uses widely recognized e-learning software with specified standards can be most relevant for the situation.
This is quite obvious that the learning can’t be steady in the competitive market as the business atmosphere is changing faster than ever. The entrepreneurs, educators are providing platforms with innovative technical skill sets to reach a lot of customers while adding values every time.
Author Bio:-
Kathy Alameda is a content strategist at PinLearn. She develops educational technology plans and online learning strategies for schools, businesses, universities in the USA & other countries. She is also an author and researcher on effective e-learning programs.