Five steps to interactive e-learning

Create interactive e-learning

When you develop e-learning as a company, you naturally do this with the premise that your employees will learn something from it. And not only that: you want to involve them in the teaching material and you want to organise the e-learning in such a way that students can immediately benefit from it in their daily work practice.

Unfortunately, in practice, it sometimes appears that e-learnings are not completed or are experienced as extremely boring. Of course, this is a real shame — and unnecessary.

In our blog series about e-learning, we have often talked about how to make sure that students do complete an e-learning in a way that adds value to the student and to the company where he or she works.

In this blog, we delve deeper into the element 'interaction'. When teaching material is presented unilaterally, it is quickly experienced as boring.

After all, as a student, all you have to do is read and perhaps answer a question here and there. That's why you're not really involved in what you're learning. When a student is fully involved in what he or she is learning, this ensures a greater intrinsic motivation and this leads to a much better and longer-lasting learning result.

Because the e-learning has already been presented to the student how they can actually apply the knowledge in their work, this step is smaller and the student already knows how to immediately apply what they have learned in his or her daily work practice. So the student can get started right away.

How do you make an e-learning interactive?

1.  Design the e-learning briefly but powerfully

As experts in a particular field, we are sometimes tempted to fill our courses with all the information we have about a topic.

There is a danger, however, that if a student is not yet very familiar with your field, or this area of expertise, they will find the amount of information overwhelming.

And what do many people do when they feel overwhelmed? They stop learning.

It will be too difficult to divide the material into organised pieces and to see its value for your own work.

Therefore, avoid filling the e-learning with too much general information and keep it specific and appropriate.

Make sure that all the knowledge that is presented contributes to a specific learning goal, the student's specific knowledge, or to the development of a specific skill.

Don't just think from your perspective: what do I think is important for the student to learn? But from the student's perspective: what knowledge adds value to the student's daily (or future) work practice?

2.  Integrate an attractive design

Design your e-learning so that the student's interest is aroused as soon as they open the module for the first time.

Colours, a simple and effective presentation of the course material, gifs, videos and, for example, a chat function all contribute to this experience.

The basic information is presented briefly and firmly to the student, but the student immediately gets the feeling that much more interesting teaching material is' hidden 'in the e-learning and that they have access to a large amount of relevant information with just a few clicks.

Of course, you hope that the student's interest is so piqued that they can't wait to find out all the material in the e-learning!

Usability is essential here: design the e-learning so that the student (regardless of computer skills) can easily navigate the e-learning and easily find what he or she is looking for.

3.  Interaction with fellow students

Interaction in the social sense of the word is also an effective way to involve students more in e-learning.

For example, discussing the course material in an online chat, posting interesting links or videos in (Facebook) communities, or sharing ideas on Pinterest.

Setting up a Facebook group or another form of online community is an ideal way to stimulate the connection within the study group.

From the start, encourage students to share ideas, give each other feedback on their contribution, share new ideas, and post valuable information.

Want to learn more about e-learning? Download the e-Learning Essentials e-book for free.

4.  Gamification and real-life learning situations

In addition to sharing what we've learned with peers, defeating your peers is a fun and effective way to create engagement and also to tap into the competitive 'drive' that we all have in us as humans.

Gamification is the effective use of certain game elements to enrich the learning experience and make it more interesting. This includes, for example, adding a quiz that is designed as a competition and whose scores are shared on social media channels.

In addition, real-life learning situations are an effective way of applying gamification.

Here, gamification can form the link between learning and applying what has been learned.

For example, if the student follows an e-learning about customer friendliness, you can then use gamification to test what the student learned about customer friendliness during the e-learning.

You can design a real-life scenario (for example, if the student works at a bank, you can develop a customer who asks questions that are common at the bank) and then test how the student responds to certain scenarios.

• What skills does the student apply if, for example, a conflict occurs?
• Does the student show that they have learned something from the e-learning?

The starting point, of course, is that the student then recognises this scenario in daily work practice and can fall back on what he or she learned in the e-learning.

5.  Interactive assessment of knowledge

The testing of knowledge is also an extremely appropriate time in e-learning to stimulate interaction with what has been learned.

The standard 'exams' can be replaced by, for example:

• interactive quizzes
• simulations of real scenarios
• projects carried out with a group
• blogging about what you've learned
• or testing the student's knowledge by means of the student's contribution to the discussion forum.

In short, to make an e-learning interactive, it is important to present the course material briefly but firmly through an attractive design that invites the student to explore the module further.

In addition, interaction with fellow students contributes to engagement with what has been learned.

Applying gamification and presenting real-life learning situations are also ideal for allowing the student to interact with the course material. In addition, e-learning offers many ways to test knowledge in an interactive way.

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