Why e learning is effective

Online learning is scalable. You can roll it out to as many employees you need and is a one-time investment. The more learners take the course, the faster you can write off the expense. Each learner has unique preferences and learning goals. E-learning makes it possible to cater to individual needs. It allows learners to choose their learning path and navigate at their own pace. When they decide what to learn and when, they remain invested in the course.

Seth Puri is executive vice president of global sales and marketing at Gutenberg Technology. Stay up to date on the latest articles, webinars and resources for learning and development. Did you know? In an ILX Group survey , 51 percent of HR decision-makers said that ongoing e-learning has a direct effect on boosting employee morale, satisfaction and longevity. In addition to the convenience and the cost, a large number of students are turning to online learning courses because they have become a better way to learn.

Those students who are serious about improving their understanding, learning new skills and gaining valuable qualifications are keen to enrol in the type of course that will be the most effective. Here are five reasons why online learning can be more effective than enrolling in a face to face training course. IBM have found that participants learn five times more material in online learning courses using multimedia content than in traditional face to face courses.

Because online courses give students full control over their own learning, students are able to work at their own speed. Generally students work faster than they would do otherwise and take in more information. Really, you can go all the way back to studies that focused on precursors to e-learning, like instructional films. The U.

Army conducted research back in showing that there were no differences in learning outcomes between groups who received instruction on a specific skill from a film with a narrated demonstration versus those who were taught in a classroom by an instructor who used the same script as the film and did a demonstration on actual equipment along with still slide pictures. What matters is not the medium used—that is, whether is on a computer, face-to-face, or even delivered with printed text—it is the instructional methods.

So methods, not medium, matter. We like that he focuses in on some of the key instructional methods that benefit any learning experience, whether online or off: practice, spacing, relevance, and feedback. E-learning certainly can work as well and, in some cases, even better than face-to-face instruction, but in either case, success depends on actually making use of what we know works in learning. And arguably, this is an area in which e-learning has the potential to leave traditional classroom-based instruction in the dust.

Theoretically, there are no limits to the number of learners you can reach using e-learning. The ability to scale and increase access is simply much higher. If you want to reach and convert learners at scale in the digital world, though, you really have to think differently and usually much more strategically. We are clearly at a tipping point right now where even people who have been resistant to e-learning in the past are going to be forced to try it—and many of those will continue using it.

And, of course, there was already a high and growing receptivity to online before the current pandemic. Clearly, people will do e-learning. And, of course, we just focused so far on the quantity, or scale, side of reach. Personalized learning. Look out the window at your parking lot. They all do the same thing, yet we have personal opinions about what we want to drive.

The same for learning. Learners want control. If you take a class in the real world and need a refresher, you better hope that you took good notes. Ideally, you continue to have access to the online content and resources to brush up on what you learned. Knowledge management. Many people see elearning as only the authored courses. But elearning includes all sort of online technologies. If you incorporate some of the tools that allow collaboration and conversation, you can capture organizational knowledge that is available for future learners.

Encourage sharing. The foundation of a learning community is built on sharing what you know with others. This is where incorporating a forum or wiki really adds value to your elearning. Depending on how the course is structured, you can encourage sharing of resources and insight gained from the course. Employer of choice.