Do you need to create eLearning content? Do you look for ways to make that content more interesting and effective at the same time? If yes, eLearning activities are what you need. eLearning activities can be meaningful and entertaining at the same time to attract viewers’ attention. They are also capable of boosting their engagement and aligning their expectations. As a result, collecting knowledge, sharing learning experiences, and receiving feedback can become easy and effective.
There are many types of eLearning activities and tons of ways to use them in your eLearning content. This article will talk about six of the most worthwhile eLearning activities that are easy to use. More importantly, they are popular activities that most of the online learners love to take part in.
1. Quizzes
In general, quizzes are used to test learners’ knowledge as well as challenge their skills. They also aim at collecting opinions or ideas. Besides, using quizzes is a good way to engage audience’ attention.
There are many types of question that you can use, for example, True/False, Multiple Choice, Fill in Blank, Sequence, Drag-n-Drop, and Rating Scale (Likert), etc. You can also offer feedback in quizzes so that learners know whether they are doing right or wrong. Feedback also gives them a clue of what to enhance for the future tests.
Before stepping into creating quizzes, bear in mind some important cornerstones. Understanding your audience is one of them. Are they a group or individuals? Are they advanced learners or beginners regarding the contents that you are trying to convey? Different groups of learners need different quiz levels. For more clues of quiz benefits, see 4 Core Benefits of Quizzes.
2. Interactive Demos
Hands-on demos, such as interactive software simulations, go a long way in providing learners with chances to practice skills in their self-paced manner. Interactive demos are easy to create as long as you have a professional screencasting tool. Use a suitable tool to create a series of steps to show how to solve a problem or follow a procedure and then let learners explore by themselves.
Besides, you can make the learning experience much better by providing online learners with clear hints and guides. For example, offer hints to let them know where to click and how to navigate the app. One extra point of interactive demos is that they can give learners feedback. The feedback can come right after the moment learners take action to let them know how they are doing and what they need to enhance.
3. Online Discussions
If you need to build an effective online learning community for the eLearning corporation, an online discussion is great to go. Online discussions allow learners, through discussing, to improve their discussion skills while learning from others. eLearning courses, online Word documents or PowerPoint presentations are some of the critical online environments that allow discussion between learners. Those platforms allow practicing skills, sharing experiences, collecting knowledge, and getting feedback, etc., painlessly.
Talking about online discussions, it can be done by writing (e.g. online Word documents) or speaking (e.g. Skype video calls, video conferences). Both of them come in handy when the audience needs to debate some viewpoints in their own perspective while discovering others’. However, thinking about the exchange of views, writing online discussion is beneficial especially when a group of learners has some reticent members who don’t usually speak out in face-to-face situations.
However, don’t forget to keep the group cohesion. Make sure that the context and guideline are clear enough for all of the viewers so that they can respond to each other’s posts or comments.
4. eLearning Games
What is the best way to boost knowledge retention while encouraging online collaboration and competitive spirit at the same time? Of all the eLearning activities, it’s widely accepted that the answer is eLearning games. eLearning games are likable since they are fun to take. Who doesn’t want an effective but pleasant learning experience? Hence, utilize this type of activity can give your learners better learning experience. Learners can learn something new while enjoying the playing. This can not only enhance learning experience but drive stronger bonds with their virtual classmate when a group of them play games together.
Tip: There are many tools allowing you to create impressive eLearning games. ActivePresenter 7 – a screen recorder, video editor & eLearning authoring software is one of them.
5. Scenarios
What should you do if you have a lot of information that needs to be shared? And what should you do when you need an activity to challenge trainees’ decision-making skill? Scenarios are good to go. In addition, you should use this kind of eLearning activities that need skills in realistic situations. It gets your viewers actively involved. It also lets them practice and strengthens their ability in a risk-free environment.
A scenario is an interactive eLearning method that requires online learners to select an approach as a response to the scenario. After selecting an approach or making a decision, they have to go with the consequence, deal with it and then face with further choices.
6. Thought-Provoking Stories
When stories are meaningful and thought-provoking, they can be the basics of the eLearning content. To create thought-provoking stories, focus on a problem that online learners might be facing with or relating to. Then, create stories with characters that resonate with your learners. With this in mind, you can give characters some personality traits to make learners connect to the story more deeply. Learners will care more about the outcome of the stories when they can reflect themselves on the topic.
Remember, though, interactivity levels count. Make eLearning content interactive by turning them into interactive stories. Besides, don’t focus too much on learners’ problems, otherwise, you’ll forget to align them with learning objectives that you want to provide. Collaborating the learning and training goals from the beginning is a good idea.
So, online learning environment brings both learners and trainers many benefits. When designing online learning content, try to utilize eLearning activities above. Of course, there are many other eLearning activities that you as eLearning writers usually use. Don’t hesitate to share with us your experience in using them.