How to make your online learning strategy future-proof?

The secret to success in online learning lies in the seamless integration of technology in each & every aspect of education. The concurrent growth in the number of new-age tools, technologies, and marketing tactics have enabled L&D companies to power up their online courses for the future. Let’s find out how:

It’s again that time of the year when universities and colleges have started finalizing their budgets for their upcoming online courses. Whether your plan is to expand, reduce or maintain at past levels, there is one simple objective that remains constant – to engage and drive value for the learners in a meaningful way. With the number of students enrolling in online higher ed courses increasing year by year, there is a strong emphasis on online course developers and instructional designers to keep their work ready for the future. This is where technology plays an indispensable role.

A study done by Allen and Seaman in 2017 discovered that of all students taking at least one online class, nearly half are choosing the only online mode of learning. While most of these online courses and programs are provided by a fixed number of schools, fresh programs are coming up at different colleges and universities.

The present and the future of online learning

In 2019, the overall market value of the online learning industry was $190 million, which is expected to surpass $300 billion by 2025. (A report by Global Market Insights)

The major driver behind this remarkable growth is the increase in demand for cost-effective training and learning techniques in the corporate and academic sectors. With such a huge volume of course content being prepared, there is a strong need to ensure proper storage of this data. The introduction of cloud-based storage systems brings in unmatched flexibility in content storage, accessibility, and processing.

Besides cloud-based storage, mobile learning is another hot trend in eLearning space with the increased use of smartphones. Some higher ed institutions even have their own mobile-based application that allows students to access the course content anytime, anywhere.

The above graph clearly shows that all the rising trend in the online learning market space across all the sectors – Corporate, Academic, and Government.

Below are some major considerations that might help future-proof your online learning strategy in 2020 and beyond.

1. Increase exposure to your eLearning
One of the proven ways to ensure a higher return on your eLearning program is to make it accessible to a greater number of learners. There are various ways to do this including:

Adopt Universal Design for Learning (UDL) which means bring variety to your course content by mixing graphic-rich elements with plain-text content. This will benefit in many ways – first, it will bring cultural variations in content. Second, it will break the program into simpler, smaller and chunked microlearning for low-bandwidth regions.
Make learning fully accessible by following WCAG 2.1 Level AA accessibility standards or higher. Don’t just create content to target your exact audience but also for others such as visually or hearing-impaired learners. They should be able to listen to your course content with a screen reader or access the transcripts for all video and audio elements.
Prepare “packaged” online learning programs that have a variety of elements like infographics, explainer videos, microlearning, e-books, and performance support. Most of these elements can be used separately and on diverse platforms. For instance, explainer videos can be consumed independently or as a group.

The foremost idea behind this practice is to avoid the rework on the course to make it useful for a new group. In addition, the broader your course, the better your ROI will be.

2. Make online learning responsive
Gone are the days when online courses were solely developed for desktops. In order to increase your course’s shelf life and improve its accessibility to more people, make sure that eLearning your organization develops in 2019 is fully and truly responsive. This simply means that all content in each eLearning course must be accessible from mobile phones, tablets, and desktops/laptops.

This can be done by putting in extra efforts and distinct versions basis the authoring tools being used. It would help you avoid retrofitting the course with a newer version in 2021.

3.Migrate Flash-based content
This can be done by putting in extra efforts and distinct versions basis the authoring tools being used. It would help you avoid retrofitting the course with a newer version in 2021.

As Flash is set to go out by the end of 2020, it’s high time you should look for new open formats like HTML5. If you didn’t act till now, you should act quickly to migrate Flash-based content to another mobile-friendly format.

This will make your online course content compatible with the latest smartphones and browsers and extend the shelf life and reach of your online courses.

4. Use an effective Instructional Design Model
Make sure the instructional design model you’ve chosen contains all the activities and learning elements. In addition, it will help you structure your content better. Some of the widely chosen models are ADDIE model, Merrill’s First Principles of Instruction, Gagne’s Nine Events of Instructions, and Bloom’s Taxonomy.

5.Align your courses to specific learning objectives
This is a very important point and shouldn’t be overlooked. Make sure to align your online course curriculum with the learners’ career objectives. A great way to start with is to determine the concepts that faculties and instructors want the students to learn, determine appropriate ways to examine their learning, and then develop the course content and activities to achieve that.

6. Explore different delivery options
It is the engagement level of your online course that defines how effective it is. This is important as if it is not, a learner will lose interest in it. To hike up the engagement, it is suggested to use a mix of various media formats including text, animations, infographics, and videos. You can also try the gamification or storytelling approaches to ensure the effective delivery of online learning content.

By following the above-mentioned online course development practices, you can stay ahead of the competition curve and engage your learners in a meaningful way.

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