Interactive E-learning - Not Always Exciting
The truth about interactivity in e-learning - when it works and when it doesn't.
I've been doing elearning since the dawn of time😊. One of the "truths" I've heard unconsciously over the years is that if you're going to do motivational elearning, you have to make sure it's interactive. Interactive elements in elearning can be used to create variety in the presentation, and thus help make the content more exciting, but you have to be careful not to use them haphazardly.
Now I am always in favor of involving the learner in the learning process as much as possible - otherwise it doesn't really make sense. The problem is that, in most very boring e-learning, you first tell the user some fact, for example: "The moon is made of green cheese". On the following page you then have to make sure that the course is interactive, so you expose the user to the question: "What is the moon made of?", after which the user has to choose between red, yellow or green cheese. It may be interactive, but it is also stupid.
Another “classic” typically occurs in connection with e-learning, where the purpose is to teach users how to use a computer program. Typically, the e-learning is designed so that the user is asked to press a specific button on the screen, which the developer has then made a big fat ring around to be absolutely sure that the user can see the button. Both examples leave no opportunity for real reflection.
It is possible to create opportunities for reflection in e-learning. One way to do this is, for example, by asking the user questions that you have not directly answered. This invites the user to draw on their own experiences and knowledge in order to answer.
“If we force them to see it, they will learn it”
It is also very common to force users through e-learning courses, perhaps because it is often something people have to participate in/complete in connection with their work. And you can check that they are going through the e-learning using a Learning Management System that stores various information, for example the users' answers to multiple-choice questions. As I have mentioned before , forcing is an unusually stupid idea if you want someone to learn something.
"If they just look at it, they learn it"
Often, users are measured by whether they have seen all the slides in the e-learning content. The thinking behind this is that if you expose people to information, they will absorb it. This is similar to expecting you to remember everything you saw the last time you watched a news broadcast.
Can you do it?
What you can remember is probably limited to what was notable or had particular relevance to you.
“We do a test to make sure they have learned what they need to.”
Some e-learning ends with a test at the end. Typically, the thinking here is that users are assumed to have learned what they need to if they can answer a series of multiple choice questions correctly.
And that may well be the case. But typically, the vast majority of multiple choice questions in elearning are far too easy to answer correctly. This is often because the authors have spent too little time designing them. This usually results in the wrong answer options being clearly wrong - and that it is almost always the answer option that is the longest that is the correct one.
Remember the stories, humor and emotions
And the last thing that bothers me about most e-learning is that they forget to tell stories, they don't use humor and the material is often completely devoid of emotion.
That is, it has, with surgical precision, omitted what we humans have evolved to notice most - and thereby remember best.
Typically, it's just a list of information followed by ten multiple choice questions and a diploma at the end. If you really want to soar into the higher echelons, the process starts with a video of a CEO who, with a serious expression, says that it's important to look at the e-learning module. It's fine to involve CEOs and give learning a managerial focus, but you have to assume that once the recipient has started watching the e-learning, they don't need any further admonitions to watch it. There simply needs to be more substance.
It's deeply boring. Why can't we have fun when learning something? Why does it have to be conveyed in ways that are difficult for us humans to remember?
With all the criticism of elearning, it might sound like I don't really believe in it. That's not the case. Elearning can be done really well and engagingly, so that the recipients learn a lot from it. But boring elearning that no one learns much from is, at best, an organized waste of time.
Do you want to learn more?
Maybe you could be interested in our Course in (digital) didactics - Learn to design good learning.
In this course you will learn how to develop learning that captures your recipients' attention and works with their motivation to learn. The course is also for those of you who teach in a classroom or online and need a professional boost.
Learn more on your own
If you are interested in reading more about the brain and learning, will these articles certainly interest you.