5 Ways to Personalize Online Learning

One reluctance to self-paced online learning, or elearning, is the perception that its not personal; it lacks that face-to-face human interaction that keep students motivated to complete the training. To overcome this challenge, try applying one of the following personal touches to your presentations:

• Create engaging multimedia presentations. Don’t just have the learner sit down and look at still images next to text. Add in some music, animation, video and interactive elements to pull them into the experience.

• Add some faces. People connect to people. Even if you need to train on technical topics, such as software, capture some video of the presenter conquering the workflow. On-screen talent should be personable and professional with a conversational tone.

• Add some interactivity. Your training should include some type of interactivity every 3-4 minutes. Even a simple quiz question or button that links to an external website will involve your learner in what they are learning. Add segment breaks with a “Next” button that allows them to process information in their own time before manually proceeding through the program. Interacting with the training may satisfy their need to interact with a trainer.

• Allow the learner to choose his or her own path. You can take the previous interactivity tip a little further by presenting a number of subtopics related to your main topic, and then allowing the learner to choose when and how they learn it. This forces them to take ownership of and personalize their learning experience. You can define some topics as “critical to know,” “a good idea to know,” and “good to know” to help guide them to appropriate content.

• Consider social learning tools. Equip your content with features that allow learners to share with friends and colleagues via email or social network sites. You can also take advantage of discussion forums that allow learners to interact with each other and subject matter experts.