Elearning is starting to gain strength as a method of learning. Whether it is used as a means to teach students or train employees, online learning is a convenient and effective way to communicate relevant content to improve daily tasks. While this popularity is great, it also means there will a lot of online courses available for students. This is great for students but for instructors, it means a lot of competition in the market.
When you are creating an online course, you need to learn how to grab the attention of the right participants. This is not only true for the students that you will attract to take your course. You also have to consider how you can keep the attention of your students as they are going through the learning process. In the end, it is more important to have a high retention rate over high attendance.
Grabbing the attention of potential elearning students follow the same rules as a marketing strategy. You need to know how to market your course by giving it the right title, outline and design. But when it comes to retaining the attention of the students during the lessons, you need a more thorough plan. It is important to know the elements that you can use that will not only keep them interested, but also motivated to finish the course.
Here are a couple of suggestions that you can implement to ensure that your students will pay attention to your content from beginning to end.
- Use a lot of images. We live in a visual society so it is important for you to use images in your elearning course. A message of a thousand words can be conveyed in a simple photo – as long as it is the right one. Images can make even the most boring of topics appealing and interesting. Just make sure that it is relevant to the content that you are delivering. You can use a variety of images to represent key elements in the course. This will not only improve the aesthetics of your course, it will also improve the retention rate of your students.
- Create interactive activities. Learning with a group is always fun. This is one way for you to keep the attention of your students. Set up activities that will allow them to communicate with each other so they can share in the learning experience. These can be in the form of discussion groups where students can share ideas and take a more aggressive role in their learning. By interacting with each other, they can take on the role of both instructor and student. This can help build relationships between learners and thus keep them committed to the course.
- Set up games. What is better than interactive activities? Competitive games! Turning certain aspects of the learning process into a game can bring the fun into any elearning course. This is a great element to add especially if your course is quite lengthy. Admittedly, this is not that easy to implement. You need to include the right information and some games can get quite complicated to create. However, there are ways to make it all simple. You can just make your course gamified. Create badges that will make the course more competitive and interesting. It should be effective in keeping learners engaged and involved in the learning process.
- Have a humorous tone. Insert humor in your content every now and then. This will keep your students entertained. When they are entertained, they will pay attention to what you are discussing in the course. Just make sure to use this with caution to avoid making the course look like a big joke. Do not overdo it so the students will take everything seriously too.
- Ask interesting questions. Asking questions is a great way to raise the curiosity of your students. When they are curious, you can be assured that they will also be attentive to the lessons you will serve them. This raises the retention level of the students. Usually creating problems that they can relate to and encouraging them to solve it using what they have learned from the program is a great way to stimulate their minds.
- Integrate multimedia tools. These include videos, animations and other tools that will allow you to turn ordinary content into interesting ones. These may be more time consuming to create but you can be assured that it will capture the interest of your students. It will make things more attractive too. Instead of just putting text in the course, an animated video with a friendly narrative voice will be more appealing.
These tips should help you create an elearning course that is interesting enough to keep the attention of your students.
Image courtesy of Gualberto107 for FreeDigitalPhotos.net