Training differences between an e-mail and a e-Learning...

Training differences between an e-mail and a e-Learning mini-course

06/12/2017

Very often companies try to use e-mail for micro training. But it’s probably better to design a mini course…

It’s complicated to describe, with precision, what a e-Learning mini course is.

In its smallest meaning, a eLearning course can be an extremely “small” object, made up of a short explanatory document in PDF format, coming with 5 questions appearing in random order and related to the content of the document.

Preparing and publishing such a course is, for an insider, a job of a few minutes.

But why should an organization design such a a-Learning mini course? For following reasons.

The perceived impact of such a mini-course is very different compared to an email with attachments.
The user is much more involved in reading and understanding a topic, when he/she has to answer some questions and pass a test.
The organization can receive actual data about the attendance of students (for example how many attempts each user did to pass the test, how many have passed it, who has not even started the test and so on…). This allows to intervene immediately with proper organizational measures, for example soliciting those who have not completed the course in scheduled time.
The successful completion of the course can be witnessed with a personal certification, that gives more value to the activity either for the students and for any control entity.

These easy examples are enough to show with clear evidence the advantages of a mini-course versus the standard forwarding of mails or links to download. All above described is very easy and fast to develop: if a LCMS e-Learning platform is used, it does not require writing any single line of software code.

The main advantage of the e-Learning solution can therefore be found in the possibility to scale-up the didactic complexity by using several additional tools, for example a short introductive video, an animation showing the main concepts, an interactive game do be completed, a document to deepen the topics, a questionnaire of appreciation, or the possibility to ask questions to the tutor in case of doubts.