Using Instructional Design for eLearning

How do you transfer the instructional content, interactions, and delivery into the digital medium without a loss of effectiveness?

The world of online learning (or eLearning) is still in its beginning stages of understanding how to be effective as possible, yet it is needed more than ever. With the world participating in a global community and most resources are available and accessible on the web, online teaching could utilize the best parts of the Internet and create powerful delivery systems. This is also relevant today, as many schools are switching to online courses quickly in response to combat the COVID-19 virus epidemic.

But how easy is it to transfer content from live to online? That’s where the majority of the problems lies; eLearning has been working on bridging the disconnect from both mediums. The first challenge to overcome is the loss of instantaneous communication (both in messaging and receiving); now information has a short delay from instructor to student. This has been remedied by collaborate chat rooms and software with video capabilities, but it still does not substitute for interpreting nonverbal communication (facial expressions, tone [mostly relating to text], body signals, and visual representation). Though we have gotten close, eLearning hasn’t recreated the tangibility factor, which leads to the second problem of engagement. Traditional methods of engaging students are less effective online, at least in the sense of doing in-class assignments.

In my personal opinion, I feel online teaching has been lacking because we have been transferring the content verbatim without contemplating how online teaching is an entirely different medium. Online use is very personal and driven by independence; work and research can be done by oneself, and if communication is used between people, it is primarily used to give one’s two cents to the topic at hand. Perhaps class sessions should focus not on participation like in a live class, but finding engagement from both ends by providing material students can interact and think with, while setting expectations for students to seek their own information and relay it as their own opinions.

The eLearning world continues to develop and get better; here are some tips that help with modern eLearning:

https://elearningindustry.com/7-instructional-design-tips-effective-elearning