How can you encourage digital learning in your institution?

"In the digital age, the seeds of knowledge thrive in the fertile soil of innovation and connectivity, and educators must be the gardeners of this transformation." - Anonymous 3 questions to ask on this: How can institutions create an infrastructure that supports digital learning, including access to technology and digital resources for all students? In what ways can educators be empowered and trained to effectively integrate digital tools and methodologies into their teaching practices? How does a culture of experimentation and adaptation promote the growth of digital learning in an institution, allowing it to evolve with changing technologies and needs?

This is a serious challenge in environments where learners are new to the experience of digital learning. Making the content relevant to them through analysis of skills, career paths and needs is a must. A clear promotion strategy with short and relevant communication also enhance the participation. A good approach is to have the performance management linked with the digital learning opportunities. In terms of the content itself, the preferred structure is on short and easily available courses (e.g. mobile) in various different formats (pieces to read, video, audio) and some knowledge check to bring back the attention.

One challenge in digital learning is achieving meaningful outcomes. Developing content for lower Bloom's Taxonomy levels, like 'Remembering' and 'Understanding,' is straightforward, often using multiple-choice assessments for quick feedback. However, achieving higher levels such as 'Analyzing,' 'Evaluating,' and 'Creating' requires critical thinking and collaboration. Students may need to collaborate, receive expert feedback, and use tools like LMS and collaboration platforms. While effective digital learning is possible for all objectives, higher levels may require a departure from full asynchronous learning. Thoughtful activities, assessments, support, and resources help designers overcome these challenges.

It’s important to remember that a growing number of learners are also working, caring for children or other family members, etc. They need digital learning, and need it carefully constructed without extraneous content and scaffolded to best integrate the information. Then provide multiple opportunities for them to check their understanding before assessing them.

Since the Covid-19, Digital learning became a better alternative. The COVID-19 pandemic has become a focus on reforming teaching as well as learning models and strategies, particularly in online teaching and learning tools. To reduce the spread of the virus, education institutions and the companies have been forced to switch to e-learning using available educational platforms, despite the challenges facing this sudden transformation.

There are different Learning Management System (LMS) available in the market the can provide your organization the functionalities it needs to implement digital learning effectively. Also, using the right authoring tools will help to create engaging and informative computer-based learning modules. Make sure that you do your own research and explore options available in the market.

Although the context of tools here seem to lie in the domain of the products and services, I tend a higher level view of using the right framework as a tool. I would propose the Hulbert-Koh framework, by understanding the importance of the content, the digestibility of the content and the delivery of the content, a better delivery can be implemented, regardless of the platforms.

We all have different learning preferences. It os crucial that the digital learning is offered / delivered in a multi-model manner in order to cater for all learning preferences.

Prerequisite: you have done a thorough impact assessment, and decided that digital learning is the way forward for your organization. Make digital learning adaptation, an iterative process for your organization. Don’t jump on every fancy tool that you can get your hands on, and what others are using, and talking about. Start small. Start simple. Explore free tools online to see what can you produce with them. - Create a tutorial using Loom extension from Chrome - Get free trials for Storyline, Captivate, and play around with them Expose yourself to these tools to get first hand experience of digital authoring tools, even if you plan to hire a vendor to develop for you.

Digital learning covers a broad set of tools. It is tempting for Learning to select the latest and shiniest do-it-all product for the perceived convenience of having a one stop shop. From experience, this is hardly ever the case. Clear requirements and outcomes will give you a solid foundation for deciding what combination of tools, products and services make sense for your organisation. Having a deep understanding of your current tech stack will help you identify capabilities that are already available and gaps that need to be filled. You don’t need to buy everything in the candy shop. A good impact analysis may help you find the sweet spot where the most value can be had.

As your digital learning portfolio becomes more complex with each iteration, start preparing a super admin workforce that can support learners. Your Super Admins need to be experts in LMS you use, standard learning processes, and even facilitation skills - to educate your learners about how to use the system, and troubleshoot simple system issues.

Providing support and guidance begins with where you host it, how it is tagged, and marketed so it is accessible when people are looking for something. The balance today is less about converting technophobes or enlightening them. People know how these kinds of tools work if they are in the workplace generally speaking. Inform how to use without wasting time and speaking down - then get to it. If you have complexity built in, use callouts or hover to discover kinds of support to keep things moving forward - at that point in time. Explaining 4 different activity/interaction types before they go into a learning experience rarely sticks with your audience. Point in time support is the way to go more often than not.

A major obstacle here is that the ones delivering the digital learning (learning managers, administrators etc.) themselves often aren't unskilled or equipped to provide sufficient support and guidance. Be sure to start with them.

Guidance is essential. Learners are oftentimes lost when they join a LMS/LXP. Without clear learning paths built around key roles/competencies and guidance from HR/L&D any initiative is doomed to fail.

Driving adoption and engagement with digital learning can be challenging. You need to understand what the different enablers and blockers are. This requires insight from your customer base. Finding out what works for employees and using that insight to drive your campaigns. Recruiting champions and super users from the general employee population has proven effective in my experience. They can be instrumental in guerrilla marketing, insight gathering and can set the example for other employees. Definitely plan to provide guidance and support resources but also consider that the more resources you provide, affirms that there is a lot of friction to be expected in the user experience; a design challenge that needs revisiting perhaps.

To fuel motivation in digital learning, it's key to tap into each learner’s curiosity. I advocate for embedding interactive elements like quizzes and branching scenarios that challenge them. Personalized story-driven content can resonate more deeply, while multimedia enriches the experience. Regular, personalized feedback, celebrating small wins, can significantly boost learner engagement and a sense of achievement in a remote setup.

Great experiences invite return customers. This can be a tricky thing as all steps and interfaces between the user and the product need to work well. Nobody complains when the plumbing is working. The moment it isn’t, disaster! While there will be some learners who openly engage in learning new skills with little external motivation, the majority need a bit more. Direct links to improved performance, greater reward, and career progression potential are good motivators. While there is a case to be made for general availability of learning resources for the masses, a much more effective programme will be aligned to specific outcomes, and targeting a specific audience. For example: upskilling talent who meet 80% of the skills for a role.

Motivation will take care of itself if the end-users see the reason why they should learn. If they can see a tangible reason to spend the time learning (aligned to their job role development, business strategy, OKR's etc.) then they are more likely to engage the content and learn.

Recognition becomes the applause, and feedback the guiding hand. Regular acknowledgment of progress and achievements fuels the learner's sense of accomplishment. It's the applause after a well-played note, motivating them to keep playing the melody of learning.

I find learners' levels of interest and curiosity are increased when something is new and novel to them. Whether it is a form of digital technology or interactive content, learners seem to engage more and actively participate when a lesson consists of things they have not done before. The difficulty, of course, is continually finding strategies that are innovative and relevant to the learning outcomes.

Absolutely critical. Deploying digital learning isn’t the end goal. Feedback loops are critical at every stage of the user experience. Seeing if there is tangible impact on business outcomes, while difficult, is the most important metric.

The feedback loop is critical, and it needs to be accelerated. People expect quick feedback in "real life," and this expectation is even more acute in digital learning.

Absolutely, there is so much individual end-user data available these days that they is no excuse not to evaluate and improve the learning experience on an ongoing basis.

It's crucial to stay curious and adaptable, recognizing the universality of learning and the significance of context for true reflection. Gather feedback through surveys and communication, assess learning outcomes regularly, and analyze engagement metrics for improvement. Review and update technological infrastructure, ensure content relevance, and include interactive elements for increased engagement. Foster collaboration among learners, offer timely feedback, and promote flexibility and instructor presence for a supportive learning environment. Act on learner feedback, provide extra support as necessary, and stay informed about trends in educational technology for potential integration.

Digital learning is a better alternative for the children who had most probably first toy a digiral one. The reality is Z generation is fully bonded to digital world, teachers need to find ways to use this bonding in a productive way. Digital learning is a way to engagement and enhance learning at in-person learning.

I am talking to the business leaders out there. Before you think about objectives, tools, engagement, support, or feedback, the number one thing you must think about is culture. For learning, training, or any education to be effective, it must be part of the culture of the organization. Managers and leaders, ask you people about their learning, celebrate with them when they complete a learning, encourage them to register for more. Recognize and reward them. In your meeting, before you ask what have they done, ask them what they have learned. Celebrate their educational successes just as you would years of service or promotions. Let people see that you value it. Learn yourself. The benefit you will get from your people is exponential