Over the past 15 years, online learning has raised a lot of interest and caught the attention of more and more people, because they manage to satisfy two important needs at the same time – they offer the chance to continue growing your skills, from the comfort of your home.
2020 and COVID-19 forced schools, colleges, and organizations to shift their study/work in the remote realm, and develop online learning solutions. As a result, this industry has now experienced a serious boom in demand.
This year offered eLearning solutions a great push forward and highlighted their benefits, when compared to traditional learning alternatives.
Time
People can save a lot time by choosing eLearning solutions, as they are extremely flexible time-wise. If you find a course you fancy, you can study at any hour, for as long or short as you wish, with no drawbacks.
Whether it’s early in the morning, later in the afternoon or during the night, online courses enable you to maximize your learning style, via their less restrictive time constraints.
Money
Since we’re talking about maximizing benefits, one very obvious area is the amount of money one has to invest into such an opportunity. eLearning alternatives usually come with a much lower price tag than their traditional counterparts. This results in two major benefits:
- People will be able to enjoy the same level of content, but save money in the process
- People who would have liked to receive an education, but did not have the necessary funds, now have an avenue to pursue their interests
Furthermore, an important point to take into consideration, due to this year’s happenings, is the fact that eLearning platforms, solutions and courses have become more accessible than they have ever been, due to the rise in demand. If there’s ever a time to look into these opportunities, it would be now.
Personalized content
Every course participant will have their own dashboard, personalized to fit their wants, needs and comfort. Some eLearning solutions rely on machine learning, to further customize courses, altering them to either ease parts where participants face issues, or increase the difficulty, if they feel it is not challenging enough.
Engagement
One of the big selling points for eLearning platforms is represented by the degree of engagement. In this environment, everyone is generally more relaxed and can express their opinions without the shame of speaking in public. While this may not seem like a big deal right off the get go, remember that there are thousands of public speaking courses and training sessions.
Online learning solutions allow people to bypass this conundrum and enjoy a full educational experience, as they would have otherwise in a classroom.
Final thoughts
It’s a fact that online learning is the future and will slowly, but undoubtedly, phase out class-based learning in the future. We’re seeing eLearning step into the mobile and tablet realms, offering more and more people the benefit of online learning, without the cost of purchasing a laptop or desktop computer.
This in turn has generated immense amounts of data, which have given rise to the use of machine learning, in order to further improve and customize learning experiences.
With the advent of AR/VR, we might even see a hybrid approach, whereby online learning sessions will happen from the comfort of our homes, but in a digital classroom.
2020 pushed our boundaries and forced us to adapt to a world that was mostly left uncharted. Whilst eLearning was growing, its development was happening at a steady pace, with many people being more wary than welcoming. After this year’s first half, most of us did not have much of a choice and had to overcome any fears or doubts.