Speedy Studying: A Dynamic Strategy To Coaching
When speed is of the essence …
There is an obvious comparison between the concepts of fast food and quick eLearning courses. Instead of “30 minutes or less”, the delivery time naturally looks more like “3 weeks or less”. Just 3 weeks to design, develop, deploy and manage an entire eLearning course. Just like fast food, fast learning was born out of a modern day necessity. According to a 2017 survey, an average of 71 development hours is required for 1 hour of eLearning material. However, the rapid learning development approach shows a 40% reduction in these working hours.
It is said that the learning process should not be rushed or viewed as a race to the finish line. However, the same does not apply to the process of developing learning content. Can rapid development really be achieved without compromising quality and consistency? Should fast learning only ever be seen as a last resort?
A savior in the COVID-19 era
From basic PPE training for healthcare workers to rules about social distancing in the workplace, COVID-19 has created a particularly urgent need for training. These requirements call for a number of fast and effective learning solutions, all of which must be developed quickly. In addition to important workers, the entire corporate sector was also affected in the form of Work From Home (WFH) restrictions. Remote training became the order of the day worldwide. In the early days of the pandemic, there was an urgent need for continuing education.
Most fast learning providers were able to respond to this need and deliver tons of new training material in a tight timeframe without missing a step. However, the requirements for vocational training have increased and continue to rise, with the WFH largely still in force in 2021. As a result, everyone now expects eLearning courses to be completed even faster. Automation makes a significant contribution to saving time. What is really needed, however, is a streamlining of the entire development process.
Who Needs Fast E-Learning Development and Why?
Let’s put aside the COVID-related popularity of quick learning. The answer to this next question will help us predict whether fast learning will continue to make up a lion’s share of the learning solutions market after the pandemic is over: Did fast learning increase even before the pandemic broke out? In a word: yes.
Other common uses of fast learning are:
- Transfer of organizational knowledge (knowledge management for SMEs and large companies)
- Time-critical training content with a short shelf life
- Training content that may require quick updates after deployment
- Compliance and sales training content
- Projects with tight deadlines or tight L&D budgets
- Training content with a simple curriculum
- Customer training that must be introduced along with new products or software updates
- Personnel policy updates that must be communicated immediately
Microlearning nuggets and fast learning: a match made in Heaven
There is a big difference between the concepts of fast food and fast learning: fast learning content can actually be very good for the learner, while fast food is usually unhealthy. Our digital age has shortened the attention span of the average person and text-heavy content has gone out of style. To catch the learner’s wandering attention, you need to keep your content short and sweet. Microlearning nuggets are bite-sized pieces of compact information that have been scientifically proven to be easier for the modern learner to digest and store.
So it’s easy to see why fast learning fits like a glove with the teaching model of micro-learning. Within the time constraints of fast learning, you can easily create mini modules that save the learner’s time, save your development time, and get the job done more efficiently!
Main advantages of fast learning
- Lower labor costs
- Ability to respond to your learners’ needs in real time with simple course updates
- Shorter training time
- Ideal for mobile learners who travel a lot
Possible disadvantages of fast learning
The content of quick learning content is designed to work best when tailored to the most basic training needs. So if you choose fast learning, don’t use it to teach complex subjects.
Some companies trust their instructional designers to use the simplest, quick creation tools to develop courses quickly without employing a development team. These types of courses may be educational, but the downside is that such content is limited to a very basic level of simplicity. Such do-it-yourself, quick-learning authoring tools are limited to built-in templates and have very little interactivity. And this cheap approach can lead to hastily developed courses that lack the all-important professional atmosphere. This type of generic content is not Polish and is usually text heavy. It’s basically a fancy PowerPoint PPT presentation with a voice over added.
This will avoid these potential quick learning pitfalls
The right thing to do is to turn to rapid development teams who are familiar with all of the relevant rapid authoring tools and who have decided to use the best after researching, trying, and testing them all. The key is to maximize interactivity within budget constraints. To do this, you need a good team of experienced developers. There is a difference between cheap and affordable!
The tools and tricks of this trade
The recent advances in learning technology are helping developers automate more and more tasks. This has reduced the need for coding and opened up exciting customization options that were previously lacking in fast learning content. Most of the quick learning content is at the minimum level (L1) of interactivity. However, you can always spice it up and add media-rich graphics and graphics to it.
You should try to avoid using PowerPoint add-ins such as iSpring Suite, Office Mix, or Articulate Presenter. You can turn PPTs into eLearning material with minimal effort, but as mentioned, they have little impact on learning. Instead, opt for advanced tools for fast authoring such as Articulate Storyline, Claro, or Adapt. You need a development team that works quickly and not in a hurry. Depending on the timeframe, they may even have to work with graphic designers and quality analysts in parallel to deliver the project on time.
Most quick learning content does not require a full storyboard to be created as the content is usually very simple. You may have to rely heavily on SMBs rather than instructional designers. Rapid learning development specialists rely on standardized white label UI templates and pre-defined navigation settings to get a head start in the design process. This allows them to bypass the review phase as all templates have already been tried and tested. You also have access to media asset libraries from the above rapid authoring tools so they’re always ready to go.
Conclusion
The rapid development of eLearning is a phenomenon that will persist even after the end of the pandemic. When done well, it can save time and reduce costs, guaranteeing a high ROI. However, fast learning is a standard solution that works best when implemented by niche specialists and experts. So by keeping an eye on price, you should be able to safely get your learning content on the fast lane for delivery. Just don’t let your need for speed tarnish your commitment to quality!
Emmersive Infotech
Emmersive Infotech: We develop tailor-made knowledge solutions for the new millennial workforce using state-of-the-art technologies such as AI and virtual reality
