Designing Digitally
06/18/2018
The digital world that we live in has changed the way we interact with our environment. Gone are the days when we collect the newspaper from our driveway and spend a few hours every morning reading it. Today, we simply pick up our smart phone or go on the internet for short bites of the daily headlines. Now our world depends on digesting small amounts of information often. This is an example of microlearning in our daily lives. Microlearning is a new way of life and it is the future of Employee Training models.
The world that we live in today allows us to access information within a few seconds. As result, attention spans are becoming shorter too. New learners want their information to be untethered and they want to be able to access it anywhere at any time. They want to be able to have their information any time they have a few extra minutes. They also want it on-demand and free from the inconvenience of having to travel to a specific time and place. In the digital age, learners no longer want their material to inconvenience them.
Mobile devices allow for a more collaborative learning environment. They want to be able to interact with others and get answers to their questions quickly using messaging and chat. Learners also want to feel empowered and able to get access to new information and learning tools themselves. The average person checks their phone approximately several times an hour.
Companies need to realize that the world has changed and the traditional model may not be the best approach to training. Microlearning gives employees small bite-sized chunks of information that they can digest quickly in a short period of time. This style of learning matches the way learners now prefer to learn in the digital age.
Building training into small modules serve two purposes. First, the employee will be likely to keep their attention focused while learning. In addition, they can have ready access to the information if they want to refer back to it later. The employee can digest the information on their own time and at their own pace. In addition, if any of the material needs to be changed at a later date it is easy to change a small portion of the module, rather than having to redo the entire lesson. These are some of the advantages that the microlearning environment has to offer over the traditional employee training classroom sessions.
The microlearning model allows the developer to create a micro-environment around each module. What this means is that the mobile environment no longer restricts the lesson to text only. The module can connect the lesson through videos, quizzes, graphics, games, simulations, and other engaging lesson formats. It can present the information in several different ways that make the learning engaging or apply it using different means. It is no longer limited to visual learning only and can involve multiple separate sensory systems including sound and the motor system as the learner must interact with the screen. This type of repetition will make the learner more likely to integrate the lesson into their knowledge base in a way that can be applied in their daily work routine.
Traditional methods for training have become obsolete, expensive, time-consuming, and do not meet the needs and preferences of today’s learners. There is a growing demand for mobile learning for all types of companies. Course development techniques continue to grow and improve. Within a few short years millennials will constitute a major portion of the workforce and companies must learn to adapt to them.
Mobile learning paves the way for creating a culture of learning. This allows them to be more responsive to their customers and more likely to develop innovative solutions. It creates a collaborative environment that is attractive to the new workforce and takes advantage of the way they like to engage in their world. The engaged learner will be more productive than one who feels like they are being forced into a box that is not of their choosing.
The new learner has a need for constant knowledge, is distracted easily, and is always on the move. If companies want to reach their workforce, they will have to accommodate their needs. The digital age can be used to enhance and drive the performance of effective teams. microlearning is not the way of the future, it is the way of the present and must become a part of the world of employee training now.
Digitally Designing, Inc. helps take advantage of this new learning paradigm by developing tools that are customized for the needs of your business. Contact us today for a free quote!
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