With the upsurge in the demand for eLearning in the pandemic and its power being leveraged to its full potential, learning new things has never been more convenient. In a workplace learning context, eLearning has been a boon for companies to train employees remotely. Learning can also be imparted through informal ways like learning from co-workers by collaborating. This form of learning is referred to as social learning which is basically the process of learning through sharing.Social learning has been an integral part of the traditional training sessions as employees often participate in group activities and learn from each other. But is this possible in an eLearning course, especially when everyone is remotely distributed? It depends. The features and functionality of your eLearning platform determine what level of interactivity you can provide for your employees to connect with one another. For instance, consider Easygenerator which is a powerful online eLearning authoring tool. When youcompare Easygenerator with Tovuti LMS you will notice the latter has many more animation and interactive elements.These interactive elements provide your employees the scope to connect through discussion forums or have a healthy competition through gamification based quizzes, thus encouraging social learning. Let’s look at how you can incorporate social learning into your eLearning course to make it more effective:
Use gamification features to your advantage:
A proven way of increasing employee engagement, gamification allows you to integrate social learning through healthy competition. It includes different formats like quizzes, timers and point-scoring systems to pique employee interest. Employees complete the training to earn bespoke custom awards and incentives which not only ensures their learning progress but also motivates other employees to top the leaderboard.
Foster interaction via live video sessions:
Elearning courses are pretty one dimensional where the employees engage at their own pace. Holding live video sessions is a great way to induce social learning through real-time interaction. It makes the collaboration super effective and easier since everyone is present at the same time and contributing their ideas on various topics. Additionally, incorporating professional YouTube video production services can further enhance the learning experience by providing engaging visual content that resonates with different learning styles.
Encourage learning through observation:
Another successful way of integrating social learning is by including user-generated content in your eLearning course. This means utilizing videos where a coworker teaches a specific concept. These are highly relevant as the knowledge is coming from an existing employee. Encouraging employees to share and upload their videos builds a great learning management portal.
Promote the use of online forums:
The online discussion forums create an environment similar to a classroom setting where employees discuss thoughts about work productivity, latest technologies, company product features, emerging trends, etc. These online forums make it easy for employees to seek clarity from a colleague regarding an important issue instead of waiting for an instructor to be available for answering.
Hold Q&A sessions:
This one is a no-brainer as the structure of a Q&A session is built on social interaction. This is why it is the most popular social learning strategy to get employees to contribute and collaborate on questions related to a topic. Your employees are encouraged to raise questions and get clarifications from their course instructor or departmental experts.
Assign group projects:
Another highly powerful social learning activity is to assign group projects so employees get to work together to accomplish certain tasks by sharing knowledge. Group projects push employees to take decisions by collaborating and present results as a team. There are various tools, for instance, web conferencing tools, that make executing such group projects a piece of cake.
Conclusion:
Social learning is very powerful in fostering workplace collaboration which significantly enhances the company work culture. Everyone grows together and works towards a common goal, which builds a strong loyalty towards the company. It’s safe to say that with social learning practices incorporated into a course, your employees will never feel eLearning is an isolated experience.
