The Power of Personalization in eLearning

This is a guest post by Alexey Kutsenko, CMO of DDI Development.

eLearning is a widespread form of educational technology that aims to improve the process of education and knowledge sharing within a company or organization. It is adopted by a significant amount of businesses and organizations. 

According to gminsights, by 2026 the eLearning market is going to exceed 300 billion U.S. dollars. The report also states that demand for mobile eLearning and virtual classrooms are going to rise rapidly.

Not only can learners use eLearning platforms to transfer and store video and audio files, but learners can also get access to learning materials from anywhere and at any time. Moreover, the platforms are designed with a focus on meeting the individual learner's specific needs. 

Personalization in this process means that every person has their own goals as well as a personalized learning plan. All these make it possible to increase the quality and speed of learning and help employees get the qualifications they need. 

So, let's take a closer look at personalization in eLearning and how it can influence your education processes.

What is personalization in eLearning?

Personalization in eLearning is not only about a custom goal or various device support. It means that a person can customize the appearance of the system and make it more suitable for their usage. 

Also, personalization means that everyone can set their own goals, communicate them to teachers or instructors and create a personalized learning environment. This kind of approach can significantly boost the efficiency of learning as well as open up new opportunities in career development. 

Now let's take a look at how personalization in eLearning can be achieved.

How personalization works in eLearning

Below you can find some information on how personalization works in eLearning.

• The Learner: When it comes to registration, everyone has to enter their name. The system will use the learner’s name later during the course of learning. The learner’s name can be used in personalized emails, tasks, tests, and other areas.

• The Environment: By environment, we mean that students can customize the system environment. For example, they can customize the profile images to represent themself. Another way students can customize the environment is by choosing a voice in the audio files: it can be either a female or male voice.

• The Content: Only by personalizing content and using its multiple types can you give students control over their own learning environment. For example, learners can have the choice between watching a short video and listening to an audio version while reading. This can help learners choose the content that matches their individual needs.

• The Roles: In this case, it means the usage of an instructor's photo during lessons to make it more personal. Also, teachers can ask students to add their own photos. All these actions are aimed at make the learning experience more personalized. 

• The Learning Objectives: Students have the opportunity to adjust their learning objectives to a desired aim. For example, if a person wants to get promoted from middle-level to senior-level management, the learning plan has to represent this goal. It will make the process of education clearer and more understandable.

• The Learning Path: Each person has their own pace and way of thinking. That is why it is important to give learners the opportunity to choose the course content. Learners will develop their own learning path with general milestones and achievements that will boost the efficiency of studying.

• The Media: Each person has a different type of learning style. For example, one person learns better if he / she watches video materials, while another learns better through reading texts. Moreover, a third type of person may learn better with audio formats. It means that the eLearning system has to give learners a choice so that they can choose the formats that best suit their unique learning styles.  

Benefits of personalization in eLearning

Personalization in the eLearning systems opens up lots of opportunities to increase the efficiency of education. Let’s take a look at the most popular benefits you can derive from implementing personalization in eLearning.

1. Establishing personal learning goals

Establishing personal learning goals is one of the most important advantages gained, thanks to personalization in eLearning. Learning goals have to be achievable as well as time-oriented. 

As we mentioned before, every person has his / her own learning pace and learning path. Hence, a person is more likely to achieve his / her learning goals when the goals are personalized to his / her needs.  When an employee becomes more qualified, the company benefits from it.

2. Setting up personal learning paths

A personal learning path is another opportunity provided by the personalization of eLearning. It means that the learner can choose what courses or lessons they will study first and in what order. 

Not only does it help learners work on different skills at different paces, but they can also customize a learning path that responds or adapts based on their progress, motivations and goals. 

Moreover, it allows teachers to closely monitor each learner and provide extra support as needed.

3. Selecting learning content that works best

Personalization also allows for the collection of statistical data about the learning path of a student which represents the efficiency of content. Learners will choose the lessons they understand the most and that creates an opportunity to improve the whole program. 

It means that you can provide more personalized lessons for your personnel, while they can choose the type of content they prefer. Learners can choose between video lessons, audio lessons, or text documents. 

Selecting the learning content that works best will significantly improve the efficiency of the eLearning platform.

4. More engaged learning environment

Customizable learning environments make working with a platform more engaging. Customization of avatars or the color themes of the system, or changing the voice of audio files can make learning more comfortable and effective. 

In addition, modern learning platforms can use learners’ browsing experience to make the environment even more personal. Blog posts, and search history can be used to improve personalization. 

However, this kind of functionality requires significant technological expertise  and a lot of programmers’ work to be implemented. That is why it is more reasonable to build a learning system from scratch with some level of custom functionality based on your unique business needs.   

Bottom line: Embrace personalization in eLearning 

To sum up, personalization in eLearning systems aims to make content and the learning environment more engaging and suitable for learners. Customizable environment, personalized content, as well as the possibility to choose the preferred content type make the learning process more comfortable. This approach can benefit the company because employees will learn more effectively which means the company will have more qualified staff.

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