What E-Learning Challenges Can Microlearning Address?

e-learning issues solved by microlearningMicrolearning is a great strategy to use because we are currently going through a whole new level of e-learning challenges. Thanks to the digital age, young people have developed certain traits and habits that can be considered as by-products of using mobile devices at an early age.

An article published on the online new website, Independent, discussed how overstimulating kids with media can cause an imbalance in their basal ganglia. This is the part of the brain that helps us stay focused, pay attention or ignore distractions while doing critical tasks. This makes them very impulsive and forgetful in the future. Regardless if the mobile devices are used to play interactive games or watch videos, it is a fact that it can compromise their ability to learn when they get older.

Fortunately, e-learning has evolved to help counter these challenges and it comes in the form of microlearning. The short yet clear messages imparted in this learning strategy is proving to be effective when it comes to dealing with these learning challenges.

Limited attention span

Microsoft Corp. revealed that our digitalized lifestyle has shorten our attention span quite significantly. We only have 8 seconds before we start to lose concentration. This is the reason why the beginning of your course is very important because you want to hook your audience so they can pay attention to what you have to give them. Fortunately, e-learning courses get to have more time because people who are intent on learning will have a longer attention span than 8 seconds. However, if you cannot capture their interest during the first 10 minutes, then their concentration will start to dip. This particular issue is not a problem for microlearning because the whole course is very short. Ideally, these courses are only between 10 to 20 minutes. Short videos are oftentimes 5 minutes long. You get to finish the course even before the average person starts to lose interest.

Forgetfulness

Another challenge that microlearning can address is the forgetfulness of today’s learners. There is just too many information available that we can easily forget about what we just read. Not only that, it is possible that most of the learners are no longer motivated to remember something. This is simply because they know that they can get the information quickly. Obviously, we know that this memory problem is not okay. Fortunately, microlearning can help with this situation. Although the short-courses themselves cannot improve the memory, it does make for a good supplemental learning material. We may not be inclined to remember everything. However, we have a higher chance of storing information in our long-term memory bank if we see something repeatedly. Since microlearning is short and oftentimes faster to do, it becomes easier to create then as supplemental courses for the main and formal training program.

As you can see, these two challenges in e-learning may seem insurmountable, but a short course can easily address it. Of course, this means you have to learn how to use microlearning properly to maximize its use.

Image courtesy of Master isolated images for FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *