An avatar is best used to support the content of an elearning course.  They are simple characters that speak straight to the learner throughout the course, making it easier for the learner to understand. An avatar serves the same function in an eLearning course as a host does for an event.

For example, this course from the NSAFS in Right First Time for the Financial Services, using a cartoon character as an avatar and this character runs throughout the course leading the learner.

Example of avatars used in interactive elearning

With Avatars, the message can be delivered consistently while providing a virtual human touch, which will reinforce the knowledge imparted to the trainees.

While creating an elearning course, an avatar can be a useful addition to engage learners and help them stay focussed during their path of study.

The avatar used in the above interactive elearning course is of a lecturer giving the instruction to make the elearning feel as if a virtual class simulation is taking place.

The avatar is a great tool for keeping the learner’s attention and holding interest, by serving as a guide, a mentor and a partner to accompany them on the learning process.

Using avatars that support the content like the ant is this article for a course in Supply Chain Management is representative of the role of the ant to the supply chain manager – great synergies!

Source: http://elearningfeeds.com/2670-effective-use-of-avatars-in-elearning-courses

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Here are 10 great reasons you should choose Course Merchant to help you sell your elearning online!

1. Multiple Purchases in One Transaction – allows a shopper to browse your course store and purchase more than one course using the ‘Add to Cart’ function so shoppers simply ‘Checkout’ when ready.
2. Multiple Seat Purchasing - With Course Merchant, corporate purchasers can purchase course seats in bulk.
3. Multiple Seat License Management – Store admin gives you access to a seat management utility – allowing you to allocate seats, send login emails and watch a customer’s seat allocation count down.
4. Sell Courses by Duration – Charge differing amounts for the length of course and have Moodle unenrol the student at the correct time.
5. Sell Combined Courses  - Create product bundles wtih discounting feature and auto-enrol a student on more than one course.
6. Corporate Purchasing options – Watch Course Merchant runs the enrolment and allow customers to check out on Purchase Order / Invoice as well as online payment such as Paypal and Credit Cards.
7. Discounts, Coupons, Vouchers and More! – Set up simple multi-buy discounts, multi-buy discount bands, expiring voucher codes or set up a discount by wed address with a unique URL that can be sent to groups of prospects.
8. Generate Buy Now Button Code – Set up ‘Buy Now’ links that can be pasted into emails, social media networks, WordPress or other websites to help you sell from your catalog.
9. Affiliate Marketing – Use our own product CourseIndex.com which is a complete affiliate marketing system built for elearning course sellers.
10. Use your choice of Payment Gateway – Course Merchant supports an ever growing list of the most popular payment gateways from around the world, custom integrations can be made too!

Well that’s your 10!

We found it quite tough to choose our favourite 10 reasons for buying Course Merchant – why not check out our longer list at http://www.coursemerchant.com/course-merchant/features/

Would you like to test Course Merchant - Click here to access a Demo of Course Merchant.

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Can elearning bring a healthy return on investment?

There are and will always be many sceptics who will query the effectiveness and value of elearning courses in any organisation.

Staff at Transport for London (TfL) showed that stress, anxiety and depression were amongst the main causes of ill health amongst employees and losses to London Underground. The pressures of working in a high stress environment and dealing with stressed commuters, led to high absence rates and staff sickness.

Dan Church, online learning consultant at Transport for London said:

‘In the run-up to the Olympics and with various other high profile projects underway, it was important for us to boost mental resilience among our workforce,’

Saffron Interactive were commissioned to produce an elearning course on mental resilience, developing learning experiences that really can change behaviour amongst TfL employees.

The award-winning forty minute e-learning course on mental resilience, delivered a £7.8 million return on investment.

One year after completing this non-mandatory course, 76% of staff members are still using the techniques it teaches, and Transport for London is on track to achieve an ROI of over £23 million in the next year.

Not bad for an elearning course designed specifically for its target audience!

Read more at: Saffron Interactive

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Integrating Learning and Work 2013-13 Benchmark Results

The study also revealed that the average company was able to roll out new products, services and IT systems over 20% faster when the right technologies were in place.

It also highlights average companies were achieving a 23% improvement in study time, 24% faster delivery time, 22% reduction in cost of training, 26% improvement in learning reach and 16% improvement in time to competency.

47 per cent of companies that responded to the poll claiming to deliver material to their employees’ mobile devices.

The survey identified the top obstacles to adopting technology included a lack of skill among staff to manage their own learning (63 per cent) and not understanding its potential uses and implementation (62 per cent).

Source: http://www.towardsmaturity.org/article/2013/01/14/bridging-gap-new-infographic-2012-towards-maturity/

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Some analysts suggest there are already 1 million smartphones in the workplace and for over 60% of the working day, individuals are in easy reach of a wi-fi connection.

Using mobile devices for learning is on the steady increase, thanks to the iPad, iPhone 5 and a number of different Android tablets and smartphone devices.

25% of organisations are now developing mobile apps for learning, an increase from 20% in 2010

30% of organisations encouraging individuals to use their own devices to access learning opportunities and 31% providing learners with mobile devices.

Learners are also driving demand, with the BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) with the technically literate used to having information on demand and expectations of learning anywhere, anytime, on any device, especially on their own tablets and smartphones.

With the rise in mobile technologies training budgets and trainer’s skills sets are being adapted to reflect this.

Trainers will need to adjust or update the way content is created and distributed in order to remain on top of their game in this new digital, portable, “always on” m-learning landscape.

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The top 3 trends for e-learning 2013 are:

Gamification

Gamification is likely to be the biggest trend to affect digital learning this year.

E-learning developers and designers are starting to design more effective training material using simulation to keep the gamers coming back for more. By playing video games you play until you win – this will be the same with learning, you will keep going until you master that segment of learning. The idea of using games or elements of games for learning has become a hot trend mostly in the corporate sector. Gamification can be as simple as using game elements within courses such as giving points to students and employees for participating or a game with a specific learning goal or as elaborate as an extensive simulation / case study.

Online video

Online video and interaction will also be key. Video is the most engaging form of communication. Businesses will want to use video to engage, train, and equip employees, business partners and retailers.

Videos add interactivity, interest and can add tangible learning benefits to e-learning courses. Videos are known for providing voice of an expert talking heads as well as presenting screen casts and a whole host of other scenarios. The prevalence of inexpensive video capture tools and the general speed with which videos can now be captured and published, video usage remains firmly on an upward trend.

M-Learning with tablets

This is set to be a huge hit in 2013. Many students are already using smartphones to access online materials and study. Students and workers are demanding the use of one resource to access their resources – smartphone, tablet or laptop.

Recent surveys of m-learning audiences show that end-users find on/off syncing or offline access to content highly desirable as many mobile workers spend time in remote locations either working or studying.

Will your e-learning courses follow the trends of 2013?

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This infographic from Invesp only further confirmed the need for a killer e-commerce product page.  What is more frustrating than following a link to a page and then finding out it has no relevance to the topic area you are interested in, or that pair of shoes or item of clothing you were interested in making a purchase of.

As it shows below 65.23% is the average shopping cart abandonment rate…..quite shocking?!

A small 2.13% actually convert to a sale.

Without a doubt your product page is the most important part for positive consumer experience and higher conversion rates.

In the retailing world the most important feature to influence the buying decision is free shipping (73%), followed by free returns (70%) and discount codes (62%) and vouchers (56%), along with loyalty programmes (46%) and free gifts (31%).

But what is it that really draws on consumers purchasing power?

Here are the 21 steps outlined in the infographic below:

21 steps to a killer ecommerce page. Infographic by Invesp

When creating an elearning store with media rich online courses, the majority will still apply.

But just how simple is it to make a purchase in your store? Think of the end user and behave like the student.  Whilst there will be no risk of shipping fees affecting the decision making process, will learners abandon the shopping cart because of the following:

Simplicity - make the whole buying process simple and in as few clicks as possible.

Contact information - must be visible and include your country – this can be important to some learners and may result in abandonment if it is not obvious which country you operate from.

Currency - by this I mean are you current? Having a twitter feed or blog that hasn’t been updated in months might show the potential purchaser that your ecommerce store or your website is no longer active. Any reassurance signals that prove you are still alive and functioning helps in the purchasing decision!

Repetition – asking for too much information throughout the buying process or at the point of checkout is enough to cause abandonment.  Follow up after the sale for any additional information in an email or if necessary a telephone call.

Pricing – make sure this is crystal clear and that any cross sell does not distract from the learner making the actual purchase.

Payment flexibility – make sure you can reach a global audience with several payment / currency methods and payment options.

Call to action – this should be clear and defined and be as simple as a BUY button.  Make sure your store clearly displays how to pay!

These are a few pointers to creating effective ecommerce pages for your website!

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Certainly it is much easier to take part in this kind of online collaboration than to receive software and have to download it and manage the whole process on your own. One of the big advantages of this is that you can use more than one computer or device to go through learning sessions.

For example you can use your home PC or laptop and you can also use your iPad or other mobile device to access the  internet if you are out and about.

As such, cloud based services open up a degree of freedom in e-learning that would not be there in any other way. It makes training courses more accessible and more inviting, since everything is supplied remotely and is accessible at all times. All you need to know is how to access your learning package and you are free to access it whenever you need to.

E-learning certainly makes taking new courses easier for many people, particularly those who cannot attend college courses. It means you can learn whenever it suits you, rather than being tied to one location. You’d be restricted in this way if you had to rely on software that was sent to you, as it could restrict you to one computer.

With e-learning in the cloud, you can learn whenever it suits you, providing you have a stable internet connection.

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As part of a three-year project funded by the European Commission FP7 Research programme, the institution is hoping to enhance the digital needs of students through its product INTUITEL.

It has been designed to offer the positive aspects of traditional education and deliver them through an online portal, while students will receive all feedback from tutors face-to-face.

Feedback will be based around insights gained from monitoring students’ learning styles, pace and attitude to the e-learning according to ProfessorAtta Badii, director of the Intelligent Systems Research Laboratory and leader of the INTUITEL research at the university.

According to Prof Badii, this project gives universities the opportunity to re-invent their offerings and launch new accredited courses in order to support the rising number of individuals looking to engage in online training platforms.

Do you think this will take off?

Source: University of Reading to roll out elearning tool

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For example you can listen to distance learning recordings on iPod or MP3 players, or read online learning modules on tablets, netbooks or handheld computers. You can even use mobile phones to go online and access your e-learning materials, no matter where you happen to be at the time.

In a sense, there is not one best device for mobile learning. It all depends on the nature of the course you choose and how you like to learn. For instance you may have the choice of listening to e-learning materials or reading them. If you prefer the former you can use your iPod or MP3 player. If you prefer the latter you may use a tablet to access the material you need.

Even when you focus on a particular type of device there will still be plenty of options to choose from. For example you can choose between a basic MP3 player or a more advanced one. If you are serious about mobile learning it is worthwhile to get whatever device has the best power source and capacity to meet your requirements. This will ensure you can grow into it and use it for future e-learning needs as well.

Clearly the future of mobile learning has become brighter, thanks to the devices there are to choose from.

Which one will prove best for you?

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