What Recent Learning Research Says about Designing Synchronous eLearning

Conference Archive

Learning Solutions Conference & Expo 2013 - March 14, 2013

Patti Shank

President
Learning Peaks

Are synchronous and/or virtual classroom training sessions worthwhile? If they aren't engaging, attendees tend to zone out. Synchronous eLearning, which involves learners attending live learning events at the same time from different places, is one of the ways of providing learning flexibility as well as access to needed training. A 2010 survey of 3,327 eLearning Guild members showed that when synchronous eLearning is well designed it can be as compelling as, or even more than, classroom training. The survey also showed that synchronous eLearning is used by approximately 66 percent of Guild members who answered the survey.

Participants in this lively and interactive session will discuss what eLearning Guild and academic research says it takes to make synchronous eLearning valuable to learners.

In this session, you will learn:

How to use academic research to your benefit
How different traits and preferences impact what learners want (how should that impact what you do?)
That asynchronous seems to work better for some types of content and synchronous seems to works better for others
How design and interaction impacts synchronous outcomes
Ways to apply recent research to your synchronous courses for better results!

Audience:
No specific prerequisite knowledge needed, but the concepts will make more sense if you have attended, facilitated, or designed synchronous eLearning yourself.

Handouts

You do not have access to these files. Please log in or join with a free membership to download these files.