The makings of a successful digital classroom experience

The makings of a successful digital classroom experience

Your digital classroom has no walls, no physical elements, no in-person instructor to keep the class attentive. You have only the learner, the virtual presence of the instructor, and a device. It’s easy for organizations to assume that this virtual format of learning that they have scrambled together in the last few months works well for imparting crucial knowledge. But the results seen from retention, learning impact, and learner engagement will tell a different story. So, what are these vital differentiators between in-person training and virtual instructor-led training? In the end, it boils down to the simple things – the connection between the instructor and the learner, the passion with which an instructor imparts training, and the collaboration and competition between learners.

Digital classrooms can be tricky

The digital classroom market is growing at the rate of CAGR 13% and COVID-19 has catalyzed adoption rates due to social distancing norms that forced many educational institutes, corporates, and businesses to move online. Although the adoption rate is high, many aspects of virtual learning have been overlooked due to factors such as the lack of time, resources, budgets, and skillsets. But the most fatal blow was delivered through the thought that moving from physical classrooms to a virtual environment is just a matter of purchasing or procuring the virtual meeting or webinar tool, and with a practice session or two, business will continue as usual.

Before setting your virtual learning expectations, let’s look at some of the realities of digital classrooms –

• The atmosphere of a physical classroom and digital classroom are quite different.
• Poor connectivity issues for even small segments of students can disengage the entire group and disrupt learning.
• Digital literacy is quite low among teachers, administrators, and trainers.
• Having a plethora of devices, operating systems, screen sizes, resolutions, etc., makes it very difficult to create content that will work for all possible variations.
• Virtual training cannot adopt the same program structure, activities, and instructional strategy as that of in-person training.

How to make your virtual classroom successful

Your virtual learning experience is predominantly driven by the following factors, and to create a successful virtual classroom experience, it is important to focus on some of these elements in greater detail.

• Carry out your due diligence to identify requirements
• Ensure that your IT budget covers the costs of the required quantity and the right quality of hardware and infrastructure elements
• Take adequate measures in security, authentication, and authorization, to protect your users and content
• Set practical and realistic performance expectations
• Detect and recommend supported devices

Software Tools and Apps

• Use plug-n-play types of virtual tools or webinar software for a fully integrated experience
• Build support for interactive gamification elements such as badges, points, and leaderboards
• Use collaboration and peer-learning tools such as likes, comments, discussion forums, etc.
• Ensure you can track and measure the data, analysis, and insight through dashboards, notifications, and reports
• Explore learning automation and optimization tools to save cost and build efficiencies

Instructional Strategy & Learning Content

• When designing virtual instructor led training, encourage collaboration and cooperation
• Leverage the opportunities that digital media can offer
• Introduce games, activities, assignments to sustain your learner’s interest and focus
• Incorporate Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality, and Mixed Reality into your courses

Students, Parents, Teachers, and Trainers

• Build digital literacy to utilize technology better
• Focus on usability, user behavior, and social influence
• Ensure comprehensive but quick and easy governance and administration

Other benefits of streamlining your virtual classrooms include:

• Better student engagement, self-learning initiatives, and practical training
• Flexible learning processes, timely interventions, and access to learning and data anytime, anywhere
• Engaged classes and more focus on learning
• Connecting all the stakeholders involved in the process of learning

Our top tips for choosing a virtual Learning Management System:

To meet your learning goals through Virtual Classrooms in the long-term, you need tools and systems that will bring your classrooms to life. A learning management system can help you organize, deliver, and track your virtual instructor-led training and online learning modules. Here are a few considerations to make before choosing your next LMS vendor:

1. Choose a learning management system that is robust, yet lightweight.
2. Ensure that the core features offered by the LMS meet the needs of your organization.
3. The LMS should have intuitive workflows that correspond with those of your internal processes.
4. To host your Virtual Classroom with ease, ensure that your learning platform offers a clean user interface and friendly user experience.
5. Choose a scalable learning management system that matches your organization’s growth and is capable of meeting your future needs
6. Ensure that the LMS has a strong core but is built on plug and play architecture to support newer technology and to integrate with tools such as Zoom, Microsoft Teams, and BigBlueButton.

MPS Interactive’s LMS – Learning Planet® is a robust, compact and easy to use system that incorporates the basic, but essential, features of an LMS combined with the core elements of digital classroom to meet the needs of educational institutes and corporates. Our LMS has helped countless organizations track and enrich their learning content and experiences. To know more, write to us at marketing@mpsinteractive.com.

– By Milind Gokhale, Vice President – Technology at MPS Interactive Systems