(Your Tourism Stakeholders Will Love!)
Now more than ever, eLearning is an integral part of our lives. In four short years, the global eLearning market will reach $325 billion. More and more destination marketing organization and destinations are turning to online platforms to train tourism front line professionals. In fact, 72% believe that eLearning gives them an advantage over the competition.
But eLearning only works if community members and stakeholders are actively involved. Lectures or boring text are a no-go. Content should be influential, motivating, and most importantly, engaging.
So how do you create compelling eLearning content? We think you can do it in 5 simple steps!
1. Know Your Audience
Before you start developing your course, know who will be taking it. Create a demographic profile of your ideal student. Think about
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Age
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Level of education
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Location
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Professional position
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Income level
Your learner could be a seasoned tour operator or a DMO marketing director fresh out of college. Tailor your content to meet the needs and motivational styles of your audience.
2. Make it Pop
Regardless of demographics, your eLearning content should always be visually appealing. Potential students looking for your valuable content are going to skip right over it if it isn’t eye-catching.
Format your text with headers, easy to read fonts, and lots of white space. Incorporate bullets, bold print, or numbered lists when possible.
Breaking up the text helps make the content easy to read and comprehend. Here’s an example of text that has been formatted to catch and keep your attention.
3. Highlight the Problem
You’re teaching an online course because you have experience in your field and useful information to share. So as an instructor, it might seem counterintuitive to focus on a problem rather than the solution.
But highlighting a problem in your course content is actually a great way to engage your learners. Problem-based content is always fluid and lends itself to suggestions, new perspectives, and collaboration.
Inquiry-based learning starts with open-ended questions and encourages creative problem-solving. Students bring their own professional experience and skills to the table, as well as applying new information. They become invested in finding answers and retain what they’ve learned as a result.
4. Connect Content to Reality
Circling back to knowing your audience, it’s imperative that you make your eLearning course relevant to your students’ professional lives. Use real life examples, common industry challenges, and valid data to underscore your content.
Your eLearners need to know that they are learning something useful that they can apply in their professional lives.
5. Keep It Short and Sweet
If you really want to keep your students focused on learning, keep your lesson short and to the point. Focus on the most important takeaways in your headlines and limit each section to 3-4 sentences.
You can also take a multimedia approach to instruction. Produce short videos that break your lessons into small, digestible bits. Recent research suggests 3-6 minutes per video works well for eLearners.
Video also works well for students completing classes on their own schedules. Everyone’s time is important - there’s no need to waste it with a lot of filler.
Creating compelling content isn’t as difficult as you might think. Even if you are new to online instruction, these 5 simple steps will help you make your class a standout and keep your learners coming back!
