What are elearning authoring tools?
Elearning authoring tools are platforms that allow users to create educational digital content. Businesses or individuals can use them to create interactive videos, online courses or infographics that get across all the necessary information quickly and effectively in an engaging way. They also provide users with insights into the audience’s interactions with the content.
Since education and training had to move mostly online as a result of Covid restrictions, elearning authoring tools have become more essential than ever. You can now deliver health and safety courses, cyber security explainers, and countless other forms of information and education electronically. All this in a cost-effective, scalable way that engages its audience. These digital resources can also provide the course creator with valuable insights into the audience’s behaviour and ability.
What problems do elearning authoring tools solve?
Elearning isn’t just useful to us now because of Covid, though. It’s opening a new door to an evolved method of education – one that can save hours of the teacher’s time as well as the learner’s. A trainer or educator can, for example, use elearning authoring tools to create content for a topic they wish to discuss with their team or audience. This will have exactly the content they want in it. Once it’s been made, the educational course or video can be shared on social media and with your customers, or across your entire business. This can save a huge amount when it comes to cost. One piece of content can be used to educate thousands of individuals.
Elearning authoring tools for increasing engagement
On top of this, elearning has huge potential when it comes to increasing engagement. This means you can make memorising content not only easier but actually enjoyable. We’ve probably all had a time in our life when we’ve had to learn something that we haven’t been able to connect with. Maybe you were in school, having to write down what the teacher was saying but nothing seemed to stick. Or maybe you were reading an article about something you’d never heard of before and suddenly the sentences all seem to not make any sense.
But with elearning, there are practically infinite possibilities for how you can make your content more immersive and engaging. With interactive video, you can provide your audience with a tailored message for their situation by allowing them to select the options that are most appropriate to them. This means that those who may be more visual learners or struggle memorising lots of information can be supported in a way that’s normally very hard to do.
Feedback made easy
If anything, elearning authoring tools simplify giving feedback to individuals. Although it really does depend on the authoring tool you use. For example, Near-Life provides an authoring tool that allows its users to create interactive videos. The learner will interact with the video to answer questions, and Near-Life will record how the user performs. The educator can choose to set up scoring and feedback while creating the immersive course. After the video’s made – that’s it! Near-Life will do all the work from there. It will automatically give feedback according to how it’s been set up without needing any more input from the course designer. This means you’re free to share your content with as many teams or individuals as you would like. However, you don’t have to provide feedback manually for each person. In a large business especially, this could save a huge amount of time and money.
How can elearning authoring tools help me?
Elearning has so many benefits. When you use the right authoring tool, you can create a visually stunning, engaging online course with all the necessary information and feedback for your students. It’s cost-effective, flexible, and scalable, as well as convenient for people to learn in almost any environment. And let’s not forget, you can use this content again and again with no extra faff.
These are courses that people can take at any time of day or night. This means a teacher or course conductor doesn’t even need to be present when the learner is using the content. This can be especially helpful when the teaching is taking place across different time zones. It means everyone can have the opportunity to view the content or conduct their learning at a reasonable time of day.
Also, let’s not forget that with elearning, updating content is easier than ever. Normally organisations keep textbooks and manuals around for a very long time to save money. This means that when information in them becomes out of date they often can’t afford to buy new ones, and can’t through each one manually to scribble out the irrelevant content. But with e-learning, just a couple of clicks can update the whole course.
Using interactive video as an elearning authoring tool
Interactive video is almost in a league of its own in the elearning world. Interactive content is really the best way to get the most out of your videos. It balances educating your customers or your team with recording insights into how they’ve interacted with your content. It’s a really effective way to make sure your audience is engaging with the content you’re delivering. But it’s also great for showing you which parts may need to be explained in more detail. With Near-Life, you can even provide personalised feedback to each individual based on their answers. Once you’ve made the video, there’s no work left to do except to look back at those glorious insights. Successful elearning is all about working out the best way to create your content and provide the necessary feedback – so picking the right authoring tool is important.
Want to know more?
If you’re interested in using an elearning authoring tool to create educational content, click here to find out more. Our platform allows anyone to make great quality, interactive videos with scoring and feedback where you choose. You don’t need to splash out and spend a lot, or have experience with making similar content in the past. So, why not take a step into the future of educational content now?