As the first installment of our Did You Know? Series, I wanted to cover the topic of eLearning.
Since the pandemic, many education providers have been undergoing digital transformations, with elearning becoming increasingly commonplace amongst traditional modes of education.
In many situations learners expect greater flexibility in when and where they learn, easier access to learning and support, and digital experiences that make it simple to understand what they need to do next.
For education providers, eLearning can help meet those expectations. But simply putting learning online isn't enough.
What I find particularly valuable is what happens when eLearning becomes part of a connected learner journey, bringing learning, administration and the people supporting learners closer together.
When we talk about eLearning, it can be easy to think about uploading course materials to an Learning Management System (LMS) and allowing learners to access them online.
There is much more you can do.
A well-designed eLearning environment can give your learners a clear pathway through their course, provide easier access to resources and support, create opportunities for interaction and feedback, and help them understand their progress.
It can also support different ways of delivering education.
One LMS can support online, blended and workplace delivery, giving learners greater flexibility while practical training and human support remain part of their experience.
For me, that's an important distinction. Technology shouldn't replace the human elements that make education meaningful. It should make it easier for learners and educators to connect with them.
One of the most useful things about eLearning is the ability to create structure around the learner experience.
Rather than sending materials through email, sharing links or manually providing access to different resources, course content can be organised in one place.
Enrolment rules can provide access at the appropriate time, while completion and date rules can release learning activities and assessments as learners progress.
You can also make learning more interactive.
Activities give learners opportunities to practise skills and apply their knowledge. Quizzes and self-checks can provide immediate feedback before formal assessment, while progress indicators and achievable milestones can help learners maintain momentum.
The result is not simply a digital version of a classroom. It is an opportunity to thoughtfully design the journey learners take through their education.
Connection isn't only important for learners.
An LMS can give trainers greater visibility into participation, activity and completion. Time-stamped records can show what learners have accessed, submitted and completed.
That visibility can help teams understand how learners are progressing and identify when additional support may be needed.
It can also make record keeping easier.
Instead of piecing together learner activity from attendance records, emails and individual checks, learning records are captured within the LMS and can support compliance monitoring and audit preparation.
That means technology is not just improving the learner-facing experience. It can make the experience of delivering and supporting education simpler as well.
One of the areas I'm particularly interested in is what happens when the LMS and Student Management System (SMS) work together.
Without that connection, your team can end up maintaining the same learner information across multiple systems, creating a situation where there may be discrepancies or delays in which you get information to your learners.
A learner is enrolled in your SMS. Someone creates their LMS account. Someone gives them access to the appropriate course. If their enrolment changes, both systems may need to be updated. When they complete their assessment, someone may then need to transfer their final result back into the SMS.
Each task might seem small, but across hundreds or thousands of learner interactions, they add up.
Connecting the two systems changes that.
With Wisenet's eLearning Integration, LMS courses can be mapped to Wisenet Courses and learner accounts, enrolments and groups can be automatically created and updated.
As a learner progresses, access to the LMS can be enabled or disabled based on changes to their enrolment. Grade Mapping Rules can then return final unit grades to Wisenet.
It's a more connected approach where the systems supporting the learner journey work together rather than creating additional work for the people using them.
A good example is something that happens every day for education providers: a learner's circumstances change.
Imagine a learner withdraws from a Unit.
The Unit Enrolment is withdrawn in Wisenet and the integration disables their access to the corresponding LMS course. Your team doesn't also need to go into the LMS and remove that access separately.
Or perhaps the learner needs to resit.
Automation can enrol them in the Unit again and the integration can enable access to the corresponding LMS course, allowing the learner to return to the learning and assessment they need.
The same principle can extend throughout the learner journey.
Once a learner receives their final unit grade in the LMS, that grade can sync back to Wisenet. Depending on the automation rules your organisation has configured, the relevant outcomes, dates and Unit Enrolment status can then be updated, allowing your team to complete its final checks.
These connections can remove repetitive steps while creating a more consistent experience for learners and staff.
For organisations considering Moodle, we have also created an option to have your Moodle environment hosted by Wisenet.
Moodle connects directly with Wisenet, allowing learner accounts, enrolments and course information to flow into Moodle and final grades to sync back into Wisenet.
We host the Moodle environment and manage its connection with your existing Wisenet instance, helping reduce some of the infrastructure, maintenance and technical responsibilities involved in managing the two environments.
It also means you have one partner supporting the connection between your SMS and LMS, with guided onboarding and ongoing Moodle expertise available as your eLearning offering develops.
One thing I would encourage you to remember is that introducing eLearning doesn't have to mean changing every course at the same time.
Starting with one course can be a much more manageable approach.
Choose a course and an appropriate cohort. Look at which learning and assessments work well online. Create the content and activities, connect Wisenet with your LMS and test the complete learner journey.
Then listen.
Gather feedback from learners and staff, understand what works and identify what you would change. You can use what you have learned to improve the experience before expanding it further.
Ultimately, I don't think the goal of eLearning should simply be to put more education online.
It should be to make learning more accessible, connected and engaging while making it easier for the people delivering education to support their learners, and also for the learners to be able to receive this information.
When enrolment, learning, assessment and completion work together, technology becomes less visible in terms of being the focus of you and your team’s time.
Learners can focus on where they are going next. Trainers can focus on supporting them. And education providers can spend less time connecting systems and processes manually.
That's where I believe eLearning becomes most valuable: not as another piece of technology, but as part of a more connected learner experience that creates greater possibilities for the people at the centre of it.