eLearning, Instructional Videos, and Microlearning
Multimedia is a combination of different types of media, such as text, audio, image, video, or animation. Whether you support your organization talent or human resource team or are a manager looking to improve your team’s performance, it is beneficial to be aware of current multimedia trends and learning technologies for instructional delivery. In this article, I will discuss trends for eLearning in the workplace, particularly microlearning and instructional videos
What is eLearning?
Any form of learning that occurs through electronic media is eLearning. This includes power points, screencasts, video conferences, webinars, articles, eBooks, and most obviously, online learning modules/courses. (Coursera, 2024). eLearning is favored due to accessibility and flexibility. Your company may choose to generate its own eLearning course content through authoring tools such as Adobe Captivate or Articulate 360. Alternatively, they may encourage employees to take advantage of massive open online courses, such as those available on Coursera or Udemy.
Microlearning Basics
With the purpose informing or instructing in snippets, microlearning provides short, focused bursts of learning and can be used as single-instance just-in-time training to improve performance or serve as a series of pre-training experiences leading to a longer-term learning goal (Corbeil et al., 2021). The cognitive foundation for microlearning is based on optimizing the brain’s working memory. After the brain decides on vital information to focus on from immediate memory, this information is processed in working memory. New information is processed in connection with previous knowledge retrieved from long-term memory. The brain can only focus on a few items at a time in working memory before attention shifts. Instead of structuring learning for 40+ continuous minutes, microlearning provides short, focused bursts of learning. Adolescents and adults can process an item in working memory intently for 10 to 20 minutes before mental fatigue, interference, or boredom (Sousa, 2022).
With the increased use of electronic devices, laptops, tablets/iPads, and phones, microlearning is often favored in the electronic form. To be effective, a microlearning experience should have one specific learning objective that can be accomplished successfully in 10 minutes or less (Corbeil et al., 2021).
Leaning into Instructional Videos
From new process tutorials to product/service launch content, videos are another common multimedia resource. Even if your workplace does not have a dedicated video production team, there are great tools such as Canva for image and video content design, and Loom for screen recording and editing which is particularly useful for training videos. I used Canva to create, edit, and publish this instructional video. For those with loftier aspirations, Filmora and Adobe Premier provide more advanced video editing experience.
Current video trends include maximizing user-generate content, referred to as UGC (Adobe Communications Team, 2024). You can encourage your motivated team members to create brief tip videos on specific topics. User-generated content fosters a collaborative, innovative, and solutions-oriented work learning culture with the added benefit of curating an ever-growing video learning library.
Support from an Instructional Designer
Instructional designers provide organizations invaluable support in planning and developing complex long-term learning and development content as well as concise short-term just-in-time training solutions. As an instructional designer, I look forward to creating microlearning, instructional videos, and eLearning course content for organizations. Check out some of my recent eLearning projects here.
References
Adobe Communications Team (2024, January 18). 2024 video trends to create engagement-worthy content. Adobe Blog. https://blog.adobe.com/en/publish/2024/01/18/2024-video-trends-create-engagement-worthy-content
Corbeil, J., Khan, B. H., & Corbeil, M. E. (Eds.). (2021). Microlearning in the digital age: The design and delivery of learning in snippets. Taylor & Francis Group.
Coursera. (2024, May 9). What is E-Learning? https://www.coursera.org/gb/articles/e-learning
Sousa, D. A. (2022). How the brain learns (6th ed.). Corwin Press.