Responsive eLearning: The Future of Online Learning

Posted by 24x7learning on March 5th, 2015

One term very closely associated with responsive eLearning is Responsive Web Design (RWD). In a layman’s understanding, it is the creation of websites that are responsive to varying screen sizes of different devices be it a desktop or a tablet or a mobile, and provide an optimal viewing experience. Taking cue from the above understanding, responsive e-learning is the application of RWD to e-learning.

The phenomenal developments in the world of information and communication technology have transformed the way online medium is accessed. It is understood that for online training to be effective, needs to adapt to the changes as per the preferences of learners. In a research, morgan Stanley estimated that by the year 2015, internet usage will be more prevalent through mobile devices than computers.

The need to look beyond the use of personal computers to deliver online training courses was triggered by the astronomical increase in the number of people using mobile devices. A study conducted by Google reiterates the same point. It has been surveyed that 98% of Internet users switch between devices with varying screen sizes in a single day.

This results in two options. First, to have multiple versions of the same online course for various devices and second, to create one single responsive eLearning course that can be easily accessed by multiple devices.

However, the first option comes with some pitfalls in the road to learning. Higher cost and increased time is a natural corollary of creating multiple versions of the same online course, which also results in increased course development time resulting in a delayed turnaround time for the completion of the training course. The second hindrance is the difficulty in tracking the use of online courses which is essential for determining the ROI of the training. Using multiple versions of the same course makes tracking of these different versions cumbersome.

The aforementioned issues can be resolved with the help of responsive eLearning. The idea is creating a single course that can be accessed and used on any gadget and device on varying screen sizes and can be tracked easily with an LMS. The biggest advantage of responsive eLearning is the unprecedented learning flexibility it provides to its online learners.  

Responsive eLearning comes with the advantage of sequential screening, wherein a learner can pause the online course on one gadget and resume it on another device exactly at the point where he/she has stopped. This makes learning highly flexible and user-friendly.

Still at a nascent stage, responsive eLearning will take some time before it evolves completely. However, there is not an iota of doubt when we say that the future of learning is responsive eLearning.