As we know learning has always been a formal concept for classrooms or seminar halls.
After the arrival of eLearning courses, the learning and development scene has to become informal learning courses.
According to a survey, 80% of people like to take eLearning courses in an informal way.
We at WPLMS will help you in creating a more informal and collaborative eLearning environment from your courses.
What Is Informal Learning?
Informal learning gives control to the learners to choose their learning content from various sources based on their interests, preferences, and relevance.
Informal learning is self-directed learning that is driven by learner’s passion and motivation. In the pursuit of more efficient and effective training methods, many online course creators are turning their social learning technologies to get a better return on their investment.
Informal learning is a good step towards better training results, but it’s not a simple switch so that you can easily flick on informal learning. It takes a lot of hard work and effort of the course creator.
Why We Need To Remove “Formal Learning” From eLearning Courses
An Informal way of learning in online courses has brought a new revolution in the field of learning. Learners taking eLearning courses are recognizing the importance of informal learning. It helps the learners in absorbing and retaining their knowledge better. However, not all online course creators have not understood why informal learning is included heavily in eLearning courses.
Informal learning offers freedom to learners to take eLearning courses at any time from anywhere without any constraints. Many experts deliver online lectures and seminars by using informal ways of learning. This type of learning also helps the learners in taking courses from the experts whenever they want.
Better Engagement Of Learners
Informal learning helps learners in taking different types of training through online courses efficiently and in an engaging way. The engagement level of informal learning is very high so that learners feel motivated while taking online courses. This way it advances the knowledge of the learners.
Creates Community Of Learners
Learners are very much benefitted from the learning when they are provided with a platform to discuss all their queries and problems with the other learners. Informal learning as empowered by the Learning Management System provides this type of feature to the learners and also engages them.
Benefits Of Informal Learning
We have long understood that learning can happen and generate better long-term outcomes in everyday informal ways. Let’s see the various benefits of informal learning that are provided in today’s online courses.
- Informal learning makes eLearning courses more focused and makes them fully driven by the learners.
- Informal learning provides more autonomy and control of learners over eLearning courses as they are exploring and learning.
- Training through informal learning creates more fun as it happens at the pace and interest of the learners.
- We can begin without any significant learning plan. Today, we have access to so much information, particularly online, that can be used to continuously acquire new learning.
- A colleague or mentor also finds it a lot easier to participate in any discussion of knowledge sharing. While in the case of formal training, they need to prepare in advance, schedule the session, ensure the target profile turns up, and so on.
Conclusion
Now, you can easily understand the value of informal learning. I hope this approach will provide cues about the benefits and the value of informal learning. I believe that the right approach is to encourage a blend of both formal and informal training in eLearning courses that will work best. This combination can blend and meet your training needs more significantly.