Insider Tips To Introduce Children To eLearning
We all know how much kids enjoy their screen time, whether on a laptop, tablet, or smartphone. However, in recent years, technology has taken a much more meaningful role in the lives of little ones, as it can now be used to breathe fresh air into their education. Online learning is becoming increasingly popular in educational settings, both as a result of recent social change and because children have an innate interest in it. Not to mention, online learning increases engagement, helps kids socialize, and allows them to learn at their own pace. Celebrating World Children’s Day and the significance of education, we share this article that outlines 6 tips to help introduce children to eLearning in an engaging and effective way.
6 Tips To Create Engaging eLearning For Young Learners
1. Use Captivating Imagery
Children respond very well to visuals, especially when they are captivating, colorful, and complimentary to the learning material. Bold and colorful images, graphics, and animation can quickly draw children into the learning process and keep them engaged. In addition, a well-designed visual can help children remember new information long after the completion of the learning session.
2. Make It Interactive
A feature of eLearning you should definitely make use of is interactivity. Seeing the direct effect their actions have on the eLearning course’s interface excites children and motivates them to keep learning. Therefore, make sure to add interactive elements such as quizzes, images, maps, and more. Interactivity can also refer to collaborating with other users. With features such as collaborative games, chatting, or video conferencing, young learners have the opportunity to socialize with their peers, swap experiences and ideas, and make the learning process more entertaining and social.
3. Limit Written Material
To keep children engaged, you shouldn’t be using any blocks of text in your learning material. Often, young learners might not yet possess the adequate reading skills to handle long-form text, but even if they do, it will quickly cause them to lose interest. Instead, the best way to smoothly introduce children to eLearning is through simple words that they can understand and, most importantly, remember afterward. Better yet, you can replace text boxes with voiceovers narrated by animated characters on screen. This way, the activity becomes inclusive for children of all reading levels.
4. Gamify Learning
Games are the perfect way to get kids to learn without them even realizing it. Gamified learning helps children develop essential skills like vocabulary, spatial awareness, math, reading comprehension, problem-solving, and countless more. A useful tip is to incorporate immediate feedback in your eLearning games in the form of notifications, points, achievements, etc. This way, they can easily learn from their mistakes and be motivated to try harder next time.
5. Keep It Bite-Sized
Children have short attention spans, and you will have to work with that if you want to create effective eLearning. Make sure each activity lasts only a few minutes so that kids don’t lose interest. Also, present all the basic information about the topic at hand in a straightforward manner. Apart from keeping children interested, short activities also keep screen time at a minimum. We don’t want children stuck on a screen for hours on end because an activity is taking too long to complete.
6. Let Them Take Initiative
eLearning for children is usually guided by a parent or an educator. However, it’s still possible to foster a sense of independence. For one, you can leverage the bite-sized nature of the activity to let them learn at their preferred pace. This would also mean repeating activities as many times as they see fit. Additionally, you can let them choose the topic they want to study. It doesn’t only have to be about the school curriculum. If they’re interested in geography, space, or dinosaurs, they should be free to learn about it.
Practicing Safety
Even though the internet has a lot of benefits to offer to children, it also harbors many dangers. Therefore, keeping children safe remains a top priority. To make this happen, you can use parental control software or child-friendly websites. This way, children will still be able to access the internet and learn from its limitless material without putting themselves at risk. Combine these safety steps with the tips we shared in this article, and you will introduce children to eLearning and help them become curious lifelong learners.
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