What are the best ways to deliver digital learning content to remote learners?

1 Choose the right format

The format of your digital learning content should match your learning objectives, your audience's preferences, and your technical resources. You can use a variety of formats, such as videos, podcasts, e-books, webinars, quizzes, games, simulations, or interactive scenarios, to convey your information and skills. However, you should also consider the accessibility, usability, and compatibility of your chosen format, and make sure it works well on different devices and platforms. Additionally, you should balance the amount of synchronous and asynchronous content, depending on the level of interaction and feedback you want to achieve.

2 Make it bite-sized and modular

One of the advantages of digital learning is that you can break down your content into smaller and more manageable chunks, which can improve retention and attention span. Bite-sized content can also make it easier for your learners to fit learning into their busy schedules, and to revisit and review the content as needed. To create bite-sized content, you should focus on one key concept or skill per module, and limit the duration and complexity of each module. You should also organize your modules in a logical and sequential way, and provide clear navigation and progress indicators.

3 Incorporate multimedia and interactivity

Digital learning can be more engaging and memorable if you use multimedia elements, such as images, audio, video, animations, or graphics, to enhance your content. Multimedia can help you illustrate your points, provide examples, and appeal to different learning styles. However, you should also avoid overloading your content with too many or irrelevant media, as this can distract or confuse your learners. Moreover, you should add interactivity to your content, such as quizzes, polls, discussions, or feedback, to encourage active participation and reflection. Interactivity can also help you assess your learners' understanding and performance, and provide them with personalized support and guidance.

4 Apply instructional design principles

Digital learning content should be informative, entertaining, effective, and meaningful. To accomplish this, you should employ some basic instructional design principles. Align the content with your learning objectives and outcomes, and make sure to communicate them to your learners. Incorporate relevant and authentic scenarios and examples that relate to your learners' needs and interests. Give clear instructions and explanations, avoiding jargon and ambiguity. Structure the content from simple to complex, and from concrete to abstract, while offering opportunities for practice and reinforcement. Use different types of assessments such as formative, summative, or diagnostic to measure your learners' progress and achievement. Finally, provide constructive and timely feedback, as well as suggesting further resources or actions for improvement.

5 Adapt to your learners' needs and preferences

Digital learning content should be flexible and adaptable, to suit your learners' diverse needs and preferences. To customize your content, consider conducting a learner analysis to identify characteristics, goals, motivations, and challenges. You can also create learner personas to design your content accordingly and use learning analytics to collect and analyze data on your learners' behavior, performance, and feedback. Adaptive learning can deliver personalized and tailored content based on prior knowledge, skills, and preferences. Furthermore, you can use universal design for learning to provide multiple and flexible ways of representation, expression, and engagement. By following these best practices and tips, you can create digital learning content that is effective and meaningful. Additionally, a sound digital strategy can help align your content with vision, goals, and values while optimizing it for the target audience, platform, and channel.