E-learning and LMS blog articles

Taking the time to design an effective L&D strategy that aligns with an organisation’s goals and ‘top-level’ strategy is a crucial contributor to the success of any business or organisation. However, no matter how carefully crafted an L&D strategy might be, without the right e-learning platform to support it, it’s unlikely to reach its full potential. One such platform is Moodle - hugely popular among countless organisations for delivering and enhancing L&D strategies. Keep reading to find out why.

Build and manage content

A fundamental part of any L&D strategy is learning and training content; with the right e-learning platform content can be presented in a number of ways. For content to have a lasting impact on learners, including ensuring knowledge is retained, it needs to be engaging. With a learning management system (LMS) like Moodle, content can be designed with learner engagement in mind.

Moodle allows users to build and manage lessons and courses within the LMS, including a wide range of readily available interactive modules that can be added to a course. Moodle allows users to create a multitude of lesson types such as videos, audio clips, and Wikis which will drive learner engagement levels and completion rates.

A Moodle LMS allows organisations to design their L&D strategy with a diverse range of learners in mind – yielding better results for any learning strategy. For learners that prefer learning from interactive content, Moodle’s SCORM-compliant software means L&D admins can acquire content such as scenario-based training modules. Or, for learners that prefer traditional teaching methods such as classroom learning, Moodle’s BigBlueButton integration will cater to their learning style as it provides real-time sharing of audio, video, slides, whiteboard, chat and screen – serving as a virtual classroom solution.

Prioritising progress tracking

An L&D strategy cannot be successful without proper tracking and management of learner progress. L&D managers and teams need to have full visibility of whether a learner is successful or showing signs of struggling and to use this information to review and adapt an L&D strategy if needed. Understandably, monitoring the progress of multiple learners daily or weekly can be overwhelming without the right tools in place. But with a Moodle LMS admins benefit from robust reporting tools and analytics.

Moodle provides comprehensive reporting through its report builder, engagement analytics, overview statistics, and much more. With these tools, admins can not only build an intricate picture of learner progress but also check course retention rates, engagement levels and completion rates. Using this information content can be adapted to see better results, thus improving the overall training strategy.

Assessments

With a Moodle LMS admins and L&D managers can not only carry out essential progress tracking using reports and analytics but also use assessments. Making assessments a core part of an L&D strategy should be a priority for organisations that wish to ensure knowledge has been retained and that learners are fully engaged – particularly for those carrying out compliance training.

With Moodle, admins can create and manage a wide variety of assessment types such as simple multiple-choice knowledge tests or self-assessment tasks with detailed feedback. Using Moodle’s intuitive functionality, both learners and admins or managers/teachers can receive automatic feedback including grades or assessment results along with the number of times a learner has attempted an assessment. These assessments allow learners to check their knowledge base autonomously and informally, or admins can choose to make them a mandatory exercise such as an end-of-course test. In this case, learners can check their ‘timeline boxes’ to keep track of any upcoming deadlines – ensuring they have full visibility of what is expected of them.

Reward achievements

Ensuring that learners remain on board with an organisation’s L&D strategy can be difficult if they don’t feel motivated enough to complete their designated lessons and programmes. One of the best ways to motivate learners is to reward them for their progress and the Moodle badges function is an effective tool for achieving exactly that. These badges are displayed on a user’s profile, motivating them to build up the number of badges they have been awarded.

Moodle site badges are awarded for activities that are site-wide, such as completing three courses in a row, and Moodle course badges are awarded for activities within a specific course, such as achieving 100% on an end-of-course assessment. Using a pre-defined set of criteria and automated analytics, badges can be distributed automatically – meaning admins don’t need to constantly monitor progress to reward achievements.

Collaboration

If teamwork and group learning is an essential part of an organisation’s L&D strategy, Moodle’s collaboration tools can be used to enhance this. Features such as Moodle Groups (which allows admins to group together a set of learners so that they may share relevant content with one another), forums, wikis and chats create spaces for learners to interact with one another and engage in real-time collaboration.

Long term learning

A study found that 76% of employees are more likely to stay with a company that offers continuous training, so creating an L&D strategy that delivers long-term learning opportunities is essential for organisations that wish to attract and retain talent.

Once an L&D strategy has long-term learning objectives in place, Moodle can be used to define and create e-learning programmes designed to achieve them. L&D managers can set up competency frameworks and learning plans which can be assigned to a group of users that align with a learner’s continuing professional development or personal development plan.

Flexible and customisable

As an open-source LMS, Moodle is loved by many for being a flexible and easy-to-use platform. When designing an L&D strategy, having a flexible e-learning solution is hugely beneficial as it allows an organisation to mould the learning strategy into what it needs to be to get the best outcomes. Moodle can be customised in a number of ways as such as branding options, site navigation and course structure.

Additionally, Moodle can be accessed on mobile devices, giving learners the freedom and flexibility to access learning from wherever they choose, whenever it best suits them.

Looking to improve your organisation’s L&D strategy with a Moodle LMS?

As one of the UK’s leading providers of Moodle, we help hundreds of organisations achieve their e-learning goals and improve their L&D strategies every year. We consider ourselves Moodle experts so if you’d like to find out more about what our Moodle platforms can do for your organisation, book a free demo with us today.