How to Organize e-Learning Content Effectively

These days online education is gaining momentum and completely transforming the traditional way of learning. It has proven that there is no urgent need to attend physical classes to get high-quality education and knowledge. Students can easily learn the materials without leaving their homes.

Perhaps you have already decided to create online courses, but find it difficult to determine the sequence of your steps and how to structure your materials properly making it clear for everyone. The main rule of successful learning is the organization of your content, like writers, included in the best writing services reviews All Top Reviews do in their works. 

Let's understand how to lay out the content of online courses so that they are successful and bring maximum benefit to your students.

How to organize digital content properly?

Let's look at the most common and often-used ways to organize content for e-learning.

First, set the priorities

The first approach to organizing content is to arrange information in order of importance. It helps students to receive the essentials from the outset, not to waste their time on course parts they will not likely use in practice. It is a good idea to provide the most important content at the beginning of the course when students are most focused. Therefore, it is worth determining which information has high and low priority. 

Consistency

To prevent students from becoming confused by the provided information, the content should be presented in a particular sequence. This will make it easier for students to remember and apply the materials in practical actions.

For example, we learn to cook by following the recipe step by step. And we learn to read a book after we learn to recognize certain letters. All in all, there should be consistency in how the content is presented and learned.

Alphabetical content order

This is a simple way to organize content that will easily help students find the information they need. This method does not require any instructions, everything is logically clear. Furthermore, this option is also useful to search for text content, such as abbreviations, technical terminology, keywords, and so on.

Arranging content in alphabetical order is a great way to provide random access to data, especially when it is a large volume. Also, the alphabetical method of organization comes in handy when the information cannot be sorted using another way.

Group the content

This method is ideal if the information you provide is of equal importance and there is no definite order in its presentation. You can group content by topic into logical categories, which will help students find similar themes. This way will help students learn smaller sections one at a time and perceive the information better. 

Make sure not to create too many subcategories when the only way to find information is to click on each category and subcategory. Grouping items into categories makes it easier to find information of a common type if the user knows what to look for specifically. This method works well with alphabetical sorting.

Sort by periods

This is probably the type of content organization people use most often. We like to represent and place events in a linear form. Time is a great way to categorize events that occurred during a fixed period.

Organizing by time makes it easy to track and compare changes. It is the best way to capture history because people perceive time linearly. Where to use it? It is suitable for presenting or comparing events over a certain period. Organize content by time in step-by-step procedures, creating instructions or capturing events in chronological order.

Cataloging

In simple words, a catalog is a list, where each item is a separate entry. It contains various pieces of information, such as the title, the author's name, and a description of the content. This way of organizing information helps you easily find the information you need in different areas.

From simple to difficult

A good option for making it easier for students to learn is to present information from simple to more complex. For instance, writers from the writing services Trust My Paper sometimes apply this method in their tasks. Simple content is easy to remember, sometimes unconsciously. This is the first step to begin learning more complex material by engaging your memory. A person learns well from a hierarchical representation of information. Keep this in mind when choosing how to structure content.

Access to definitions and background content

It is worth noting that some students do not have any prior knowledge required for the course.  An option to meet their needs in such a case might be to display the definition in a small pop-up window. For example, by hovering over a term highlighted in a different font or by clicking on the definition itself, the student can get a detailed definition.

Giving explanations in context makes more sense than asking students to find the right word in the dictionary themselves. You can also place formulas and operational information in small pop-up boxes similarly.

Advanced Content Access

Add optional extended content that will be available to engaged students. This could be research results, resources, charts, or any information beyond the goals. Then provide links or buttons to access the content.

Inconsistent content structure

This approach comes in the format of case studies and scenarios. These are formats in which the student must be able to use the information to determine what the problem is, or at the very least, begin the investigation.

Inconsistent e-learning is helpful for some students, while others may have difficulty with the lack of structure. Students with a high degree of self-organization tend to learn well in an environment where they have control over how they arrange the information. This makes their learning more individualized.

Summarizing

Using more than one way to organize content is the best way to organize information to answer users' questions.  You can use all options if you need to be flexible with your data. 

Analyze and select the ways that best fit your online course. Try to make presenting information to your students simple and accessible. Having more than one way to access content is something that many people expect by default in today's digital world.

Bio: Lillie Jenkins is a creative copywriter and content writer. She has worked as a copywriter since school, so her writing skills are well-honed. She writes publications in such fields as marketing, business, education, and personal life. More than writing Lillie loves to travel and read professional literature.