eLearning and online education have transformed education and corporate training for good, but how can eLearning platforms scale and incorporate a personalized experience that takes different learning styles into account?
The answer is artificial intelligence, also known as AI or machine learning. eLearning AI enables the eLearning industry to customize learning experiences for their learners, improve retention, and break away from stale one-size-fits-all learning courses.
Adaptive learning is an educational method that uses algorithms and learning AI systems to orchestrate better interactions, customize learning environments and online courses, and address the unique needs of learners.
AI technology can mimic human intelligence through deep learning and natural language processing to seamlessly facilitate and improve the learning process. In this article, we’ll look at the ways AI can optimize digital learning and deliver a personalized learning experience.
We’ll also discuss whether AI is essential to set up your online education platform, and how you can apply some of these concepts simply and quickly using Sensei LMS and WordPress.
How is AI shaping eLearning?
Let’s look at the key ways that AI is revolutionizing the eLearning industry:
AI is personalizing eLearning
In the last few years, the effectiveness of traditional one-size-fits-all teaching methods has been questioned, especially as the dropout rate of undergraduate students in the US comes in at around 40%.
eLearning AI can create online courses that are personalized to users based on their different learning styles. This is called adaptive learning, which uses machine learning algorithms to change course material in real time based on the way learners respond to it. AI could gauge a learner’s level of knowledge and interests from the beginning to create a streamlined and highly relevant learning experience. The learning AI could offer more help where it’s needed or leave out things that aren’t relevant. It will also customize activities based on the unique needs of the student.
In corporate learning, the learning management system may adjust the presentation of eLearning course content based on their responses to questions or experiences. This can reduce time spent rehashing content that learners already know and increase their enthusiasm for the learning experience.
Additionally, self service business intelligence tools can be integrated with eLearning AI, providing learners with insights into their own learning progress. Learners have these tools to track their progress, evaluate their understanding level, and pinpoint where they may need additional assistance or resources. This enables learners to take ownership of their educational experience and achieve their goals at their own pace. Utilizing adaptive learning and Self Service business intelligence, eLearning AI can offer a more personalized and practical learning experience, foreseeably leading to higher engagement, improved outcomes, and lower dropout rates.
AI is speeding up eLearning courseware creation
Authoring eLearning courses can take weeks, which is far from ideal in a world where new discoveries and updates are constantly being made and need to be taught. AI authoring tools can greatly speed up the content creation process. It uses a programming technique known as language modeling, a training algorithm that teaches machines to write like human beings.
While it’s not recommended that you use AI to write an entire course, it can create a solid foundation for you to build on, especially if you need to create a lot of content at scale, e.g. by creating headings and subheadings for certain topics.
AI can assist you by converting volumes of existing content into “smart content” designed for digital consumption by implementing search marketing techniques and using the data in your CRM to create more appealing courses.
You could also use AI to translate or localize your existing courses so that you can reach new audiences from around the globe.
AI is adding bots to the eLearning mix
It’s impossible for human assistants to monitor and manage the needs of students around the globe who are learning remotely at all hours of the day. Bots can fill the gaps. They are easy to implement and cost-effective.
Bots can answer repetitive questions to free up teachers’ time or guide students through the initial adaptation period, providing valuable information about their course and expectations without the need for a human trainer.
Instead of Googling and going down the wrong path, AI bots can provide guidance directly within the LMS.
AI is bringing “virtual tutors” to eLearning
Virtual assistants differ from chatbots that only answer questions when they are asked. Virtual assistants are more proactive. Many eLearning courses use virtual tutors during assessments. eLearning AI can detect if a student’s written answers are incorrect and provide feedback in real-time before the student moves on to the next topic or skill set. This not only saves time but ensures that students have the support and resources they need at all times.
Virtual tutors can also help with scheduling and automated grading and provide explanations on how course materials work within the subject.
AI is simplifying eLearning grading and assessment
Grading assessments are the most time-consuming task a teacher has to go through. Fortunately, learning AI can be used to grade long and even very complex exams, as neural matching capabilities in artificial intelligence enable machines to understand the intent and answers behind written assessments.
eLearning AI can combine with plagiarism detection tools to detect similarities between students’ submitted assignments and past or present assignments submitted by other learners. It can also compare samples of students’ writing to determine whether or not someone else potentially completed a particular student’s work for them.
AI is making eLearning more accessible
eLearning AI can also serve learners with special needs or visual, mobility, or speech impairments. The eLearning industry has made education more accessible as anyone can access learning from anywhere.
Elearning AI can offer language-based support, e.g. by automating closed captioning and transcription services for learners with hearing impairments. eLearning companies can train the service with keywords and concepts unique to their online courses’ knowledge domain to increase transcription accuracy and improve inclusivity.
AI-powered translation apps can also convert spoken words into a different format so that non-native speakers of a language can access materials in their home language. This can also improve access for students that struggle to process speech quickly.
One more way AI is changing eLearning: It’s making it adaptive
eLearning AI goes beyond simple personalization. It makes learning adaptive by providing mentoring, detecting knowledge gaps and providing recommendations, and boosting learning engagement by continually assessing learners’ weaknesses and progress to keep their online learning experience relevant.
Adaptive learning provides more efficient, effective, and customized learning paths using a data-driven approach to adjust the path of education according to a learner’s skills and preferred pace. As one adaptive learning expert says, “a learning environment is considered adaptive if it is capable of: monitoring the activities of its users; interpreting these on the basis of domain-specific models; inferring user requirements and preferences out of the interpreted activities, appropriately representing these in associated models; and, finally, acting upon the available knowledge on its users and the subject matter at hand, to dynamically facilitate the learning process.”
Do you need Artificial Intelligence for your eLearning site?
We’ve seen the benefits of AI in eLearning, and we can expect online education to flourish further as more online courses adopt an adaptive learning model. While AI is not strictly necessary to course creation, and you can still create wonderful, interactive courses without it, it can also offer some unique benefits to eLearning, such as the ability to use AI image generators to create custom images and graphics for courses, which can enhance visual learning and engagement for students.
In fact, there are reasons why you may want to veer away from an AI education model. Courses with AI features can be costly and more time-consuming to set up. Plus, you may want to set up courses that are more linear by design. For example, if you have a course about playing online guitar for beginners, it’s unlikely that you would want advanced adaptive features that lead students to different streams within the course.
However, we can see how important it is for online education to consider some of the benefits that AI is capitalizing on. For example, any online should aim to be accessible and easy to grade. So can how you achieve these benefits without using AI? We recommend Sensei LMS and WordPress.
Sensei is an online Learning Management System that integrates directly with WordPress. This means you can set up courses using the familiar Gutenberg block editor, without needing to learn a brand-new interface.
If you don’t already have a WordPress site, there are two main ways of creating one:
- Using a managed hosting provider like Pressable, that runs your site on its server. The advantages of using Pressable are you get a 100% uptime guarantee, 24/7 support, and lots of tools and integrations to help you build a better site.
- Using WordPress.com if you want to avoid self-hosting. Setting a site up this way is a bit more straightforward, but you will have slight limitations in terms of features and customizations you can include.
To set up online courses on a WordPress site, you will need Sensei Pro. If you plan on running courses on more than one site, you can alternatively consider Sensei Agency. Sensei Pro includes all the features you need to quickly set up a high-quality online course. It’s worth mentioning that Sensei Pro integrates with WooCommerce, which is important to unlock the most potential out of your courses. You’ll also need to integrate with WooCommerce to sell your courses to students.
What features can you add to your course using Sensei?
Sensei’s features could be perfect for you if you want to create a course without delving into the potential complexities of AI eLearning platforms. Let’s have a look at the main ones below:
Sensei Blocks
Sensei Blocks are interactive elements you can include anywhere in your lessons to engage students and add more educational content. These blocks currently include Interactive Videos, Image Hotspots, Quiz Questions, Flashcards, and Tasklists.
Want to see an example of a Flashcard?
This is it!
Schedule and Drip Lessons
You can control the pace of your lessons. For example, you can keep a module locked until a student has completed the previous one. Or, you can set your lessons to be released weekly, giving students time to study or practice the course material they’ve learned so far.
Groups and Cohorts
Students can learn and pass together. For example, if students from the same organization enrolled in your course (such as from the same company), you can add them as a cohort so they will be graded on their progress as a group.
Grading
You can add quizzes to lessons and set them to be automatically graded. You can select a number of formats for your questions, including multiple-choice, timed quizzes, ordering questions, and free-response questions.
Certificates
You can add customized certificates to students who pass their course! This gives them an incentive to perform well in the course and see it to completion.
Wrapping it up…
eLearning AI can transform online courses and the way they are presented for the benefit of LMS platform providers, educators, and learners. It can make the entire eLearning experience more personalized, speed up course creation, add bots, automated grading, and virtual tutors to the LMS platform to free up educators’ time and make eLearning accessible and inclusive for all.
You can, of course, create an accessible and inclusive eLearning platform without AI. In fact, this could be the way forward for you if you want to set up your online course simply and quickly. If you don’t need AI features at the moment, we recommend creating your course using Sensei LMS on your WordPress site.
With Sensei Pro, you can add a host of fantastic features such as Sensei Blocks, scheduled lessons and content dripping, group learning, easy grading, and course certificates. These features are vast and are more than enough for the average online educator.
Check out Sensei LMS today and try out the Sensei Pro plan with a 14-day refund guarantee.
