My journey From eLearner to Konnektis developer

Having joined Konnektis as an eLearning developer with a background in front- and back-end software development and graphic design, I felt that I could make a meaningful contribution to the team in a sector that really needs more imaginative ways of engaging its users.

A lot of room for improvement in the sector

I joined the team with existing experience about eLearning and some preconceptions from my previous roles in a regulated services sector where I had to complete multiple courses every month for compliance reasons. Now don’t get me wrong, some subject matter in some industries can be quite dry but, a lot of the time, the way it was delivered lacked any sort of imagination or creativity.

 I felt that there was loads of scope to improve the type of content that eLearners have access to since, frankly, my previous experiences of digital courses weren’t favourable: too much information crowded onto a page, uninspiring formats and a lack of focus on what the user would find genuinely engaging. I certainly felt that it was possible to do better to make learning experiences more attention-grabbing!

 So what is my view now?

Working creatively to develop new ways of communicating information

Some of the Konnektis eLearning team talking about how to create a new education game in the office, while Charlie the dog relaxes!

From my first day with the team, it has been clear that they approach development with a user-centred focus, and I’m happy to say that it’s been a breath of fresh air working with the my Konnektis colleagues, which draws on a diverse team with expertise across imaginative concept creation, graphic design, animation and the technical skills to bring ideas to fruition. Even for topics that may appear to have the potential for being tedious for a Learner to complete, an imaginative approach to delivering the content and - ideally - gamifying it in bite-sized chunks goes a long way to making the learning process as engaging as possible. What we are creating are simply the polar opposites of what I used to begrudgingly have to take earlier in my career.

From my perspective, this approach comes down to a different user-centred mindset, which is focused entirely on creating an engaging way for a Learner absorbing the content. We tend to draw inspiration from familiar video or board games and recently created a course that took the form of a detective game where the user has to discover clues and come to the correct conclusion to teach them about the subject matter. It was fun, entertaining, held my attention and - more importantly - effectively taught me about the subject matter in an engaging way.

Great communication can leave a lasting impression

It’s the same in face-to-face learning as well, and reminds me of an experience I had at University (which is a few years ago now!). During one lecture, one professor was teaching us about imaginary numbers and, rather than simply talking about it, he sang about it! He spent the time to think outside of the box and make this mundane subject as fun and memorable as possible. At the time it seemed unusual - and a little bizarre - but it worked, and I still remember the content and even lyrics to this day.

Now I'm not suggesting that you include verses of song within your courses (but we’d never rule out trying it if the opportunity arose!). What I’m suggesting you can do is to put the eLearner at the centre of your course creation and explore imaginative ways of sharing content and knowledge. That’s something that the team here at Konnektis does really well: making the mundane magical, and I am proud to be part of this unique team with the goal of ensuring that anyone who has to undertake eLearning doesn’t have the same experience I did in the past.

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