Millennials and Education

What is elearning?

Elearning, or electronic learning, is the delivery of learning and training materials remotely and through digital resources.

A key component of elearning is the employment of learning management systems (LMS) which are specific software that makes it easier for you to create, deliver, and access online courses through any device with an Internet connection.

The elearning sector has been rapidly growing for years now, both in academic and extra-academic settings (corporate training, professional training, etc.)

And recently the popularity of distance learning has skyrocketed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Organizations and institutions have had to digitize not only the educational sector, but almost all organizational processes. Now, when you think about online learning, your perspective has changed forever.

The increased presence of young people (Millennials and Gen Zers) in the workforce forced companies to adapt learning materials and to transition to an increasingly amount of mobile-accessible content, as smartphones are the preferred device of these segments of population.

Types of elearning

The world of elearning is vast. Various aspects can be considered to compile a categorization of online learning, which apply to both academic and business or non-academic courses in general:

• By delivery method
  • online elearning
    • synchronous elearning
    • asynchronous elearning
  • blended elearning
    • computer-assisted instruction
• By learning materials
  • fixed elearning
  • adaptive elearning
• By communication model
  • linear elearning
  • interactive elearning
• By group dynamic
  • individual elearning
  • cooperative elearning

Delivery method

“Delivery method” refers to the way in which courses are offered to participants. The course can be fully online or offered in a blended mode (blended elearning).

New technologies make it possible to improve the quality of traditional teaching by integrating it with elearning content and methods used in elearning courses (computer-assisted instruction).

As for fully online courses, on the other hand, if participants can join activities in real time, in a virtual classroom with other users and the professor, it is called synchronous learning; if instead the content is not accessible in real-time virtual environment and is available to the user at any time, it is called asynchronous learning.

Learning materials

Elearning content can be the same for all participants and is usually determined by the instructor and cannot be changed (fixed elearning). However, the use of technologies allows materials to be tailored to the user’s needs (adaptive elearning), including language preferences. This is also why it is important to provide localized materials in the languages of your potential users.

Communication model

This category is based on whether or not there is interaction between the sender (usually the teacher or the training provider) and the receiver (student, client, employee, etc.)

If there is no possibility of communication between the parties, it is called linear elearning. On the other hand, if communication is possible and an exchange of information and opinions takes place, it is called interactive elearning.

Group dynamic

When classifying an online training course according to group dynamic, the focus shifts to the end user of the course. The user can study and prepare individually on the materials provided (individual learning), or may be required to collaborate with other users, in larger or smaller groups (collaborative learning).

Elearning for organizations

Companies can take advantage of elearning not only for employee training, including compliance training, for which periodic updates are provided based on current regulations and required company procedures, but also for training their customers (customer training).

Training is not only an internal resource; it can also be used to explain and promote your company’s products and services to current and potential customers, to keep them abreast of new developments, and to promote loyalty actions. This way, customers participate in the company life and develop a trustful relationship with the brand.

Why Is It Important To Translate Online Learning Content?

The main reasons that should prompt authors of multimedia training content to localize content uploaded online are:

• multilingual elearning increases content accessibility;
• the elearning market is growing rapidly and widely;
• more and more companies, including international ones, are relying on elearning platforms.

Multilingual elearning increases content accessibility

Localizing elearning content means first of all extending access to your elearning content to users who speak other languages.

Although English is the vehicular language of many materials, using the user’s target language results in a more effective learning process.

What’s more, not all online users have a good enough knowledge of English to ensure an easy understanding of the materials: research by Statista reveals that in 2022, about 1.5 billion people around the world used English as their first or second language. According to recent studies, the highest growth rate in the elearning market is in Asia (17.3%), followed by Eastern Europe (16.9%), Africa(15.2%) and Latin America (14.6%).

So e-learning is a tool that facilitates the content circulation and makes it globally accessible, very quickly. What makes this process even more effective is the creation of carefully crafted materials tailored to the needs of the users to whom they are addressed.

The elearning market is growing rapidly and widely

Statistics show that the elearning market is set to reach a global value of $325 billion in 2025, with corporate e-learning growing by $38 billion between 2020 and 2024.

The question of online education and related products and services increases from year to year, as users find new tools to be more effective, involving, interactive and easily accessible.

In the e-learning market, content authoring tools will be increasingly important as they allow the creation of content and entire elearning courses.

Anyone, not just programmers, can create engaging training materials and then deliver them to users and customers. In fact, according to a report by "Research and Markets", the global market for content authoring tools grew at an average annual rate of 7.72% from 2016-2020.

This shows how online learning is already a widespread reality in the world, which will not erase traditional forms of learning, but at least offer an equally effective alternative solution.

Given its popularity, companies planning of using these tools should also be aware of the need to translate their online courses to make their training offer more effective.

more and more companies, including international ones, are relying on elearning platforms

Companies are increasingly relying on online courses to train employees (employee training) and customers (customer training). In 2017, 77% of companies in the U.S. used an elearning platform, but 98% were using it by 2020.

In addition, 2020 was a very important year for elearning, including at the corporate world. Many companies that previously would have never thought about using these methods for their training courses have been forced to change their minds, if only temporarily.

Not only has training moved online, but also work activities have. Remote working is increasingly a reality. The future development of these tools is not certain, but in recent years, advantages of elearning corporate training have been noted and this may encourage their use in the future.

For starters, elearning reduces training costs for companies: you do not need to book no classrooms or travel because the class is virtual.

As a result, with online courses you get broader coverage and greater adaptability: technologies make the training path adaptable to the user’s needs, and all the company has to do is prepare localized content in the intended target languages for a comprehensive training offering.

In fact, the company can leverage the features of its learning management system (LMS) and manage training materials from a single platform to make them available to all staff components.

Basically, the strengths of corporate elearning can be summarized with: flexibility, interactivity and modularity. These features make training more agile, up to date with trends and needs of the new generations.

You cannot just translate content

When talking about translation of elearning content, we mainly refer to the linguistic aspect of the process. However, it is also necessary to keep in mind the cultural aspect of the content: that’s why we talk about adaptation or, more precisely, localization.

Localizing the content of an online course means adequately representing the target culture of the end user, while also bearing in mind that symbols can vary their meaning from culture to culture and their incorrect use can have a negative impact on the presentation.

In terms of form, localizing a course means to adapt:

• user interface elements;
• units of measurement;
• date formats;
• currencies;
• color schemes and fonts.

But there are other elements that require some extra attention. Starting with the text, you need to choose a clear style that does not include too many slang expressions, so that the content is not too characterized. In addition, it is important choose the right equivalents for industry terminology and be careful about using acronyms and abbreviations, which can be ambiguous.

And then you have to deal with images, audio and videos.

For images, you might think that this is not an element that needs to be localized, but you would be wrong. If there are textual elements in the image (idioms, puns if it is a cartoon, units of measurement, etc.) these must be adapted to the target culture your are working towards.

Then, the connotation of the elements included in the image should be taken into account. For example, colors have different meanings in different cultures. Let’t take a color like red, in Western cultures it has a negative connotation, of restriction; on the contrary, in Chinese culture, red is a symbol of happiness and good fortune. That is why you should analyze the images and understand what elements to adapt to keep the original message intact.

Another important part of localizing images, as well as videos, is adapting what you see in them. In fact, it is advisable to create images and videos for each language and culture in which you want to localize your content.

You should also adapt the locations. For example, if it is a company that has stores in many countries, it is possible to make videos set in stores in the area in which the course is intended to be delivered.

Characters should also be adapted. You need to pay attention to the meaning of the gestures of the protagonists in photos and videos to avoid the risk of them becoming offensive to users from different cultures. Making dedicated content portraying people from the same culture as the users the course is aimed at helps the audience identify with and better understand the content.

If the visual part of the video is adapted, as a consequence, so will the sound, and you won’t need subtitles, voice-over, or dubbing, because the audio will already be available in the target language.

However, these three techniques may prove useful in situations where you want to localize one video for all of your chosen cultures. You should be firstly analyse the content and, if that is the case, remove elements that could be problematic in the target culture. As for subtitles, it actually is the least expensive technique, but perhaps also the least effective. For example, if the video contains a lot of textual elements that overlap with the narrative voice, the subtitles contribute to confuse the end user and produce an information overload on the screen that is difficult to understand.

Dubbing, on the contrary, is the most expensive technique: it requires the use of professional voice actors, so that the result is an audio track with translated dialogue synced with the original video.

Voice-over is also a technique used in audio localization, if you do not plan to create new audio for every target language. In this case, the actor or narrator does not replace the original, but they overlap and coexist.

Multilingual Learning management system (LMS)

As we mentioned earlier, choosing an LMS to manage and create your own courses is beneficial. If you plan make your content international, you should consider whether or not your system supports other languages.

A perk of using a LMS is being able to monitor each user’s activities and progress through automatically generated reports and statistics.

A multilingual LMS is a learning platform that supports more than one language and allows users to select the language of content delivery, both in terms of materials but also interface elements.

Therefore, it is important to analyze what each LMS has to offer and choose the one best suited to your needs.

Overview of the most widely used LMSs

Moodle: it is a popular LMS and supports more than 100 languages. As far as content translation is concerned, we have an article that explains a step-by-step way to get a multilingual course, "How to Translate a Moodle Course".

Docebo: A system that supports 40 languages, including left-to-right languages, enabling global content distribution.

Articulate Storyline: Using Rise 360 you can create courses that adapt to any type of device and allows content translation. You can export the XLIFF file of the content to be translated and you will later import the translated file.

Canvas: The system supports different languages, including features concerning left-to-right languages. You must enable multilingual functionalities from settings to access the list of supported languages. In addition, the system gives you the possibility to integrate your Localize projects directly from the settings.

iSpring Solutions: The system allows the creation of multilingual courses through the use of iSpring Suite Max. This tool allows the XLIFF file export of the content to be translated. Then, you will import the translated file. This tool has a feature for automatic replacement of translated elements in the course, maintaining original formatting and design.