Why Should You Convert Online Course Website Into Social Learning Platform?

create social learning platform

Online courses have now become an indispensable component of online learning, and as the courses become sophisticated, it’s time for course websites to improve as well. Rather than hosting your courses on Udemy or Coursera, it’s safe to assume if you create social learning platform, it will provide both your customers and your business with a broad spectrum of benefits.

In this article, we’ll look into the ways you can convert your online course website into a full-blown social learning platform and why you should look into it as early as possible. Let’s dive right in, shall we?

So what is a social learning platform exactly?

create social learning platform

A social learning platform is typically a site that facilitates collaborative studying. People can just connect to a website via their social media handles and interact with other learners while working on their tasks.

The reason this phenomenon has become so popular is the continually growing body of research that supports the efficacy of this type of learning. This blended approach towards education is an innovative and entertaining approach, which we didn’t have access to previously.

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Social learning platforms allow students to comment and share information that they find to be useful to the topic at hand, and also share their progress with other community members while communicating with their classmates and teachers under their social handles. It’s all about being social.

Check out how you can set up your own social learning website within minutes.

What are the benefits of social learning?

Social learning sites are now a very relevant asset for many businesses worldwide and provide them with a comfortable solution to improving an employee’s or an entire department’s skill set at a moderate cost. This suggests that platforms like these are both economically and socially beneficial.

1. It’s a familiar environment

familiar environment

The world has gone through impressive changes over the years, our lives are becoming increasingly digitized. Very often, we have more conversations on social media than in real life. The transition from a real-life class to a digital classroom is in itself a transition into a more familiar environment. However, adding the social media component to the mix will have an even more impressive effect on the rate at which students will engage with your courses.
Furthermore, receiving feedback from colleagues and peers is an even more encouraging experience that allows you to understand the subject matter from multiple perspectives.

2. It’s more entertaining

It’s safe to assume that people appreciate plain video courses compared to social learning environments because it’s considerably more entertaining. This allows for a much engaging and efficient learning platform, compared to its older iterations.

3. A more meaningful interaction

meaningful interaction

Social learning isn’t just about students sharing and liking their test results, they can also interact with their mentors and instructors, which is somewhat possible on an online course site, but the process is kind of clunky.

A learning environment that allows students to interact with their teachers offers a superior learning experience. While manuals and courses are central to the educational processes, it was industry and niche thought leaders who designed and wrote them. These specialists are the centerpiece to a more complex and efficient collaboration between students.

4. Bonus points: gamification

gamification

Gamification has gathered considerable momentum over the last 10 years, and it’s nowhere near becoming irrelevant. Gamifying educational platforms allow ensuring a much more efficient and stimulating system that provides students with the opportunity to rehearse the challenges they’ll encounter in their professional lives while doing it in a safe environment.

Gamification allows educators to tap into their students’ natural vocation for interaction with other people, the sense of achievement, the desire to grow in status, and even competition, which, in effect, makes the education process more natural and considerably more efficient. However, gamification of your platform demands additional planning and great copywriting. There are now platforms like Trust My Paper that provide content writing and copywriting services like these.

5. A smoother transition

There is a set of things you need to take into account before you choose to transition from a course site to a social learning platform. Here they are:

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  • Reach out to the people — this will allow you to receive and carefully analyze feedback from a group of people with relevant interests. In effect, you’ll be able to calibrate your approach and understand what are the best features to integrate into your social learning platform.
  • Opt for a focus group — Once you have converted your site to a full-blown platform, consulting a focus group will allow you to spot bugs and user experience inconsistencies. As site owners, we tend to be very biased towards a particular approach and vision, which can be damaging you’re not going to be exposed to second and third opinions.
  • Incentivize — if social interaction is at the crux of a social learning platform, it’s essential to have the right calls to action to motivate students to communicate and share their experiences, something that you won’t typically do on a course site. Devise exciting ways in which you can incentivize students. A few ideas would be providing them with premium content available for reaching certain milestones, medals, and badges, diplomas, discounts, prize. Implementing these will considerably stimulate loyalty and engagement.
  • Keep an eye on analytics — paying close attention to your analytics is an essential component of a successful service. The idea, however, is that social learning platforms, from an analytics perspective, are considerably more complex. Carefully follow the courses or activities that people are the fondest of and how much time they spend on them. Invest in the development of such courses and activities to increase engagement and decrease bounce rates.

Conclusion

In conclusion, it’s safe to say that there is a myriad of reasons why you should look into transforming your online course website into a social learning platform.

Here are the main benefits we covered in the article:

  • Your students can study in an environment they understand. Social media is now an essential component of our lives; therefore, people will most certainly find it entertaining.
  • They can interact with their peers, mentors, and instructors.
  • Gamification mares the learning process much more seamless, effortless, efficient.

We hope you found this article useful. To find more useful articles on related topics and even more, make sure to check out our blog!

Good luck!

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