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Opportunities for building e-learning with the help of artificial intelligence (AI)
Artificial intelligence is finally here! And this time everyone is sure of it. We have seen image creation tools, AI chat and search engines, and even voiceover bots capable of imitating the voice of your favorite celebrity. Right now we have all the tools needed to create the many e-learning elements or learning objects required to assemble and build an e-learning course. And yet some of us may wonder whether this approach is right. And if so, are there any precautions to consider? In this article we talk about the possibilities for building e-learning with the help of artificial intelligence (AI) and whether it will work for everyone.
Components of a good e-learning course
In theory, everyone has their own way of doing things, and this concept of "many ways to do something" can also be applied to building e-learning courses. One Instructional Designer may approach the idea of building eLearning in a certain way, while another may differ in opinion. Understanding this concept is very important, because when using artificial intelligence to build e-learning courses, the number of ways you can do something increases dramatically, giving you more options than before. Keep this in mind, because no one particular way is right, and in the end it comes down to the preferences of both the learners and the training facilitators when building trainings based on e-learning.
In our view, there are 7 main components for building good e-learning courses.
Content
Good-quality text, images, videos, and other supplementary content form the backbone of any e-learning course.
Design
Both the course design, which allows learners to enjoy the e-learning, and the responsive design, which allows the course to work on multiple devices, are important.
Navigation
An e-learning course is like a journey. We mentioned earlier that e-learning consists of learning objects combined into an e-learning course. In order for learners to interact with the numerous learning objects, they must move from one object to another. To make this navigation easier, the e-learning course must have seamless navigation.
Animation
Sometimes an e-learning course, such as one for a technical product, simply needs animation to convey the training message properly. In other cases, animation helps make the learning more engaging.
Multiple learning channels
E-learning is often a better learning format because it supports multiple learning channels. Learning channels are nothing more than paths through which learners can interact with the e-learning, such as classroom sessions supplemented with e-learning, instructor-led sessions, virtual sessions, or pre-recorded training modules, etc.
Practice + feedback
Any e-learning or training is incomplete without practice + feedback modules, in which learners are tested on the knowledge they have acquired.
Together, these 7 components create great e-learning courses. Now let us analyze which of these components can be supported by artificial intelligence when creating e-learning, and where artificial intelligence falls short?
Would you like us to help you create training courses? You can contact us at tel.: +359 878 685 304, e-mail: office@nitbg.com.
Limitations in building e-learning with the help of artificial intelligence
Without going into detail, the only component that artificial intelligence can help you with when building your e-learning course is the very first component, "content." But even then, AI is limited by the types of content it can build.
Images, text, and voiceover are three types of content that AI can do well. As for videos, however, AI currently can build only avatar-based videos. But that is not all; when building images, AI still cannot correctly render some objects such as the human face and the fingers of the human hand.
Even more shocking is that users of popular image generation tools such as DALL-E and Mid-Journey encounter extreme difficulties when creating series of images with consistently looking characters and environments! This means that if you want to create an e-learning course consisting of 20 slides, using a "fixed set of characters" in multiple poses and different background settings, be prepared for difficult moments, because it is practically impossible to create the same character and background consistently using these tools!
To create e-learning with the help of artificial intelligence, a reliable set of AI tools is needed that can repeatedly and accurately perform the task of completing all 7 components. In the current situation, however, we can use AI to achieve only the first component of content creation, and even then AI cannot accurately and reliably build all types of content.
Would you like us to help you create training courses? You can contact us at tel.: +359 878 685 304, e-mail: office@nitbg.com.
What about the remaining 6 components of e-learning?
Can AI achieve any of them?
If you are asking about design, then AI can describe some design elements to include in your course and, at best, create one or two images that visually show some design concepts. In the best case, you can draw inspiration from projects created by AI and develop them yourself if you have the experience, knowledge, and tools needed to develop the projects created by AI.
If we are talking about navigation or animating the course, AI can do very little, other than describe the possible navigation flow and provide a few images that you can use as inspiration for building suitable animated scenarios.
And finally, we would not recommend relying too much on AI to determine the type of learning channels, because current chat AI is nothing more than an algorithm that tries to predict what the next word in a sentence should be in order to sound human!
In addition, apart from mathematical calculations, AI is not capable of performing real-world problem solving that relies on human judgment and sound decision-making while taking future outcomes into account.
On top of that, experts agree that AI cannot perform calculations that require common sense or intuition, such as understanding sarcasm or irony. AI also cannot perform calculations that require creativity or imagination, such as creating a new work of art, music, or animation!
Is it possible to create e-learning with the help of artificial intelligence at the current level?
Well, yes, but only if you and your learners do not care about :
Content personalization (including situations/scenarios, activities related to processes specific to your organization).
Design personalization specific to the beliefs, culture, brand, and more of your organization.
Consistency in resources such as images containing characters and backgrounds.
Having principles in training design, unless an experienced training developer has applied them.
Little or no variety in training, since artificial intelligence can only design images, write content, and provide voiceover.
Inconsistencies in design and navigation - this applies only if the training developer relies entirely on AI to help with design because of their own inability to be meticulous in design. An experienced instructional designer should not have too many problems in this area.
The lack of animations even in courses where animation is required, because AI is very limited in the types of animations it can create.
At present, AI is suitable only for experienced e-learning development teams!
AI is for now superior at building limited types of content and provides ideas to experienced e-learning developers who can build on the ideas presented to them by the machine.
An inexperienced e-learning developer or a small team of e-learning specialists still will not be able to achieve much with AI in its current form. Since building videos, determining the design, keeping characters and settings consistent, optimizing navigation, animating videos, and determining learning channels are still far from what current AI models can achieve, it can safely be said that currently AI can only support teams of e-learning developers with huge experience. In the many areas where AI fails, only experience and human effort can help.
Artificial intelligence can also be used in the field of human resources. Learn more about "Artificial Intelligence and Human Resources".
Conclusion
Building e-learning with the help of artificial intelligence sounds like an easy task, but it is not. Sometimes you may come across tools that claim to do everything for you, but more often they are just template-based software with huge limitations that only experienced e-learning developers can overcome.
If you are really interested in building high-quality e-learning courses, look for NIT - New Internet Technologies Ltd. Since 2007, we have been building custom e-learning courses for some of the world’s largest companies, helping their L&D teams achieve their training and development goals. Contact us at office@nitbg.com or write to us in the feedback form.
Would you like us to help you create training courses? You can contact us at tel.: +359 878 685 304, e-mail: office@nitbg.com.
