So you are an education provider and have decided to take the big leap towards the eLearning space with WordPress. But of course you have your apprehensions, which is expected. After all you want to make the right decisions and want to incorporate the finest eLearning Website features to draw the best results from your online learning management system.
So let’s reduce the apprehensions!
The best candidate to reduce these apprehensions would be none other than an expert e-Learning website developer. A detailed understanding of an end users requirements coupled with the experience of developing similar websites thewebsite provider’s perspective would be invaluable.
But, wait a minute. You can’t rely solely on the website developer and expect to create an exceptional e-Learning website. After all you would be the best judge of your requirements. So, let’s take a step back and assess once again your expectations from the system. These expectations should not be based merely on your current requirements but should also take into account the eLearning website features you intend to incorporate in the future.
The MOST IMPORTANT takeaway here would be to start by creating a scalable website.
Assuming that you have taken care of the basic e Learning website features such as courses, lessons, quizzes, assignments, user accounts etc let’s delve into other e Learning website feature that must be thought through while taking the online learning route.
1. eLearning Website Feature #1: Online Store
- An important question you must ask yourself while working towards developing an online learning management system would be do you want to sell your courses online. If the answer is NO then you have nothing further to think about. But, if your answer is either a YES or a MAYBE then you require to put in more some more thought.
- The foremost question that would need to be answered here would be do you have an existing eCommerce website to which you would be integrating the online LMS or would you need to choose an eCommerce system as well? If you have to choose an eCommerce system then your best bet would be WooCommerce, as not only is it one of the most used WordPress plugins in the eCommerce domain but it is also integrated with most of the leading ready to use learning management systems such as LearnDash and WPLMS in WordPress.
- However, if you have an existing eCommerce store which is not WooCommerce then there’s more to your requirement than meets the eye. So, a good idea would be to probably connect with me through the comments section and I could help you better.
2. eLearning Website Feature #2: Gamification
- With almost all systems going online, end users have become absolutely impatient and it needs more than just a website to attract a users attention. That’s where the concept of gamification comes in.
- Gamification would include features like introducing a point system for enrolled students to cultivate the competitive spirit. Applauding the students with badges could be another way of gamifying the system. A plugin such as BadgeOS can handle this requirement well.
3. eLearning Website Feature #3: Student Interaction
- The one aspect that would be missing in an online classroom as opposed to an actual classroom would be human interaction. This missing feature can sometimes hinder the learning process for a student as they now do not have anybody to get in touch with when faced with minor hiccups.
- Which brings me to my next feature and that is a social networking forum. If this is a feature that you think would be necessary or relevant to your online classroom then a glance at BuddyPress would be rather advantageous I would say.
4. eLearning Website Feature #4: Brainstorming Platforms
- A traditional classroom allows students to raise queries and put forth ideas in the classroom environment which serves as a great brainstorming platform. But with classrooms going online that aspect is completely lost.
- This is where an online discussion forum comes in. Along with providing students with a platform to raise their queries it also eventually forms into a knowledge base for students.
- By now a question floating in your mind might be how to incorporate a discussion forum in your website. The golden word that you’re looking for here is bbPress. It is a free WordPress plugin that allows you to set up your very own discussion forum with absolute ease.
5. eLearning Website Feature #5: Event Management
- Lastly, for those of you who might be interested in the organizing events for the students and need a an event management system, you might want to look out for the integration of an events plugin with your learning management system.
- An example of a such an integration would be the LearnDash Event Espresso Integration.
- This integration will be extremely handy if you need to associate the courses with the events.
The five e Learning Website features I have listed above can pave way for an extremely powerful and invaluable system. In my experience the two LMS that come close to providing all of it are WPLMS and LearnDash.
So, start experimenting if you haven’t already and reach out to me through the comments section if you have any questions or inputs that might be valuable for our users.
Cheers!
