During the pandemic, online learning has become a necessity due to adhering to public safety guidelines. But, even before the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, digital learning has become increasingly popular as an option for education. Digital learning has had mixed reactions during the pandemic. Technical writers can craft new user guides for digital learning organizations that transition to online education.
What Does Digital Learning Look Like During the COVID-19 Pandemic?
Teachers have used softwares such as Zoom, Canvas, Blackboard to communicate and transition over to digital learning. This widespread implementation of different digital learning methods has impacted the education industry with some in the education sector deciding to further opt into digital learning. And because of the widespread use during the pandemic, digital learning has elicited numerous reactions. The positives of digital learning have been the ease of access and flexible schedules permitted through technological aspects such as pre-recorded or remote lectures and navigable workflow provided by the software. On the other hand, there have also been negative feedback.
Negative reactions mostly centered around the difficulty of integrating technology into the education process. Professors being unfamiliar with digital learning software has been a common complaint. And in addition to unfamiliarity with software, digital learning methods often differ from traditional methods. This can be seen in the trends the digital learning company is experiencing.
Moreover, users have to learn new technology and adapt to new ways of using them that same technology. Because of the technological inexperience faced by educators when transitioning to online learning, the best way to reduce digital learning difficulties is to target this problem first. Luckily EDC’s experience with creating content for the e-learning industry means our technical writers have the knowledge to help you optimize your business.
Where Do Technical Writers Come In? User Guides!
Technical writers can create/update user guides, based on user reception for digital learning companies in order to circumvent problems such as the pandemic. Given that the main difficulties associated with digital learning are technical and presentation issues, having a user guide is helpful. By providing user guides for digital learning companies, technical writers can help by giving customers knowledge on operating a product. Technical writers are ideal for creating user guide documentation as their training in clear writing can help a layman understand difficult-to-understand instructions for software as this product might not be the most user-intuitive one.
Furthermore, along with instructions, your user guides would also include information on how to make the best use of the software, such as teaching methods compatible with digital learning. For example, a history class can be taught effectively through online lectures. However, other courses such as a lab-based science course or a film production class would involve more hands-on approaches to learning.
In these cases, a more specialized approach provided would make it easier for educators to teach such courses online. With user guides explaining both how to use digital learning software as well as the best digital teaching methods, educators would have an easier time focusing on teaching a course to the best of their ability, without having to worry about technical issues.
Conclusion
In conclusion, digital learning will not be leaving any time soon. It is crucial to optimize the experience given the amount of feedback gained during the pandemic. To bridge the gap between educators and new digital learning technologies, user guides written by technical writers are the solution. Technical writers take into account this feedback gained during the pandemic. New user guides can be created to allow educators to use digital learning software in a clear way. Therefore to best optimize the digital learning experience, revamped user guides with easy-to-understand instructions and methods can help educators make the best use of digital learning technology.
How Can EDC Help with User Guides?
Whether you need a single technical writer for a brief project or a team of consultants to produce a complete line of documentation, we guarantee the quality of our work. We provide an Engagement Manager from one of our 30 local offices for the entire length of your project at no additional cost. Contact us at (800) 221-0093 or [email protected]
Written by Stanley Chu