Combining a Learning Management System (LMS) with blended learning makes it possible to offer flexible and personalized professional training, combining the advantages of online learning and face-to-face sessions. This hybrid approach promotes better knowledge retention and adaptation to the specific needs of learners, thus improving the overall effectiveness of training programs.
For the past ten years, vocational training has faced a major wave of digitalization. OIA, Learning Management System, Mobile learning : so many new methods that facilitate the work of trainers and increase the effectiveness of training. Among them, blended learning, or a mix between face-to-face learning and e-learning training.
To understand what it is about, we are going to put ourselves in the shoes of Matthieu, training manager for an SME in the construction industry, Construizons. Matthieu will have to choose an LMS that meets his needs and those of his team. He will try to understand how blended learning can be useful to him. The objective? Select the best tool to implement your new hybrid training strategy. Let's go!
Learning Management System: your essential ally for your professional training
Understand LMS?
Before starting, Mathieu, our training manager, must be familiar with the LMS (or “Learning Management System”). In a nutshell, a Learning Management System is a digital training platform that centralizes all the training activities of a company.
The LMS aims to digitize training courses and create personalized and interactive courses. It is also a way to manage all training actors (administrators, trainers and learners). To put it simply: it's the connected Swiss Army knife in vocational training!
The advantages of an LMS?
Mathieu understood what an LMS was, but how can it be useful for ConstruizonS? In reality, The advantages of an LMS for a business are numerous.
The first is to simplify management and administration of all the key elements of your training courses: creation and modification of modules, real-time data monitoring, access management...
The implementation of an LMS also allows to optimize training costs. In fact, most of these solutions offer: an integrated authoring tool or content on the shelves, which can drastically reduce your training costs. On the other hand, we should not neglect other direct costs (license, installation, maintenance...) and indirect (dedicated team, time to create training courses...)
Finally, choosing an LMS for the company ConstruizoNS will allow Mathieu to manage the increase in skills of his teams, to personalize their learning paths and to ensure better monitoring of the performance of its training courses.
Why is LMS relevant for blended learning?
That's it: Mathieu is convinced! He decided to invest in an LMS at the start of the next school year. But in the meantime, his N+1 asked him to set up a “blended learning” training as soon as possible. Our training manager is a bit clueless: what is blended learning? And how will his new LMS be useful for this project?
Blended learning is a learning method that combines traditional face-to-face training (with an instructor), and online learning. And good news for Mathieu: a lot of LMSs make it possible to manage this type of training!
To be certain that the LMS chosen is suitable for his line manager, Mathieu will have to check if the tool supports the sharing trainer materials, Suggest quizzes to assess learners or connects the different stages of the journey. But we discuss the various functionalities required for a good blended learning LMS later in this article.
Increase the effectiveness of your training by combining LMS and blended learning
For the company Construizons, investing in both an LMS and a blended learning strategy is not a waste of time. This can in fact have a real impact on the effectiveness of their training courses.
Better learner engagement thanks to the LMS
Choosing a good Learning Management System can increase the effectiveness of your training courses tenfold (100% e-learning or blended learning). In fact, the retention rate in e-learning would be up to 7 times higher than the retention rate for face-to-face training. Online learning also allows you to learn 5 times more content than training with a classroom trainer (source: Shift).
And above all, numerous functionalities allow better learner engagement (thanks to the Gamification, among others): games, quizzes, courses...
Better learner learning through blended learning
But e-learning alone also has some disadvantages. For some learners, it may be It's hard to get motivated, to maintain a regular learning pace or to understand certain concepts, without being able to communicate with a speaker.
This is where blended learning comes into its own! It allows you to benefit from personalized follow-up in class, and take advantage of human contact by meeting regularly with your trainer. It will also have to solve the problems encountered by learners during their online learning.
For the company Construizons, blended learning is also a good way to reduce training costs: she will pay less travel and room rental expenses.
How do you choose the LMS that will fit your blended learning strategy perfectly?
Choosing an LMS that's right for you
For Mathieu, choosing an LMS is not easy: he has the impression that a multitude of options are available to him. And he is right! To make the right choice, he will have to consider some criteria:
- Strategic goals of his business;
- Its allocated budget to training;
- Its internal teams, able to take control of the tool and create content regularly;
- The software already present in the company (SIRH, etc.)
The functionalities of your future blended learning LMS
The LMS that Mathieu had identified met all of the company's criteria. But is it suitable for the blended learning format requested by its HR manager? The solution chosen by Mathieu will in fact have to answer to a few additional criteria to suit this new learning format:
- Propose an optimized digital journey: short modules, adapted courses, estimated duration, design...
- Preparing learners for face-to-face: video teaser, customer cases, activities to be prepared before the session, “diagnostic” questionnaire...
- Make the link between the different travel times: instant messaging, meeting report...
That's it! Mathieu found The Learning Management of your dreams : the one that will make it possible to increase the effectiveness of its training courses and to implement blended learning. And you, ready to bet on blended learning?
