1. What are the immediate constraints that impede students to graduate to the e-learning space?
There are many constraints which impede students to graduate from the E-Learning space.
Localization: Internet does reach most of the parts of the world; but there are still few tier two and tier three locations, where there is no proper internet facility available. Therefore the reach to people gets localized.
Connectivity: For doing any online activity, one should have a set amount of internet speed which is enabling him/her to do the intended activity. The internet speed differs from place to place; and for online learning, one should have a good internet speed to experience all the services which are offered in the class.
Money Constraints: There are many parts around the globe where online learning is not affordable and hence they intend towards the local institutes which provide the traditional way of learning. Also for one to do online learning, he/she should get internet in affordable prices at his/her location.
Lack of Hardware: Everyone does not possess a computer through which he could come online and take these classes. There should be minimum amount of hardware available at his disposal to user for the online sessions.
Computer Literacy: There are many people who lack the minimum knowledge on computers and also everyone does not know how to use internet.
Lack of Trust towards Online Environment: People feel more secure when they know the company to whom they are paying. But few people have lack of trust on the online methodologies and are scared to invest until they have a human entity that is in front of them.
Procrastination: It is hard to set a time which matches the schedule of multiple people. Everyone across the globe has their own various time demands. Also, there is a tendency in many learners to procrastinate and feel that it can be completed at a later point of time.
Attitude: People are hugely dependent on the traditional way of education where they see the teacher in front of them who is teaching. They would be provided with physical environment to work on and the materials would be shared in form of books and handouts. When everything this online, their attitude towards the whole thing changes.
2. What about the technology constraints you foresee right away?
Replication: The most prominent task is to replicate the offline environment to the online with the help of rich tools and technologies. Providing the same features of an offline class to an online class will be the immediate challenge we are attcking at this moment.
Outages: Due to few issues there are outages which are caused at times so we ensure that we have backups available for each of the tools. The major challenge is ensuring the backup is activated in few seconds and there is no effect on the learner experience
Virtual Environment: Providing virtual environment to each of the learner for practice and ensuring that all the kinds of courses have their dedicated virtual environment for practice
3.How are compensation and student payments managed on the long term?
At LearnSocial the payment for all the users is collected via the online methods and we have payment gateways available for every mode of payment. We also provide learners who do not have an option to pay using online methods, go to a nearest nationalized bank and pay the money directly into our account. The payment from the learners and compensation to the Instructors at LearnSocial is totally an online automated process which does not require too much of human effort.
4. How is the rapid demand as you see in this sector going to be met?
Learning is a never ending process. With the ever changing face of technology, learning methodology preference, users and needs; everyone has something to learn at any point of time in their life. At LearnSocial we run multiple batches for each of the courses in demand and ensure we provide wide range of timings for the learners to learn. We have built our platform in such a manner that we can handle up to millions and billions of users at every point of time. All our teams at LearnSocial work day in and day out with a futuristic approach and is capable of handling any number of students and any number of instructors. We do an addition of 10 courses every month which are into various domains to ensure that an individual from any stream can come online to LearnSocial and enhance his/her skills. Our main intent is to provide and give an individual the real world skills for the betterment of his career and future.
5. Do you have a library of course offerings that can be enhanced as time goes by?
We currently offer courses in categories like Technology, Languages and Personality Development. All the technology skill courses offered at LearnSocial have huge industry demand and are currently being used by all the technology giants.
Today it has become a mandate that every person who wants to grow in an organization has to keep themselves updated with the next level of technologies which are being used in the Industry. We at LearnSocial try to provide a learning ladder to each of the learner by providing them the next level of courses after their initial level. We add around 10 courses every month to ensure that we have a variety in the courses which we offer and also we can setup a learning ladder of each of the technology starting from a beginner level till the advance level of the technologies.
6. How does the Blended offering work and how would it evolve in the near future?
Currently we offer group learning and also individual learning as per the learner needs. We provide each of our learners with digital course material for each of the topics discussed in the class. All the training sessions are recorded with HD clarity and are provided to the learners with lifetime access. There are assignments after each of the session and additional practice tasks and assessment tests to help the learner asses themselves. We have discussion forums for the students to discuss between themselves and also with the Instructors. There is a 24*7 support team which is available via email, call and chat, to support the learners with a wide range of issues and questions. We take periodic feedbacks from each of the Learners and ensure that every feedback is worked on and the learning experience is enhanced at every level.
In the near future we will transform LearnSocial into world’s most loved learning destination for each and every skill which is available in the market (Both educational and non-educational). We will be integrating a knowledge base for each of the course which is offered and give each of the learner an opportunity get the most out of it. We will be promoting group work between our learners for projects and various other parts of learning. We will be offering online assessment tool which will be open for all and everyone would be able to test themselves for knowledge they have on various domains. We will be conducting online meet-ups and workshops which would be open for all to attend. There are always innovations which are made in each of the market, so we will ensure that we are the ones who bring the best innovations in the e-learning domain.
7. How do you see user engagement as a key factor in improving the total user experience?
User Experience is the top most priority for us at learnsocial. At LearnSocial we intend to provide the best in class user experience for all our courses. We always prepare the learning content which is interactive and engaging at every point. We properly stich the topics and the slides in a proper manner to ensure the class flow is going in a narrative manner and the learner is interested at every point of the session. We use very simple terminology to explain all the topics and always avoid using any technical jargons which could disrupt the flow of learning for a learner. We pay huge attention to the course delivery and ensure there is a proper follow-up and feedback procedure which is followed for each of the course at LearnSocial.
Apart from teaching the course, our instructors also have interactive sessions with all the Learners. All our courses come with various assignments and practice tasks which help us in engaging the learner even after the sessions. Each of the Learners is given equal importance in the class and additionally we assign individual and group tasks to ensure that the learners are engaged in various activities during the sessions. All these activities are tracked and administered by the Course experience team who ensures that the learning experience is made unique at every point and all the learners gain utmost expertise in each of the courses.
8. Can you let us into the size of business by LearnSocial already?
We Have close to 75000 registered users and few hundred Enrolled users and we are growing rapidly month on month. Our Instructor base has crossed 300 mark.