Does audio enhance eLearning?

Last week one of our developers (Hannah) was at an eLearning industry event. A straw poll was taken and the majority in the room were against using audio (e.g. spoken narration) in the modules they create.  This surprised us and caused a bit of discussion in the office.  For us, audio has always been at the core of what we do. Our best corporate material would lose its magic without it.

It’s true there are times when use of audio isn’t an option.  Some clients want training delivered in an office environment where headphones aren’t available. Multi-lingual materials create a huge overhead if you have to do separate audio tracks.  Single lingual packs, for instance in English, that have learners for whom English is a second language will be better delivered as text enabling true self-paced learning. The alternative may be having the pace dictated by a narrator they struggle to understand. Some subject matter and individual learning styles may also lead you to conclude audio isn’t appropriate for a particular course.  Indeed, we’re putting together a pack for a client at the moment that has no sound for a number of these reasons.

But all that said, we can’t imagine why without a specific reason you would exclude audio by default! For our bread and butter corporate ‘knowledge share’ style eLearning, thoughtful narration, with a good UI enhances eLearning immeasurably. If you do it right there is no need to surrender a sense of the learning being self-paced.

Just imagine the impact that would be lost from >THIS QUICK LOW-TECH DEMO< (click link) if we didn’t have sound!

Audio and narration is something we work hard on. It isn’t always appropriate, but more often than not it is.

If you’re interested in working with us to put together eLearning that makes full use of the spoken word please get in touch. It’s what we do.