At Webex by Cisco, I work in a Customer Success Organization, where I create content for internal use. I don't have time to wait months before releasing the material, so I was really glad to land on 7taps Microlearning. It allows us to design bite-sized, interactive modules in minutes and to track how people interact with the content. With 7taps, we drive learner engagement and asynchronous learning before our live sessions.
Watch Clare Davis sharing her microlearning best practices at MicrolearningCONF.
Here is a strategy we deployed at Cisco to get started with microlearning.
1. Break it down
Microlearning supposes that content is presented in smaller pieces instead of being put all into one lesson or course. So, firstly, I needed to decide how long my content would be and how to divide it into snackable nuggets. As a result, for the purpose of introducing the programme ahead of us, I developed eight microlearning modules in 7taps.
2. Reserve participation time in calendars
Despite the fact that 7taps courses can be completed quickly and easily, I wanted to ensure that every participant has sufficient time to engage with the material. The people who make up my audience are extremely busy.
So, I took the distribution list for our internal audience and invited everybody to a calendar appointment about three weeks out. I mentioned that there would be a 30-minute training session and provided some hints about what to expect.
The night before the calendar meeting, I dropped in my 7taps link. We have a global audience, so some people saw it right away and others didn't see it until the next day, but they all had that reserved time to interact with the content. Also, they could easily go back and look at those modules anytime after. I kept it to a pattern and sent the materials out every third week of the month.
3. Blend the learning
I use 7taps as my go-to for microlearning, and I love it. I can assemble the needed material using different cards and inbuilt tools: pictures, surveys, quizzes, and my own content. I follow the same theme when offering live sessions for our Global audience and our customers.
For this particular project, the 7taps piece was my “house”, and all the cards were different “rooms”. In these rooms, I had different types of content: some created right in 7taps, some made in other tools but perfectly blended in. For example, in this microlearning module I included:
- a vidcast I created earlier using our WebEx suite;
- A PDF handout (I simply created a document, put it in a SharePoint folder, and then added a link to the folder to my 7taps);
- a registration link so all of our internal customers could go and register for the session.
4. Recap
I believe that following up after a live training session is important to reinforce learning, enhance retention, clarify any confusion or questions, and encourage ongoing engagement. So, after the live sessions, I reminded everybody with a 7taps piece where to find the links to the recording and a shared folder with the materials. Thus, participants have a chance to review the material and reinforce their understanding, which increases the likelihood of long-term retention.
5. Check the metrics
7taps Statistics provides us with the opportunity to evaluate the effectiveness of our learning initiatives and I really like it. By tracking metrics such as open & completion rates, time spent, quiz scores, and others, I can assess whether learners were engaged with my microlearning content. I also combine this data with what I get from our internal tools.
Conclusions
Apart from having a positive effect on learner engagement, adding 7taps to our training approach has been a huge time-saver. We can create and update content very quickly. If we ever need inspiration, the AI builder feature is there to help. And I also can transform longer presentations into more digestible mini-courses using 7taps Transformer — that’s super easy.
💡More microlearning ideas for learning events
- Reinforce learning events
- Send a workshop review or a follow-up
- Schedule check-ins after training
