For educators in both the education and business industries, eLearning has been widely adopted as an effective way to transmit information to learners. In case you wanted some figures to back up this statement, here are the stats:
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81 percent of U.S. college students found that Digital Learning Technology (DLT) helped them boost their grades.
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63 percent found that they experienced improved studying efficiency.
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63 percent reported being better prepared for classes.
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53 percent had more confidence in their knowledge.
Needless to say, similar gains in knowledge, preparation, confidence and skill can be expected by educators using eLearning in the corporate markets. But in order for your eLearning courses to be effective, you have to do more than just adapt training courses and lessons to an eLearning format.
eLearning only reaches its true potential if it uses interactive elements, such as animations, graphics, and videos, to help learners understand the content.
What is Interactive Learning?
Simply put, the term "interactive learning" in the eLearning space is used to characterize eLearning courses or lessons that feature elements that learners can interact with. This can range from basic animations and training videos that learners take multiple-choice quizzes on, to in-depth, choose-your-own-story style videos, animations and graphics that take learners on a journey through the content they are learning.
What Does Interactive Learning Look Like?
ProScribe, a major trainer for medical scribes who assist doctors in documenting patient symptoms and treatments, uses interactive content examples in all of their training. Some of their interactive learning procedures look like this:
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A scribe listens to a medical term, after which they must type that term correctly.
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A scribe is given a list of medical terms - for example, "Hypothermia" - and must then drag the different words that make up those terms (for example, dragging the word "under" to a slot below "hypo," and the word "temperature" to a slot below "thermia") to show that they understand what words those medical terms are comprised of.
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A scribe is given a jeopardy board, in which medical terms are given values $200, $400, $600, $800 or $1,000. The higher the value, the harder it will be for the scribe to define the term. A scribe clicks on a value, after which a medical term is revealed. When the scribe defines the term correctly (i.e., the scribe is given the term "hypothermia" and types "under temperature" into a box), a celebratory animation plays, and the scribe is then awarded "money" for the term they correctly defined. After they earn a certain amount of "money," they can proceed to the next training module.
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A scribe watches a video of a patient showing various symptoms and a doctor describing those symptoms. As the video proceeds, the scribe writes down what the doctor is saying. This helps scribes practice what they can expect to be doing a day-to-day basis within the hospital once they begin working with doctors.
All of these examples are fantastic showcases of interactive eLearning. And if it's good enough to train scribes whose work protects doctors from lawsuits and documents potentially life-changing information about medical conditions, then chances are it's good enough for your eLearning experience too.
Is There Such a Thing as Bad Interactive Learning?
Absolutely! Not every eLearning experience uses interactive learning as well as ProScribe's training courses do. If the:
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Videos in an eLearning course are boring.
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Animations have loud distracting music.
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Graphics look outdated or are unappealing.
Learners can actually be negatively impacted by an interactive learning experience. For these reasons, it's important to make sure you either have professional animators, graphic designers or videographers create your interactive elements for you, or at least consult them before you start creating interactive learning elements yourself.
How Can I Make My Learning Interactive?
By incorporating videos, animations and graphical elements professionally and effectively into your eLearning courses, you can create a great experience for both educators and learners alike. One of the best ways to incorporate interactive learning is by working with businesses that create interactive learning videos, graphics and animations for your courses.
Then, you can work with a company like our very own Lambda Solutions. We'll help you integrate those interactive learning elements into your LMS or eLearning software in a seamless, professional manner that maximizes ease-of-use by increasing the functionality and intuitiveness of your eLearning experience.
To learn more about what we can do for you, click here.
