Today learners no longer want to sit in boring lectures or read through lengthy text documents. Interactive video learning offers an engaging and immersive alternative. E-learning providers can use a variety of interactive elements in videos to drive engagement and increase knowledge retention.
Key benefits of interactive video in e-learning
Increases learner participation and engagement
A story-driven approach or allowing learners to choose the pace at which they learn increases e-learning engagement. Interactive features give them the power to make choices and more control over the learning process.
Improves knowledge retention and comprehension
Rather than passively consuming information, learners have to actively participate when videos include interactive elements. Interactive cues can stimulate cognition and critical thinking. Comprehension and online learning retention improve as a result.
Provides real-time feedback and adaptive learning paths
With real-time feedback from learners, educators know how much they understand. They can make adjustments based on learner responses. For example, they can offer differentiated content to learners or give them additional help when necessary.
Interactive video features
- Quizzes and assessments within videos allow learners to receive immediate feedback based on their performance. These interactive quizzes show them how well they understand the content and help to consolidate their understanding.
- Clickable hotspots can trigger a specific action. Learners can click a link, receive additional information, or navigate to another part of the content.
- Branching scenarios enable users to choose between two or more paths to take the video in a specific direction. For example, if you want to address bullying in the workplace you can use a scenario-based video to present a life bullying situation and give learners choices to make on how to address it.
- Polls and surveys help to gather learner insights. These insights can help you to refine the learning experience.
- Contact forms require users to input information such as their names and email addresses.
- Calls-to-action (CTAs) can offer access to additional materials such as an ebook, infographic, or another video.
Best practices for implementing interactive video
1. Choose the right platform for interactive features
Your video hosting platform must offer a range of interactive features to use in videos. The Cincopa video hosting platform allows you to use many interaction features. Some of these are quizzes, annotations, contact forms, and calls to action. Using features like these in corporate training provides a more immersive and effective employee experience.
The Cincopa platform also allows you to customize video templates and video players. It offers multi-device compatibility and facilitates live streaming.
You don’t have to worry about technicalities such as tweaking videos for different screens and operating systems. It has a content delivery network (CDN) that allows you to deliver videos to learners from the server closest to them from a distributed network of servers. This ensures learners always receive high-quality videos with no buffering or freezing.
2. Define clear objectives
When using interactive videos, you must know what you want to achieve with them. These objectives will help you to design content that encourages active participation. Do you want to educate viewers on a topic like data privacy? Strategically placing interactive elements can directly address this learning objective.
3. Start small and scale up gradually
Starting with small and simple interactive videos is best as they won’t take as much time or money to produce. As you gain experience, you can start scaling up. Not all interactive videos have to be branched. You can begin with simpler interactions like embedded quizzes and clickable links.
4. Know your audience
Unless you know your audience, you won’t know what types of interactivity to use. You need to know who they are, what they want, and their preferences. For example, younger audiences are likely to enjoy training more when you turn it into a game. Gamification in e-learning includes using points, leaderboards, and rewards. By unlocking rewards and badges with the completion of each milestone, learners have the motivation to achieve more.
5. Ensure accessibility and inclusivity
Accessibility is essential for interactive content. Interactive videos must work seamlessly across devices and provide equal access for all learners. Subtitles, transcripts, and adjustable speed offers learners with disabilities and non-English speakers equal access.
6. Balance interactivity with content flow
You can overwhelm viewers with too many choices at once. Rather offer a few well-placed interactive options that are straightforward and easy to understand.
7. Keep your videos short
Micro-learning is a popular trend where you offer short, easy-to-digest videos. Focusing each interactive video on a single concept or idea makes it simpler to create and easier to consume. Perhaps you want to welcome new hires to the company. Using video messaging to create a short welcome message and including subtitles can be an effective way to make it inclusive.
8. Use clear and engaging CTAs
CTAs can guide viewers through your interactive videos. You can use phrases such as “Click here to learn more” or “Choose your path”. This helps viewers to understand what they should do next and keeps them involved.
Measuring success: How interactive videos improve learning outcomes
Tracking completion rates and engagement analytics
Some of the metrics you need to measure to assess the performance of your interactive videos include:
- Completion rate: Percentage of learners who watch an entire video.
- Quiz scores: Scores on quizzes embedded in videos reflect comprehension and retention of information.
- Interaction rate: Percentage of learners who actively engage with interactive elements, such as clicking a link or completing a quiz.
- Time spent on different sections of a video: This can reveal either confusion or high interest.
- Learner feedback: Collecting learner feedback through surveys, polls, or comments will give you their perception of the effectiveness of your interactive videos.
Going to the Cincopa home page will show you what solutions it has to offer such as its advanced analytics. Dashboards and heatmaps give you in-depth insights into the performance of individual videos and how viewers interact with them.
Using learner data to refine course content
By analyzing learner data, you gain the insights you need to refine course content. High completion and engagement rates indicate that your videos are resonating with learners. If most learners fail to watch an entire video, you may need to adjust its length. If engagement rates are low, the information could be too complex. If learners aren’t engaging with interactive elements, you may have to make buttons larger or place elements more strategically.
Case studies of improved retention with interactive videos
Deloitte introduced an interactive video-based learning program. Branching scenarios in these videos gave employees the opportunity to make choices and see their consequences. Employees who completed the training had a 50% higher engagement rate than those doing traditional training. Knowledge retention improved by 20% and training completion was 40% faster.
Cleveland Clinic wanted to educate patients on how to prevent heart disease and traditional methods like pamphlets had little success. They developed an interactive video program where patients could choose different learning paths based on their risk factors, answer quizzes, and receive personalized feedback and action plans. It found that 80% of patients completed the videos, 60% made at least one lifestyle change, and 35% scored higher on quizzes about heart health.
Conclusion
Well-designed videos with relevant content and visually appealing interactive elements maximize engagement and learning outcomes. On the Cincopa video hosting platform, you can create, store, manage, and distribute interactive videos with ease.
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