There is a popular adage that goes ‘Tell me and I will forget. Show me and I might remember. Let me try and I will know it forever”. The expression aptly sums up why you should include interactive video learning in your courseware. Digital technology is changing every aspect of our lives and learning is no different.

Interactive videos are now increasingly being used in higher education, allowing learners to interact with the content and master the concepts. Interactive video learning is therefore ideal for long-term retention and bringing about behavioral changes, thus, preparing learners for the real world.

Table of Contents:

1. Cross-device Learning
2. Personalized Learning
3. Engaging Experiences
4. Flexible Learning
5. Role-based Learning
6. Constructive Feedback
7. Microlearning
8. Mobile-friendly Easy to Access Content
9. In Conclusion

In simple words, we can say that these videos are an online audio-visual experience, allowing learners to click or touch the content and thereby trigger an action. The action can be moving on to a new web page, loading a pop-up screen, causing the action to shift to another spot, or playing another video.

With interactive videos, learners can be in control over their learning. Students can view these videos anywhere and on the device of their choice, participate and engage with the story, and decide on the next move. The content puts students in the middle of the action, allowing them to play different characters, and make a choice. Interactive videos make learning engaging, entertaining, immersive, and contextual. It is for these reasons that they are now increasingly being used to create engaging learning experiences for higher education learning. Listed here are some of the benefits of interactive video learning in higher education.

1. Cross-device Learning

By following some basic guidelines you can create interactive video content that can work well with all modern browsers and devices. So your learners can view the content on a mobile, on tablet, laptop, or on desktop. Wifi connections these days are strong enough to support full-screen videos on mobiles and bigger screens. Your learners are sure to relish this freedom to benefit from interactive video learning anywhere and anytime and on the device of their choice.

2. Personalized Learning

Interactive video learning enables user-driven decision-making, allowing you to make choices and explore your options. Besides, these videos can also be created to permit learners to take on specific roles and fill their knowledge gaps. Interactive video learning is one of the most powerful means of personalized learning as learners can choose how deep they want to delve into a subject, stick to the main content, or branch out to related topics.

3. Engaging Experiences

Intelligently crafted interactive videos tell a story to immerse the learners and hook their attention. In fact, they weave several story layers within the main plot. The most immersive aspect is that learners can use the main thread and the characters to create their own narratives through decision-based consequences and outputs. Thus, interactive video learning is used to create a personal connection between the content and the learner.

4. Flexible Learning

One of the greatest aspects of the video is that it is very versatile, it can be a standalone asset in mobile and microlearning, or be part of a broader digital course. You can use these interactive videos to summarize lessons or introduce a new learning module.  

5. Role-based Learning

Interactive video learning is a great way to provide a 360-degree perspective of a situation. With interactive videos, you can initiate conversations around two different scenarios, for example, you may have a lesson on the Industrial Revolution, in this case, the students can take on roles of the ruling elite and then the working class to explain the clash in ideologies, leading to the revolution. Such role-based learning not only brings alive history but also provides a sense of the situation and how different people react to it.

6. Constructive Feedback

Feedback is crucial to any learning activity. With interactive video learning, you can create branching scenarios that ‘tell’ the learners if they are wrong, and if they are wrong, how to course correct and join the mainstream. Branching scenarios provide more personalized feedback since mistakes differ from one person to the other, and rather than telling them to do this or that, learners can retrace their steps to the point where they made a mistake and then continue on their journey.

7. Microlearning

Microlearning is the latest trend in learning that breaks down heavy modules into bite-sized capsules which learners can consume and assimilate anytime and anywhere, and at the time when they most need access to some crucial information. Interactive video learning is crucial to microlearning. Microlearning divides lessons into sessions, usually in the form of interactive videos, about 3 to 4 minutes long.

8. Mobile-friendly Easy to Access Content

Accessing content on a tablet or a mobile phone while on the move, or even a break gives students the flexibility to decide on the best time for learning. Interactive videos are easy to access on the mobile and are a great way to hold attention. Interactive videos by their very nature are concise and provide much-needed information without beating around the bush.

Also Read: Why Video-Based Learning is Better than Text?

In Conclusion

Interactive video learning is an ideal means to engage higher education students, keep them hooked to the subject, and provide them control to choose their learning paths and course corrections, as and when they deviate from the learning outcomes. Most video platforms provide authoring tools. Armed with a camera, script, design, and basic video editing software, you can create an interactive video to support any aspect of your learning.

Some video platforms also support social features that open up avenues for user-generated knowledge. Besides, they also incorporate feedback, reporting, and analytical tools to provide fascinating insights into your learners’ behavior, choices, and outcomes. While simple videos are easy to create, you can seek professional help to create the more complex ones that support microlearning, and mobile learning, incorporate immersive storytelling features such as gamification and simulations, and are based on all modern pedagogical practices for greater learning outcomes.

Get in touch with Hurix Digital to know more!

Snehnath Neendoor

Senior Vice President – Business Development
Over 25 years of experience in the edtech and workforce learning industry with strong skills in Business Development, Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and Strategy.