The popularity of video is undeniable. In February, the YouTube Official Blog stated that people were watching a billion hours of YouTubevideo a day. That’s billion, with a B. Hours, not minutes. Every day.
Video is well suited to eLearning, of course, but why limit itto straight-up video that learners will watch passively? Video is versatile andoffers so many enhancements. This article looks briefly at a few options:
- 360-degree video
- Animated video
- Interactive video
- Vertical video
360-degree video
A quest for low-budget immersive eLearning will lead many instructional designers to include 360-degreevideo in their planning. Placing learners literally in the middle of the story,360-degree video has started to prove itself as an enhancement to simulations,training videos, and more.
In a LinkedIn post, Sarah Wood—co-founder and CEO of Unruly, an ad tech company—calls360-degree video a “bridge” between standard two-dimensional video and virtualreality. You can view this video using a VR headset, which provides the mostimmersive experience, but that is not the only option; 360-degree video isavailable to people who do not have or use VR headsets. Learners can access360-degree video using a laptop or desktop computer and use their fingers torotate the image, as many already do when using Google Street View. Learners canalso view the 360-degree video on a smartphone and rotate the phone to get thefull picture. Wood cites an ExchangeWire survey of media buyers in which 43 percent predicted that they’d see thegreatest video growth in 360-degree video during 2017. It’s not just for ads,though. Engaging eLearning immerses learners in a story; immersive videos offeran ideal medium to do just that.
Video animations
The suggestion to create animated video might conjure imagesof flip books and cell-by-cell drawing, but those days are long gone.Inexpensive tools like GoAnimate and PowToon make it easy to create shortanimations with a lot of custom touches that will meet the specific needs of anindividual organization’s learners.
Animations do not have to be frivolous; designers can useanimations to address or present serious topics. It’s faster and less expensiveto create an animated simulation or narrative than to find people in the officeor bring in actors to record a live-action video. Instructional designers canuse animations in games, in presentations, and to tell stories or break downcomplex information. A clickable timeline or layered chart can deploy animatedvideo to introduce high-level concepts piece by piece. And combining animationwith interactive video elements can really boost learner engagement.
Interactive video
Adding interactivity transforms video viewing from a passiveexperience to an engaging one. Many eLearning authoring tools support addingsome interactive features; it’s also possible to purchase tools that will addan overlay with interactive features to existing videos.
Interactive overlays present a wealth of options toinstructional designers. It’s easy to add quiz or knowledge-check questions atany stage of a video and require learners to respond before continuing to viewthe video. Interactive overlays are also a great way to add information,whether to present details bit-by-bit or to link articles and downloadabledocuments where learners can delve deeper into a topic.
Consumers are increasingly encountering interactive videoadvertisements; like those ads, interactive videos can ask viewers to click onlinks that launch additional videos, open up websites or graphics, or offerdocuments to read and download.
Adding interactivity to video helps keep eLearning up to dateand engaging as learners’ expectations change and as technology evolves. Learnmore in “Five Ways to Add Interactivity to Video.”
Vertical video
While vertical video is technically not an “enhancement” tovideo, it makes this list because shooting vertical video was considered taboofor so long that it’s worth encouraging eLearning designers to give it anotherlook.
According to TechCrunch,US consumers spend an average of five hours a day using mobile devices; 18percent of that (or almost one hour) is spent on YouTube or other mediaentertainment apps. Add in more social media platforms, like Facebook, andother places where consumers might be watching videos, and you get a largechunk of the average learner’s day. Hence the growing popularity of verticalvideo: It is a far more natural way to watch video on a smartphone, or even atablet, than standard horizontal video. Unruly’s Sarah Wood predictsthat vertical video will be the standard by 2018, citing her company’s studythat found “mobile vertical video views drive [six times] theinteraction rate of horizontal mobile video.”
Together with responsively designed content, eLearning with vertical video can move smoothly from laptops to tablets andsmartphones, where an increasing number of learners will use it.
