Interactive Videos: Definition, Types, Benefits, and How to Create
In today’s rapidly evolving eLearning landscape, digital video content has taken center stage, offering a powerful alternative to heavy text information.
As videos contain both visual and auditory elements, videos transform training activities into truly intriguing experiences.
But what if you could elevate video beyond passive viewing?
If you’re seeking to create high-quality video content that not only informs but actively stimulates your learners, then interactive videos hold the key. Imagine embedding click-to-reveal actions, hotspots, quizzes, and more directly within your videos, turning them into dynamic learning journeys that foster two-way communication and active participation.
If those are what you are aiming to create, eLearning authoring software like ActivePresenter will empower you to seamlessly integrate these interactive elements, unlocking the full potential of interacive video in your eLearning design.
In this blog post, let’s explore all necessary information about interactive videos.
What is Interactive Video?
As you may know, with a traditional or linear video, learners can start, pause, rewind, fast forward, and replay it. However, there is nothing they can do to interact with its content.
Meanwhile, an interactive video goes beyond the “Play” and “Pause” buttons. It allows learners to hover, click, drag, and perform other actions as set by content creators. Instead of consuming the video content passively, learners can actively involve in the content and even become the main character of it.
For example, while watching a video, learners can click on a pop-up button. The button will redirect them to a new web page or give them easy access to helpful resources. In another scenario, knowledge-check questions will appear at several predefined points in a video. Through these questions, you can make sure that learners are getting the most of its content.
3 Types of Interactive Videos in eLearning and its Benefits
There are many types of interactive videos. However, when it comes to eLearning, it would be an omission without mentioning branching, interactive quizzes, and hotspot videos.
Branching Videos
Branching videos are also known as choose-your-own-adventure videos or learner-led videos. As its name implies, branching videos often include different paths or scenarios. Among these, learners can choose one that they want to go on. With each choice that learners make, it will shift them to a different path to show consequences of their decision.
While watching traditional videos, learners are put in a position of sustained and passive viewers. They just simply watch the video and try to collect as much information as possible. Meanwhile, branching videos help to turn even the most passive learners into engaged, motivated, and active ones.
Having the ability to let learners decide what happens next, branching videos can draw learners in its content. They can even let learners become a part of creating their own story.
Interactive Video Quizzes
Long videos often lead to the cognitive overload because there is much information presented to learners. It results in the inability of identifying key learning objectives of the video. Apart from that, it also affects learner’s power of concentration as they may easily lose focus along the way. That’s where interactive video quizzes come in.
In case of long videos, you can add breaks to them by inserting quizzes at specific points. Thanks to that, videos will be automatically paused at a key decision point, then a question will arise. Learners need to respond to the question to make the video continue playing. Such interactive video quizzes with knowledge-check questions will keep learners paying attention to the video content. As they know they need to answer questions which may appear any time in the video, they will try to focus on it.
By structuring your information into bite-sized chunks and adding quizzes at specific points of videos, you can test learners on what they have been watching. This greatly relieves learners’ brains, enhances their power of concentration, and helps them to retain information better.
Hotspot Videos
Hotspot is a clickable object. A hotspot video is a video that contain one or more clickable objects, for example, clickable links, buttons or callouts. When learners click on these interactive elements, they will redirect them to external resources such as a web page, another video, a pdf file, etc. This kind of interactive video allows learners to interact with its content without breaking its flow.
A recently published study found that our collective attention span is narrowing due to the negative effects of social media and a hectic news cycle. The evolution of social media has brought us more things to focus on, but for very short periods of time. That’s why if learners just sit in front of a device and watch a video passively, it is easy for them to get distracted. By adding hotspots to a video, you can create interactive elements that help to capture learners’ attention. Thanks to that, the effectiveness and learner’s engagement will be greatly boosted.
How to Make it?
So, haven’t you been convinced to leverage interactive video content in your eLearning courses? If you’re thinking about complicated steps to create this kind of video, no worries! It’s not that difficult as you are imaging. There’s no need to produce any new video content because you can make use of your old videos or free stock videos.
Then, you can use ActivePresenter – a powerful eLearning software – to add layers of interactivity and bring the learning environment to videos that will encourage a variety of responses from learners.
You can download ActivePresenter for free with no sign in required. Your next eLearning interactive project is just a few clicks away.
Take a look at this article to know how to create interactive video quizzes with ActivePresenter.
Last Words
Interactive videos represent a significant leap forward in eLearning, transforming passive viewing into active engagement and fostering deeper understanding.
By incorporating elements like quizzes, hotspots, and branching scenarios, you can create truly immersive and effective learning experiences.
Now that you understand the definition, types, benefits, and the power of tools like ActivePresenter in creating them, the next step is yours. Start exploring the possibilities and unlock the full potential of interactive video to elevate your eLearning content and captivate your learners.