Lionbridge Content Development

Interactivity versus Multimedia in e-Learning

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Wendy is reflecting on the differences between Multimedia and Interactivity in eLearning today...

I had some interesting discussions with a group of subject matter experts who are part of an e-learning design team.  We were defining essential content for an e-learning course, and trying to identify engaging design strategies at the same time, so they could provide enough content to support those strategies. One of the big topics we discussed was interactivity. Most of the ideas generated involved videos and animations.

Now, I have nothing against multimedia, and I appreciate a good video or animation as much as the next person. But if media were the pinnacle of effective learning, I'd be able to install windows in my house or rebuild a car engine from watching cable TV.  (Neither of which I can do, in case you were wondering.) But it's not the same thing as asking learners to truly interact with our content.

What multimedia gives us is a great format for explanation and demonstration of new concepts or skills. But it's still a passive strategy. It's not until you combine the media with some sort of action, where you ask learners to respond, react or create, that you get true learning engagement.

So here's how I think about interactivity:

Passive interactivity (and yes, I recognize this phrase is a complete oxymoron) is what we often see in e-learning, and it includes:

• Videos, animations, and automated slide shows where the learner "presses play" and (hopefully) absorbs the appropriate information.
  
• Clickable images, layered learning or other presentation formats where the learner sees some initial information and must click on words, links, tabs, or images to reveal additional information. This is a great way to show categories of information, or a lot of related information when you want to maintain the relationship without going to another screen.

Now don't get me wrong, passive forms of interactivity encourage the learner to click (better than nothing) and can be really valuable for explanation and demonstration of content. It's not much different from an instructor presenting slides to a class, or reading from a textbook. But the information is only flowing in one direction, and we have no way of knowing if anything stuck.

Active interaction, on the other hand, encourages learners to do something, including:

• Responding to a question
• Complete a task
• Evaluate or assess a situation or one's self

Active interaction can be used in two ways:

• Discovery - students are presented with a new problem (question, task, etc.) and are asked to respond, without having received any instruction. The instruction happens within the feedback they receive. It's a "learning through failure" approach, which can help challenge a learner's preconceptions.
  
• Practice - in my mind, the holy grail of interaction, and one we never have enough of. Giving learners the opportunity to apply what they've learned and get feedback to correct or reinforce behaviors is the key to transferring new knowledge and skills.

I'll spend time in future posts discussing more active forms of interaction, but what do you think about my categorizations? How does it map to your experiences? And do you find more passive or active interaction in the e-learning you see and build?

And what about my team of subject matter experts? We still have a lot of video and animation, but we're working on including discovery and case study questions in addition to the practice questions already defined in the course.