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Interactive E-Learning: It’s About More Than Just Clicks

AllisonLaMotte's avatar
11 years ago

Most e-learning designers agree that interactivity helps increase learner engagement. But interactivity is about more than just clicks—it’s about engaging your learners both physically and mentally. In this article, we’ll talk about the two levels of interactivity and how to incorporate them into your courses.

Level 1: Physical Interaction

Using interactions is a great way to stop pushing information onto your learners and start giving them the opportunity to explore the content on their own. This not only encourages them to get curious, it also gives them the freedom to move forward at their own pace.

The most common way to get learners to interact with your course physically is to have them click, hover, drag, scroll, or swipe. Thankfully, these kinds of interactions are super easy to build with the authoring apps in Articulate 360.

Getting your learners to interact with the course physically is a great first step toward putting them in the game instead of on the sidelines. But it’s possible to interact with a course physically without engaging mentally. If you want your interactivity to have a meaningful impact on learning outcomes, you’ll need to take it a step further.

Level 2: Mental Interaction

So how do you get learners to switch on their brains and interact with your course mentally, not just physically? Start by helping them understand why they should care about your content.

Here are a few ideas you can try: 

Of course, these are just a few examples that encourage mental interaction. There are tons of other ways to go about it, so don’t be afraid to get creative! Just remember to focus on making your content compelling and relevant and on highlighting real-life applications and you’ll be on the right track.

The Bottom Line

With user-friendly authoring apps like the ones in Articulate 360, adding interactivity is easy. The harder part is ensuring your interactions actually add value. Think about creating interactivity that engages a learner’s mind—and not just their mouse.

To learn more about transforming static content into something more interactive, check out these helpful resources:

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Published 11 years ago
Version 1.0
  • How do I make everything go back to zero on a drag and drop? So if they get the answers wrong, I want the items to all go back so they can do it again until they get it right - is that possible?
  • SusanRemondi's avatar
    SusanRemondi
    Community Member
    Do you have any plans to update these to use HTML5, not Flash? Or is there a more recent version of this series? I'm running through this and can't click any of these.