Videos for e-Learning: Enhancing Online Learning Experience in 2024

Introduction

For years, the traditional education sector has been perceived as slow in adopting new technologies and modern teaching methods. The cumbersome education system, with numerous bureaucratic procedures, slowed down the decision-making process and implementation of new initiatives.

However, in the last 3-4 years, the situation has drastically changed. The pandemic outbreak especially contributed as it confined almost all learners to their homes, leaving them with no option but to access education programs through their computers.

This is where the importance of videos in e-learning comes to the forefront.

Apart from its primary advantage of delivering knowledge regardless of time and location, e-learning video content also offers numerous other benefits of video in elearning that we will discuss in this article 🚀

Summary:

1. The Power of Video in e-Learning
2. 4 Practices for Making Your Video for e-Learning Effective
3. 4 Main Types of Videos for e-Learning
4. Explore the World of Video Content for eLearning With Blue Carrot
5. Conclusion

The Power of Video in e-Learning

The use of videos in e-learning industry can significantly improve education. They are the only tool that allows for the effective presentation of information visually and audibly and also makes the education process more enjoyable for different learning groups.

Unlike passive learning, where students are expected just to consume the knowledge no matter their individual preferences and needs, videos allow students to interact with the content, absorb information through visual demonstrations, and practical explanations.

Videos help to reduce the strain on viewers’ mental resources and make learning more manageable. With that in mind, let’s explore the best practices for e-learning, and what instruments videos generally use to improve education, manage cognitive loads, promote active learning, and boost student engagement. 

4 Practices for Making Your Video for e-Learning Effective

📌 Highlight important information

In educational videos highlighting information is important for several reasons. For one, it helps learners to focus on the most important parts of the video and effectively navigate through a significant amount of educational content.

Aside from that, the use of visual cues, bold text, annotations, arrows, exclamation marks, etc. allows viewers to better understand the relationships between different concepts and see how each of those fits in a wider context. Highlighting also reinforces memory and makes it easier for learners to retain and recall the learning material.

📌 Divide intricate subjects into smaller components

Viewers’ attention spans are limited, especially in an e-learning environment where they are often presented with complex subjects. Lots of information, when not managed/organized properly by course designers, can easily ‘shut the brain down‘ and make it refuse to process any new content.

For that reason, it’s important to not overload videos but to allow for knowledge to be presented in bite-sized chunks. That will help keep the learner’s focus and engagement at sufficient knowledge acquisition levels. Not only do shorter videos (up to 6 mins. in length) allow learners to better focus on specific concepts, but they also ensure more effective and clear video content management in e-learning.

📌 Foster interaction

Incorporating interactive elements is crucial for e-learning video courses because it enhances the learning experience and improves engagement. Various sections, such as interactive video quizzes, polls, and gamification elements, help lecturers involve learners and give them motivation to achieve their goals. What’s more, such elements can be adjusted to fit various objectives, thus allowing course designers to accommodate the educational material for different learning styles and preferences.

📌 Remove ‘barriers of classroom’ communication

The ‘barrier of the classroom’ is one of the main challenges of traditional education. The inability to adjust the learning process to each student individually and offering only a ‘one for all’ type of program normally leaves a significant amount of audience behind.

On the contrary, the flexibility of educational videos allows learners to progress at their own pace, reducing the pressure to keep up with a class. Videos feature so-called adaptive learning, where learners can process content at a speed that is comfortable for them, and tailored to their specific needs. This, in turn, promotes a more effective learning process. Aside from that, learners can also interact directly with SMEs through comments or email, which fosters a healthier and more personalized learning environment.

4 Main Types of Videos for e-Learning

Live footage

Live footage, or more specifically live-shot video refers to video content shot live either at a professional or home studio. Obviously, with a professional studio, you get access to special equipment and tools that can significantly boost your picture quality. In addition, most professional studios offer extra services, such as hiring a filming crew (director, make-up artist, lighting specialist, videographers, etc.) to assist you in shooting the video.

In terms of quality, a professional studio is a much better option for shooting hours-long educational videos, but it might not be the best-fit budget-wise. An alternative to that would be organizing a studio at home, university, or office, with basic shooting equipment like a green screen, lighting, and a camera. This would be a more flexible approach as it will allow you to do all the content ‘in-house’ and only opt for professional help at the post-production stage.

Synthetic videos

Synthetic videos are videos generated using artificial intelligence (AI). These videos are created by manipulating or combining existing visual and audio elements to produce close-to-realistic content. The main advantage of such an approach for e-learning video production is that a) these videos are relatively easy to make, and b) they are much cheaper compared to professional e-learning videos.

You don’t need to hire actors, rent a studio, or do a voiceover. With such videos, you can create an avatar (your on-screen lecturer) and using AI algorithms mimic its lip movements and generate a voiceover according to a scripted scenario that you fed the algorithm with.

As to the downsides of this approach, your audience might notice the artificial nature of the video they’re presented with. However, judging from the research papers published at Cornell University, such videos may generate exactly the same learning outcome. For more about the use of artificial intelligence in video production, read The Future of Video Production With AI: Opportunities, Challenges, and Real Cases.

Animated videos

With animated videos, we basically look at everything from whiteboard to traditional, and 2D/3D animation. Here, course producers can opt for whatever type of video for e-learning course production they want based on the learning goals of their project. The most common type of animation used in e-learning videos, however, is whiteboard animation.

When considering whether to use animation in your video, you should also keep in mind the complexity of the topic itself. For more intricate topics, you’ll need more intricate/longer animation sequences to explain them. This, in turn, will directly affect the project budget. 

Combined videos

In short, this is a combination of live-shot footage and animation overlays. Combined video in e-learning works well when your budget is limited. Plus, it is a perfect option for adding a professional touch to a video that was shot at home, university, or office-made studio. As to the ‘combined’ part itself, here course producers can mix whatever formats they want — screencasts with animation, on-screen presentations, and even AI footage.

Explore the World of Video Content for eLearning With Blue Carrot

🔹 Lernetz

An e-learning agency based in Switzerland, LerNetz reached out to us with a project to create a series of animated videos for their client, an insurance company. Their client wanted to get an educational video for e-learning course to train their managers on new sales strategies, and eventually increase sales of their insurance products.

Once LerNetz provided us with the concept and script scenario for the e-learning project, we began working on the instructional course. The production process was challenging due to the tight timeframe and strict guidelines and requirements set.

Despite these challenges, our team successfully delivered a 35-minute long animation video, divided into six smaller online video lectures, all in full HD quality. The final output was aligned with the corporate guidelines and met the client’s expectations in full.

🔹 Multilingual E-Learning Course

Recently, a client approached us with an urgent request to create a multilingual e-learning course spanning hundreds of hours of content. To meet the tight deadline and budget constraints, we opted to use Synthesia — an AI tool that allows for the generation of video content for e-learning courses and training programs.

With Synthesia we managed to significantly shorten the project delivery timeframe while keeping expenses within the client’s budget frame. The use of Synthesia generally makes the production process 5 to 10 times faster compared to other more traditional video production methods. As such, within a span of two months, we successfully produced over 70 hours of learning content in five different languages. Our team also utilized DeepL and other CAT-tools to expedite the translation process. The client was completely satisfied with the results of our work.

Conclusion

To sum up, videos can significantly enhance the learning experience by making complex topics more accessible and easier to understand. Videos can capture learners’ attention, keeping them focused for longer, while also reducing distractions that are always the case for traditional classrooms. By combining visuals, audio, and textual content, videos can accommodate a broader range of learners, while also allowing them to apply the knowledge in real-time and deepen their understanding.

If you are also interested in the effectiveness of video for e-learning and the practical benefits this type of content can bring to your project or training materials, reach out to our team for a free consultation! At Blue Carrot we have almost a decade of expertise working on numerous types of e-learning projects, and are well-versed in the latest video design techniques to bring you the results you’re looking for!

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