E-learning courses moving at pace

Allowing the learner to change the playback speed, to go faster or slower at any time – even while the content is playing – was an interesting challenge; much more had to be considered than just the speed of the audio and video: animations, progress feedback, and even the transcript all needed their timings recalculated in real-time to match the new playback rate.

• The intent is to allow learners to control the speed of their online training course up to twice the normal speed while retaining full comprehension; and
• By synchronising the animations and transcript so they run twice as fast along with the audio means the entire course experience continues to make sense but takes half the time to take in.

Professional narrators speak at around 150 words per minute, compared with speeds of up to 200 words in ordinary conversation. When people read something aloud for others, they tend to speak 20-30 per cent slower than in conversation, although many listeners want that conversational, classroom feeling, so they can now bump up the speed slightly. An additional benefit of this function is because the transcript runs twice as fast, the reading experience is much closer to the average reading speed of around 200-300 words per minute too. This means “read-only” learners won’t feel they are having to wait around.

Engage in Learning’s marketing communications manager James Morelli-Green, said “Our speed-learning function is now built-in, facilitating a more engaging learning experience which better matches conversational and reading speeds of learners. Speed-learning enabled, multi-lingual 24/7 accessibility makes it possible for employees to learn at their own pace and in bite sized chunks ensuring training that best suits their own timetables with no constraint on productivity and resources”.

To find out more about Engage in Learning, visit www.engageinlearning.com or call 0845 456 0465. Engage in Learning will be exhibiting at Fire Safety North on 10-11 October at EventCity Manchester. You can meet the team on stand FS42.