Top Considerations in Producing an Interactive Aviation Training Video

Interactive video is incredibly popular, particularly among industries where simulations and immersive training is most beneficial, such as the aviation industry. Producing an interactive aviation training video requires careful consideration to ensure that each of the important concepts that you wish to cover are appropriately displayed for your students. However, the steps involved in the production of interactive video content are not exactly the same as the steps required for the production of linear videos. 

If you’ve never produced an interactive training video before, there’s a good chance that you’ll struggle a bit with the planning, not because it’s necessarily difficult, but because it’s absolutely essential to get creative in order to plan out an interactive video experience. An interactive aviation training video experience requires that you consider various tasks up front as follows.

Plan Interactive Features & Elements Early

Producing an interactive aviation training video that can be used to teach your students how to maneuver a plane, what to do if they embark on potentially dangerous weather conditions, how to read and operate instrument panels, how to operate controls, and a wide arrange of other tasks involved in the safe day-to-day operation of an aircraft. However, the ways that you choose to teach these lessons, and how you decide to incorporate interactive features and elements into the training requires your planning ahead of time.

Not only do you have to plan the content of your video to ensure that you’re focusing on providing training on a specific subject without veering too far off topic or losing student interest, but you must also be thinking about the various interactive features that you could incorporate into the training video. An interactive aviation training video may include any of the following interactive features:

• Branching and simulated experiences in which a path based learning experience is achieved. The student will watch a video that immerses him or her into a particular scenario and then provides the opportunity for the student to choose a learning path either that allows them to have full control over what they learn or that allows for the student to choose what they believe to be a “correct” path and immediately see the outcome, good or bad.
• 360° video experiences that immerse the student into a training scenario allowing him or her to look around in their environment and immediately see full view. Students can interactive in various ways with 360° video and when paired with other interactive elements such as links or hotspots students can gain additional insight & experience.
• Links and hotspots which allow students to click on various points or areas of the video and open new webpages or “jump” to other points in the video to learn more about a topic or subject. Generally links and hotspots provide complementary information for students.
• Quizzes and personalized interactive question & answer sessions that allow students to be tested on the content that they’re learning in an interactive video for reinforcement of subject matter. Students can immediately engage and, if additional topical coverage is necessary, they will know right away that they need to retrain on the subject matter.

Features like this provide students with a personalized and relevant approach to learning and interacting with aviation training videos.

Use Storytelling to Keep Students Engaged

One of the greatest features of producing an interactive aviation training video is the fact that it can be used to immerse students into an experience that helps them to feel connected to the training and fully engaged. The use of storytelling to reinforce that student engagement is very important. You should be sure that you’ve planned your content in such a way that it utilizes storytelling to make learners relate with characters and the scenarios that they are enduring as part of the training.

Consider the use of storytelling along with interactive features that place the student in the shoes of the character to create an immersive lesson. Aviation training that places students in the shoes of an actual pilot and presents them with scenarios that require quick, critical thinking can be incredibly useful in helping to guide their decision making and enforcing stronger information retention when they’re actually working in aviation later on.

 Consider the Use of Gamification or Game Thinking 

Another major consideration to make in the production of an interactive aviation training video is whether or not you want to create a gamified experience for your students. Gamification or game thinking presents various challenges or scenarios that will motivate the viewer to engage. There are a variety of different ways that an interactive aviation training video could use gamification to further engage the student viewers, especially when storytelling is already incorporated into the video too.

Gamification in an interactive aviation training video may include the use of elements of exploration to evoke mystery or suspense, repeat challenges to encourage mastery of subjects or experiences, and scores, levels, and badges to encourage progression and competition between learners. The use of gamification, storytelling, and a variety of interactive experiences should really be at the top of your list of considerations when producing an interactive aviation training video for your team!