The human brain processes videos 60,000 times faster than plain text – various studies show this. YouTube is the most popular video platform in Germany and is used in both private and educational contexts. But why is learning with videos so popular? Find out now what makes learning with videos so efficient and how you can enhance the learning success of your course participants with online videos!
Do the following situations sound familiar to you? You want to connect your washing machine in your new apartment, you wanted to try out a new cooking recipe during the lockdown, or you searched for a clear guide for the complicated Excel formula. What do all these situations have in common? That's right! Most often you find answers in YouTube videos.
Of course, there are other video platforms aside from YouTube. Nevertheless, YouTube is the largest and most used video portal in Germany. The following tips can be applied to all other video platforms as well. Videos are omnipresent – this is demonstrated by the mentioned examples. Therefore, it is not surprising that learning and explanatory videos are so popular.
In various contexts, new learning habits arise, with online videos being at the center: A study by the Council for Cultural Education supports this observation. Because in this study, conducted in 2019, the YouTube usage of 12 to 19-year-olds was examined. In terms of education, online videos are primarily used for reviewing and deepening classroom content.
Study Youth / YouTube / Cultural Education. Horizon 2019 // Source: Council for Cultural Education, representation: blink.it
But what makes online videos so popular among learners? And how can you as a trainer enhance the learning success of your course participants with online videos? You will find the answers to these questions in the following table:
Advantages of Your Explanatory Videos
| Advantages of Your Online Videos | Tips to Enhance Learning Success |
Microlearning creates short learning units through bundled knowledge content! The attention span of your course participants is decreasing due to fast internet usage. Explanatory videos summarize your most important content briefly. |
| |
Illustrated Topics | Explanatory videos help your participants learn content faster. They receive an audio-visual explanation of the knowledge content through the video.
By utilizing various learning channels, the learning process becomes easier and content can be better stored. | Processes can be illustrated with graphics. Through the auditory layer, your participants can follow you better and comprehend content faster.
|
Focused Content | To keep explanatory videos engaging, you shouldn't drag them on. Therefore, focus on the most important content.
| Your explanatory video can be repeated as often as needed until the content is learned and deepened. Participants can take notes if necessary. |
Consideration of Different Learning Types | Your course participants learn differently! Some people learn more with the left hemisphere of the brain (responsible for numbers, languages, structures), while others use the right (images, imagination, feelings). Address both learning types! | Design your online courses in a media mix, so you engage both brain hemispheres and address different learning types.
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Personal Connection to Course Participants | Utilize the advantage of being able to personally motivate your participants. You can best achieve this by making your explanatory videos exciting and motivating. Your motivation in the explanatory video is palpable and ideally transfers to the course participants! | Show your face! This way you establish a personal connection with your course participants.
Also pay attention to good sound and lighting conditions so that your participants can focus on the content.
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Design Variety | You can create explanatory videos for all content. You have full design freedom! With varied videos, it becomes easier for your participants to follow you.
| Select an example and orient your video creation around it. Additionally, you can think of a story and tell it in your online video. |
It becomes clear how diverse the advantages of explanatory videos are. Videos not only summarize your knowledge content but also visualize it. Furthermore, you tailor your online courses to different learning types by using audio-visual explanations and addressing different brain areas.
Would you like to learn more about the different learning types and find out which group you belong to? You can learn all this and much more in the blog article "4 Learning Types: How Training Can Be Enhanced by Colors [Interview]".
You see: Explanatory videos not only help you with cooking or connecting the washing machine, but they also offer enormous added value in the context of further education! Course participants can access the most important information at any time and are supported in learning through illustrations.
To enhance the learning success of your course participants, you can of course also integrate explanatory videos into your online courses on the blink.it platform. How this works and what possibilities the blink.it platform offers you will be explained in the following section:
Practical Example: How to Integrate Explanatory Videos into Your Online Courses
The blink.it platform offers course creators, in addition to media formats like text, image, and sound, also the ability to integrate videos into the courses. You have two options:
1. Embed a Video via YouTube
Tutorial: Embed a Video via YouTube on the blink.it Platform // Source: blink.it
2. Upload a Video Directly to blink.it
Integrating online videos into the blink.it course is very simple. This way, your course participants can work on content in short units (blinks). Your participants benefit from their successful learning process, and you as a course creator from the popular course!
