Engaging learners with multimedia: How interactive apps, games, and videos transform training

PowerTrain has been providing training media support solutions to customers across the world for over 30 years!

For over 30 years, we’ve been providing animation, narration, gamification, video production, voice-over, and photography support solutions to customers across the world. PowerTrain is an award-winning company committed to creating innovative, high-quality, and professional products for commercial, non-profit, documentary, corporate, government, and web-based clients.

Gamification

We make existing tasks feel more like games. Gamification is the process of taking eLearning content, such as routine tasks, skills, or information, and integrating game mechanics into it to motivate user participation and engagement. Gamification takes the same techniques that game designers use to engage players and applies them to non-game experiences to motivate actions that add value to an organization. PowerTrain’s gamification helps employees and their managers transform performance through awareness, engagement, and real-time feedback.

Some techniques used in this approach include: adding meaningful choice, onboarding with a tutorial, increasing challenge, and creating an interesting narrative. Typically, games are thought of as very expensive approaches to instruction. However, we also have a variety of existing game templates that we can use to quickly create your product by swapping out logos and editing text files. PowerTrain incorporates games to add interest to material that may otherwise be dry, directly engaging our users with the course content. Games are great as a standalone learning tool, or we can use games to create a competitive environment in the classroom, where a student’s knowledge is challenged by a virtual opponent (much like Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?). Games may also be used to reinforce and even assess learning.

Narratives are a strong driver of human behavior. PowerTrain uses rich graphical narratives from social skills to sports to racing and more to engage users. Narratives provide deep context and drive balanced achievement, giving employees a sense of meaning, mastery, and autonomy.

Several of our designs use rewards for players who accomplish desired tasks. Types of rewards include points, achievement badges, levels, or the filling of a progress bar. Making games task-oriented and goal-focused, and competitive increases user engagement. Ultimately, these techniques help your users learn and retain the information presented in the game.

Narration

Let us do the talking. Our in-house source of creative professionals can provide you with inexpensive, high-quality audio narration. Alternatively, we can tap into our expansive network of professional narrators. We work carefully with you to ensure that you are happy with the voice quality and pace of the narration. In addition to recording narrator voices in our digital studio, we can also incorporate background music and sound effects into any production.

Graphics, video, & animation

We bring your solutions to life with striking graphics, video, and animation. PowerTrain’s award-winning art department offers a full range of services including: website design; branding and marketing materials including print and graphic design (logos, posters, table tents, and more); creative video; engaging animations; hand-drawn or digitized characters; large-format printing; interactive simulation-based training (including 3-D worlds); and interactive custom-designed games.

• Simulation: For the Air Force, PowerTrain’s graphic artists used state-of-the-art tools to create 3D animations for simulation-based training and immersive learning environments. PowerTrain created 3D animations showing airbase threat response, attack, accident, and disaster scenarios—including missile launch sequences and nuclear, biological, and chemical activities. A complete graphical air base was created, and each 3D scenario included a full-length animation and associated training content. Our expertise in designing and developing 3D animations and immersive environments is evidenced by the Brandon Hall Award we received for the Best Use of Virtual Worlds for Learning.
• Expert Advice with a Twist: This solution is an excellent means of adding credibility to a course as it provides advice from experts with a fun twist of animations. Expert advice may be presented in brief video segments, which show the experts speaking, or by audio narration. For USAJOBS Recruit, PowerTrain used seasoned vets who have “been there and done that” with regards to managing the Federal Employment Process. We added animations accenting important points to create the two-minute online application, Crafting an Effective Outreach Message.
• Animations in Performance Applications: Another innovative opportunity to use animations to engage learners is to create a performance application (app) that is available to the audience outside of the training. With an app, hands-on actions and activities can be loaded onto the mobile device to be at the user’s fingertips when they need them. Apps are particularly effective as a bridge to keep instructional information available to users after the training has ended. PowerTrain develops apps to provide ongoing access to course information, extend the capabilities of training courses, and link training to the work site. The app shown here is from a U.S. Department of Energy Employee Safety and Health course. It includes information on ergonomics, safe driving, and how to reduce aches and pains through stretching. This app was developed for the iTunes and Google Play stores.

Example: Animated modules for employee services

OPM USAJOBSRecruit Chose PowerTrain to Create 16 Interactive Animated Modules. PowerTrain assisted OPM Employee Services – Recruitment Policy & Outreach Division by developing a series of 16 online learning modules. These creative and highly engaging mini-modules are extremely well-received and viewed on USAJOBSRecruit.gov. Each animated module is less than 5 minutes and engages the learner with colorful animations and fast-moving, easy-to-understand content. All of the modules are 508-compliant with closed captioning. Topics include:

• LASR: The Cutting Edge of Recruitment: This 3-minute piece captures the viewer’s interest with a series of common questions asked by hiring managers and then answers the questions by providing a specific technique to define hiring needs: Listen, Assess, Share, and Resolve (LASR).
• Collaborating for Success Video: In this humorous video, Rob (HR Specialist) and Tonya (Hiring Manager) discover how they must collaborate to ensure the vacancy is filled correctly.
• Recruit City: The Best in Federal Sourcing: In the animated cityscape of Recruit City, the viewer is able to take a bus and explore various recruiting topics. The animated cityscape has a fountain with spurting water, buses driving down the street, and planes and birds flying by to draw the user into the city. Each building in the city takes you to a topic with colorful animations and narration. WJOB, with sounds of the city, is a radio station that defines sourcing fundamentals with the city’s jazz music playing along.
• RC Underground: Building Talent Pipelines: This colorful animation takes you on the RC Underground metro in Recruit City to learn about building employee sources by accessing employee referrals, recruiting silver medalists, and exploring niche markets. Printable job aids provide additional information.
• “One-minute” Mini-video Series: This fast-paced animation provides various OPM experts with drawings on an animated whiteboard while explaining:
  • Finding & hiring the right candidates
  • Realistic job previews
  • Using selective factors
  • Identifying specialized experiences
  • Crafting effective outreach messages
  • Employer branding
  • Internal branding
  • Social media strategies
• Writing Your Federal Resume: PowerTrain created a 6-and-a-half-minute video course segment for the Office of Personnel Management (OPM). PowerTrain developed the scripts and employed a rapid prototype development approach for this effort to support OPM’s desire to depart from more traditional forms of instruction. The training provides specific guidance to applicants on the process of writing a Federal resume rather than a public sector resume.