Total Recall is a simple formulation which challenges the usual way we think of eLearning. The video below explains how it works, and shows it in action.
Total Recall combines video’s strengths in visual learning with the conceptual learning power of a unique artificial intelligence-powered system. But what does this actually mean?
In terms of user experience, essentially, a Total Recall course consists of short chunks of learning video followed by interactive recall exercises.
WildFire, the AI component of Total Recall, works by analysing a text. When used with video it transcribes the video soundtrack and works with this. Next, the AI makes a semantic analysis and from this creates an interactive active retrieval exercise. This consists of the most important elements of the text with the key concepts blanked out. We are now invited to fill in the blanks. Any wrong answer and the AI gradually fills in the word for us, but only a letter at a time, till we have completed the answer.
This is a simple design, but it’s tough to do. Much harder than multiple choice, and that’s the beauty of it. Research shows that we need learning to be effortful for it to be truly effective, particularly with regard to facts, figures and concepts.
In fact, Total Recall breaks the mould in other ways. While the tech at work in the AI is highly sophisticated, the look of the AI interactions is very simple and basic. This is deliberate and based on what research tells us about how we learn. Elearning is often visually over-designed which is, in fact, a negative in terms of its learning power.
The learning design of the AI active retrieval element pretty much takes care of itself, allowing design resources to be concentrated on the video. And while it’s true that we forget 50% of anything we learn within an hour, the visual and emotional impressions that we get from watching a video are not as easily forgotten.
This is why we call our product Total Recall – video creates engagement and provides emotional and visual impressions, while the AI embeds the facts and figures. To put it another way – video feeds our episodic memory and the AI feeds our semantic memory. Total Recall.
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