Introduction
In this article we will walk you through the intended purpose of Interactive Audio.
A great benefit of online/hybrid learning is the use of multimedia materials (documents, audios, and videos) to increase student engagement and address diverse learning needs. Here you can read more about the importance of student engagement↗.
However, students often passively consume the recorded material assigned before class, thus coming to lectures unprepared and teachers have to explain the content again which wastes valuable class time.
Interactive Audio helps address this issue by using social annotation to activate student engagement with the audio materials.
Here you can find our user guides for Interactive Video:
How It Works
Using audio is a great way for students to engage with course content. The ability to pause and replay the material allows students to process the information at their own pace. Additionally, there are many opportunities to make audio interactive, enabling students to engage with the content, collaborate with peers, and communicate with the teacher. Bernard et al.'s (2009) meta-analysis highlights the value of interaction in online learning, showing that engaging students in these three ways (student-content, student-student, student-teacher) positively impacts their learning outcomes.
With our Interactive Audio tool, students are rewarded for engaging with the content and are encouraged to participate in discussions and respond to questions embedded in the material. At the same time, teachers gain valuable insights into student progress and performance, helping to assess their understanding effectively.
Interactive Audio expands opportunities for interaction in the following ways:
Add questions or discussion threads to audio materials: Instructors upload and add in-line questions or discussion threads to specific audio timeline, and also decide which one is compulsory to answer before proceeding to the next.
Engage in the listening materials: Students listen to the audio, answer the annotated questions and prompts. They can also start a discussion and question by annotating a specific part of the audio.
Access student learning analytics: Teachers track students’ performance in the activity to monitor their progress and intervene when necessary.
Highlighted Features
To get the most out of Interactive Audio, educators have made use of the following features to support their existing pedagogy.
Instructors can upload audio of various file types from their computer. They can also record audio directly without needing a third-party tool.
Add discussion points, multiple choice or open questions directly to highlighted sections of your audio file to stimulate active engagement and comprehension of the material. Optionally make certain questions compulsory to answer before proceeding, or allow students to start their own discussions.
Practice questions and comments
Include attachments in the form of documents, images, or voice-note to the questions to diversify how instructors and students interact with each other during the feedback activity.
Multimedia attachments to questions
Sort and filter students’ responses based on the latest activity, location, most upvotes, or most comments. This helps identify important areas to address during synchronous sessions.
Sort input of students
Choose whether to prevent students from downloading or modifying the materials in accordance with your copyright policy.
Copyright feature
Benefits of using Interactive Video
Promotes Asynchronous Engagement: Interactive audio encourages student-content interaction by enabling instructors to embed in-line questions or discussion prompts directly into the audio. This transforms study materials into dynamic learning spaces, where students can respond, engage in discussions, and ask their own questions. It helps gauge student preparedness and fosters deeper conversations during live sessions.
Enhances Understanding of Study Material: Interactive audio allows students to highlight areas of confusion or common challenges through their responses and comments. This feedback helps instructors tailor live sessions to address specific learning needs, making lessons more effective and targeted.
Improves Learning and Assessment: By integrating questions and reflective prompts, interactive audio aids in both building knowledge and assessing students' understanding of key concepts. This dual benefit ensures students grasp the material while allowing instructors to evaluate their progress.