As an architect maintaining my professional license, I've sat through many dry online lectures to get continuing education credits. The passive nature of watching these lectures makes it feel more like a chore than an enjoyable way to keep up to date with architecture topics. In my current role of designing interactives for museum exhibits, we work hard to create fun and engaging games to teach lessons to visitors. So I thought, how could we make that work for education outside of museums as well?
Museums invite visitors to experiment, discover, and learn through direct experience. Continuing education should work the same way: earning attention through interaction, not demanding it through monotonous presentations.
To explore this idea, I designed three interactive learning modules that transform passive listening into active exploration. These lessons are based on a real Health Safety Wellness AIA certified course to see how gamified education can scale across industries. The course I used as a reference is Optimized Acoustics in Buildings by Rockfon. The intent is that instead of programming each lesson individually, templates are made with a CMS (content management system) that can then be filled out directly by a human or by AI with the help of a premade lesson plan.
CMS Template 1: Slider Interactive
This interactive uses sliders to show the difference between two terms used in acoustic design.
CMS Template 2: Drag and Drop Interactive
This interactive lets users try out different acoustic materials themselves to learn how they affect sound travel between spaces. This hands-on interaction helps users discover trends and concepts independently.
CMS Template 3: Image Hotspot Interactive
This interactive brings in imagery to show how these lessons work in reality. Hotspots like this could provide information or ask users to select the correct location.
Each of these modules would use a content management system (CMS) to allow educators to customize content without needing to code.
The CMS acts as a form for users to fill in variables like:
- Slider Names and Ranges: For example, "STC" with a range of 0–50.
- Background Images: Easily uploadable by educators to match lesson topics.
- Interactive Element Instructions: Predefined templates handle details like:
- Wall coordinates, colors, and locations for visualizations.
- Rules for how walls grow thicker as sliders increase.
- Noise level feedback tied to slider adjustments.
These templates would typically require advanced programming knowledge, but AI can fill in the gaps. By analyzing lesson content, AI can generate these variables automatically—saving time and making the process accessible to non-technical educators. For example, AI can draw and place the interactive shapes you see in these modules, or map slider functionality to specific visual outcomes (e.g., thicker walls, smaller noise waves). In this way, educators can use existing lesson plans to create rich interactive content that reaches a wider range of learners. For more info on how AI can draw in 2D and 3D, check out my blog post here.
While I would love to get my continuing education credits through interactive lessons like these, the most significant impact lies in how this learning format can accommodate diverse learning styles. Traditional teaching methods often fail students who struggle with passive, lecture-based learning. By creating more interactive, engaging educational experiences, we can help students who have previously been left behind by conventional teaching methods find new ways to understand and excel in their studies.