An educational institution needed to solve the problem of students being unable to access practical first aid training. 

There was also a need for eLearning and training that enabled students to focus their attention on a challenging topic. First aid eLearning and training online was lacking, and this was a great opportunity for Blend to create some interactive eLearning content on this topic.

We arrived at the problem statement of: To address lack of access to practical first aid training for disadvantaged middle school children. 

After conducting appropriate needs analysis and expert interviews we understood the learner profile was a middle school child who had already participated in a classroom first aid workshop. That allowed us to progress to the learning objective of improving ability to administer basic first aid on an unresponsive person. 

This then fed into the learning goals of: How to check for consciousness? How to check breathing? What emergency service to get? What information to give emergency services? What the recovery position is? What to do while waiting?

We understood that engagement and attention levels for children are much lower, so we knew we required strong visual elements. The information given was that students were pre-taught material, so our decision was to use comic-book style gamification with branched scenarios and multiple endings.

Once the eLearning development was underway the robot butler narrator brought higher engagement rates validating the idea of character-based learning – specifically in eLearning for children.

The visual style and UX was created through Articulate Storyline and Adobe Creative Suite of programs.

Learner behaviour was tracked on the LMS with scoring elements with learners ending up with a gold, silver, or bronze medal. Tracking was also available for individual questions, engagement rates and other useful metrics.

Our evaluation showed us that multiple endings and a branched narrative illustrated that learners repeatedly attempted learning to get the ‘gold medal’ and therefore guaranteeing achievement of the learning objective. 91% of users felt they learnt and understood more because the first aid eLearning was interactive.

Our research was supported by the measurables of this project as we had found out beforehand that there is a 25-60% increase in knowledge retention for eLearning compared to face-to-face training at 8-10%.