Learning management systems are good at delivering information. A learner can read through a lesson, watch a video, complete a quiz, and have their progress recorded along the way. For many subjects, that's all that's needed. Other subjects, however, are easier to understand when the learner can actually interact with them.
Unity can bring that interaction into an LMS. Although it's primarily known as a game engine, the same tools used to build games can create interactive training experiences that run directly in the browser. With WebGL and SCORM, those experiences can remain part of an existing course while taking advantage of the progress tracking and persistence provided by the LMS.
Why Interactive Learning?
A quiz can check whether a learner knows the correct answer, while an interactive experience can ask them to apply it. If you're teaching a process, for example, the learner could perform each step themselves. Their actions can change the state of the environment, incorrect choices can provide immediate feedback, and they can try again when they make a mistake.
This opens up options that are difficult to reproduce with a conventional e-learning module. A learner could practise assembling something, work through a procedure in the correct order, navigate an environment, or respond to a simulated situation. The training doesn't necessarily need to feel like a game, nor does it need VR to be immersive. Giving someone control over a responsive environment can be enough to change how they engage with the material.
Unity already provides many of the tools needed to build these experiences. Input, animation, physics, UI, audio, and 2D or 3D environments can all be used to represent what the learner is being asked to practise. Rather than being limited to a predefined set of interactions from an e-learning authoring tool, developers can build the interaction around the subject being taught.
Bringing Unity into an LMS
Building the experience is only half of the problem. Learners still need a practical way to access it, and the experience needs to remain connected to the rest of their course. Unity can build a project for the web, allowing it to run in a browser instead of requiring a standalone installation. For e-learning, this means the experience can be launched alongside the learner's existing course material.
SCORM handles communication between that experience and the LMS. A SCORM package can exchange information about the learner's session, allowing Unity to report information such as completion and progress. It can also persist data that the Unity application needs when the learner returns.
That persistence becomes particularly useful with interactive content. Resuming a traditional lesson might mean returning to a particular page, while an application may need to remember which activities were completed, what the learner selected, or where they were within a scenario. Application state can be serialized in Unity, passed through the WebGL JavaScript layer, and stored using SCORM. When the learner launches the module again, Unity can use that data to restore the experience.
This creates a useful separation of responsibilities: Unity handles the interaction and application state, while the LMS continues to handle the course and its learner records. The learner can move between conventional course material and the Unity experience without treating it as an entirely separate piece of software.
Bridging E-Learning and Simulation
I find this approach particularly useful for training that falls somewhere between a conventional online lesson and a full simulation. A learner might first encounter a concept through text, diagrams, videos, or quizzes, then use an interactive Unity module to apply that knowledge before performing the task in a more realistic environment.
This can also serve as preparation for VR training. There are concepts that a learner can practise with a mouse and keyboard before putting on a headset, and the WebGL experience doesn't need to reproduce every physical aspect of the final task to be useful. It can instead focus on the procedure, decisions, and concepts the learner will eventually need to apply.
Because the module runs through the browser, this type of experience can also be used without specialized hardware. More involved simulation or VR training can then be reserved for the parts of the learning experience that benefit from the additional immersion.
Where Unity Makes Sense
Using Unity for every e-learning module wouldn't make much sense. A Unity project introduces additional development and testing requirements, while web builds bring their own performance and browser constraints. An interactive application will also generally require more development effort than a page containing text, video, or a multiple-choice question.
The deciding factor should be what the learner needs to do. If the objective is primarily to communicate information, conventional LMS content will often do the job. If the learner needs to practise applying that information, Unity starts to become more useful.
That's where I see its place in e-learning. Unity gives developers another way to approach material that benefits from interaction, while WebGL and SCORM allow the resulting experience to remain part of the LMS the learner is already using.
- Jordan P.