What makes the BitDegree online education platform stand out? We’ve talked and wrote and bragged quite a bit about our gamified learning approach. And we could go on for hours listing the cool benefits of fun & motivating elements in the learning process, but there’s another cool thing we want to point out devoting a special blog post for — it’s our interactive courses. Have you tried them out yet?

How is the interactive course material more valuable for learners?

The dictionary defines ‘interactive’ as “allowing a two-way flow of information between a computer and a computer-user; responding to a user’s input.”

Here’s what the traditional approach in online learning looks like: a lecturer pre-records video classes (or audio, or just text material), provides the student with a lot of input and practical examples, and then… the student is on his own to put his knowledge to the test. Well, that’s not the case in interactive courses.

Most of our interactive courses include text material with theory and instructions given to you. Some of them have video lessons explaining how stuff works. You’ll have a two or three-part screen with instructions, code, and output. When you run the code, you’ll be able to see the result immediately in real-time. As a cherry on top, you’ll be working in a project-based mode, so after finishing one of the interactive courses, you’ll have a tangible result, be it a Facebook Chatbot, a blog, or something else.

Who are those amazing course creators?

The interactive courses have been mainly developed by our in-house developers’ team and carefully tested for bugs and errors. (At the moment of writing, I’ve been told there were zero bugs in those courses. Since our developers enjoy shooting bullets to each other’s legs when it comes to checking for flaws in their code, I’ll take their word for it!)

The number of interactive courses keeps growing on BitDegree! The list has exceeded our search results page of 12 (yay!), so you’re welcome to have a look and pick the courses suitable for yourself. Currently, BitDegree interactive courses are focused on developers who are working on gaining and improving their skill sets with the following tools:

HTML & CSS

PHP

Solidity

Java

JavaScript

Python

SQL

Bootstrap

jQuery

Web Design

Fun, simplicity, and interactivity inside

While learning Solidity, you’ll participate in Space Doggo’s journey. Actually, these smart and cute characters have already become fellows for over 5,000 students who are studying course material and solving practical tasks.

Just like before starting a video game, you’ll have a couple of simple choices to make your avatar-Doggo more to your taste in the Solidity course. That’s what my Whippet looks like when he’s busy helping me to sort out code puzzles.

By interactive learning, we mean that the course responds to your actions immediately. If you happen to make even a tiny error in your code when solving a practical task, you may do three actions here: check the code yourself for errors; view a hint from your automated instructor; or, if the system sees you struggling with the task, it’ll offer you to show the answer.

Please note the more help you’ll use from the system, the less points you’ll earn for completing a task! When you’re done with the lecture and successfully complete it, you will be met with your favorite corgi that will grant you the XP and help you proceed to the next lesson.

How about the stats?

Now, statistics don’t lie. As we know, and previous studies have shown, online course completion rates are notoriously low, on average reaching only 5%. BitDegree has accepted the challenge to increase that number.

With our popular interactive courses, we’re happy and proud that course completion rates have been doing pretty well. For example, 9% of students finished our Space Doggos courses, and 10% of enrolled students completed the course on how to create a blog — and received their certificates, of course. So we can see that interactive courses have the potential to overcome the large issue of completion rates. That looks nice, as for starters. But we’re not going to settle with that, and we’ll keep improving the ways to keep students’ motivation up until the last lesson in the course.

Enjoy the futuristic learning mode today (for free!)

So, check what your next chapter is going to be in learning programming the interactive way! Search for those joystick labels on course thumbnails, or filter interactive courses in your search, and experience the joy of interactive learning for yourself. Bonus: you can test out the experience as some of those courses are free!

Upwards and onwards!