What happens when you stop asking learners to watch a scenario—and invite them to step inside it? That question became the starting point for my first interactive 360-degree learning experience. It was also the moment my interest in immersive media turned into something I could actually put in front of learners.
I had been experimenting with 360 cameras, thinking through storyboards, and looking for an opportunity to bring that perspective into our training catalog. I wanted to create something more purposeful than a novelty tour: an experience where looking around, noticing details, and making connections were part of the learning itself.
The idea: put the learner in the scene
The project focused on arrest, search, and seizure situations for a law enforcement audience. Traditionally, a learner might read a scenario, watch a video, and answer a few questions afterward. I wanted to explore a different approach: place the learner at the center of a realistic environment and make observation an active part of the experience.
A 360-degree scene gives the learner control over where to look. That changes the rhythm of the interaction. Instead of the camera deciding what matters, the learner has to scan the surroundings, choose where to focus, and investigate what catches their attention. The goal was to connect the decisions made on screen to the kinds of careful observation these situations demand.
From concept to camera
To make the environment feel grounded, I partnered with the team at the Little Elm Police Department. They helped bring the project into real settings and gave me the opportunity to capture scenario footage on location. I used an Insta360 X4 to record the immersive scenes and worked through the practical challenges of filming an environment where the learner—not the director—controls the viewpoint.
And yes, I got to play the bad guy in part of the scenario. An unexpected acting credit for my instructional design portfolio, but I’ll take it.
Designing for discovery, not just clicking
The interaction needed to do more than let someone spin around inside a panoramic image. I wanted learners to have a reason to explore. Clickable points in the environment became opportunities to inspect details, collect information, and connect observations to the larger scenario.
The vehicle-search sequence illustrates that approach particularly well. Learners can move their viewpoint around the interior, find selectable objects, and examine information that isn’t obvious at first glance. The experience provides instructions and progress cues, but it still asks the learner to do the looking.
Making the evidence feel tangible
One design direction I especially wanted to explore was how to present discoveries once a learner selected an item. Rather than simply displaying a correct-or-incorrect message, the experience uses evidence-style screens to give those discoveries a sense of context. The learner can examine an item more closely and see how it relates to the investigation.
The examples below show the visual language of that interaction: textured case files, labeled evidence, and supporting details. It’s a deliberate contrast to the immersive scene—first you investigate the environment, then you focus on what you found.
What this project changed for me
This was our first interactive 360-degree course, and it gave me a chance to bring together several interests that usually live in separate parts of my work: instructional design, photography, filming, visual storytelling, and interaction design. It also pushed me to think carefully about the relationship between immersion and learning.
The takeaway wasn’t that every course needs a 360 camera. It was that the format can serve a real instructional purpose when the environment itself contains information the learner needs to notice. For me, this project was a starting point—a practical experiment in building experiences that ask people to participate rather than simply watch.
Want to try it for yourself?
A sample of the interactive experience is available to explore. Look around the scene, select the points of interest, and get a feel for how the investigation unfolds from the learner’s perspective.