Meet Dale Carkeek, Learning Experience Design Lead at FuturU. Dale is responsible for creating many of the courses you’ll find in FuturU’s extensive training library.
In our latest Faces of FuturU interview, Dale explains how he’s helping to bridge the gap between gaming and learning, and creating learning experiences that learners actually want to do (rather than have to do).
Can you start by telling us about what you do here at FuturU?
Hi! I’m the Learning Experience Design Lead in the Content Development team. There is no typical day in my role, as it involves balancing many spinning plates to ensure we’re delivering the best learning experiences we can offer. My days vary between storyboarding, building, testing and researching various types of courses and content, alongside looking at courses that need reviews (we review all our courses every 18 months post-launch to ensure they’re up to date with any legislation or rule changes). We’re a fairly small team, so keeping an eye on ways in which we can streamline our processes is key to ensure we have sufficient time to conduct research and development (R&D).
A lot of our R&D work is within the AI realm these days. We’re constantly looking at and testing various new and existing AI tools that can improve not just productivity within the team, but quality and creativity; from assisting with restructuring content to be more digestible, through to visual content such as 3D animated sequences.
What's your career story?
I graduated from Plymouth University with a degree in Business and Marketing. After university, I wasn’t exactly sure what I wanted to do, but my passion for wanting to help others saw me working in the health supplementation and sports nutrition sector for a few years – not quite what I do now!
After seeing an opportunity to join Newcross Healthcare in a recruitment role back in 2013, I was tasked with recruiting nurses, healthcare workers, and social workers around the UK, but primarily in Scotland. As the team and my experience grew, I became responsible for helping onboard and train new recruits into the recruitment team.
When I noticed a position available within the Learning & Development team, I jumped at the opportunity. This role led me to onboarding and training all new employees across the company network.
Then COVID hit, and we needed to develop remote onboarding experiences. At the time, we had no in-house curated e-learning offer, so I became the person responsible for both onboarding staff and developing our online training. Eventually, this need turned into focusing on our healthcare workforce.
Eventually, FuturU was launched, and my role evolved again. I’ve always wanted to bridge the gap between the gaming and learning industries, so a considerable chunk of my work involved using game engines to develop 3D visual content for our courses, trying to make them more immersive, engaging, personable and gamified. With this experience, I worked as a Software Engineer in our Content Creation Tooling team; responsible for building in-house software to assist in the content creation process. Once this project was completed, I joined the fantastic Content Development Team where I work today!
What brings you joy at work?
What brings me the most joy is knowing that learners have had a really beneficial experience with us. I love getting feedback from somebody saying, “I didn’t have to do this, I wanted to do it and it was awesome.” Or when someone who thought they had to complete mandatory training comes away with that light bulb moment of “wow, I actually really enjoyed that and didn’t know about this topic” – that’s the kind of impact that brings me joy.
I also love the variety of work I get to do, the gamification, and the fact that while building these courses, I end up learning a lot myself. Some of the things I’ve learned along the way are topics I never would have explored otherwise, and that’s personally beneficial too.
What course have you created that you're most proud of?
The course I’m most proud of is the Health and Social Care Introduction course. It took the content of the original Care Certificate and turned it into a fully immersive 3D experience. I built it entirely on my own over four months, and it was complete game engine-generated content using 3D assets, animations, transitional effects, and audio.
The experience allows learners to visit different characters’ rooms, meet these characters and hear from them, and move around the neighborhood with non-linear access to choose which character’s home to visit first.
I’m proud of this course in particular because it’s the closest I think our team has gotten to bridging that gap between the gaming industry and the learning industry. And we’ve used the same approach to create the e-learning for our Level 2 Adult Social Care Certificate.
How do you like to unwind?
Honestly, I don’t really have much chance to unwind, especially with two young kids! But spending time with them, along with family and friends, is what really helps me switch off.
I love keeping myself busy, so when I do get the chance, you’ll find me kayaking, watching local football with friends (cheering on Torquay United!), or enjoying walks in the outdoors. It’s one of the many benefits of living in Devon!
Last month, we celebrated FuturU's second birthday - what key milestones are you most proud of?
The key milestone I’m most proud of is the feedback we’re getting from our growing learner base. Originally, when FuturU launched with free access to health and social care education, people were excited because it was free. That’s still great, but what makes me prouder is that we’re getting feedback about the quality and approach of our content.
We’re seeing more people say how great it is that our content is person-centred, digestible, and understandable through case studies. The feedback reflects that our high level of empathy in designing and writing content is being received really well. We’re hearing from people who say their eyes have been opened to realise it’s more than just knowing theory – it’s about changing behaviour based on empathy and narrative-driven learning experiences.
When someone can access content that’s story-driven and understand that a person-centred approach is crucial in our sector, that’s what I’m most proud of. You can be the best carer in the world who knows everything, but if you don’t know how to sit down, talk to somebody, and understand their concerns, you’re missing that essential human element.
Can you give us a glimpse into FuturU's plans for new courses in 2025?
The big focus for us right now is expanding our content library to include a real focus on children and young people, whilst refreshing some of our mandatory courses – we want to focus on driving and improving the learning experience for these courses so people don’t feel like they have to do them, they actually want to engage with them.
And how do you see learning and development in the health and social care sector evolving in the next few years?
I refer to something called “action intelligence,” which is often developed only when you’re thrown into a real scenario where you have to take hands-on action. In traditional e-learning, you can learn all the theory, but when faced with a high-pressure situation like someone becoming confrontational or showing signs of aggression, it’s easy to forget everything you’ve learned. In those moments, you might freeze, unsure of what to do, and that knowledge can slip to the back of your mind.
So, how do you learn to manage that panic? How do you build the intelligence to take decisive action when it matters? The answer lies in story-driven learning experiences that replicate real-life scenarios using visuals and audio. By simulating these situations, you begin to build the mental and emotional readiness to respond when they actually happen.
A good example of this is Basic Life Support (BLS). When someone suddenly collapses from a heart attack, most people’s initial reaction is panic – “What do I do?” In that moment, they’re scrambling to recall their training. However, by designing learning experiences that mimic these high-stress situations with realistic visuals and sound, we can help learners build muscle memory and confidence, so they’re more prepared to act swiftly and effectively when it counts.
Finally, what excites you most about the future of FuturU?
The potential. Although we’re focused on the UK market at the moment and growing our catalogue of courses, I’m excited about the global possibilities.
It’s a daunting task but there’s such scope to expand. I’m excited about seeing what’s working with our UK learner base and thinking about how we can take that global. Obviously, there are hurdles – different countries have different laws and regulations – but the potential to roll out free, impactful learning experiences to a much bigger audience is incredible.
At the end of the day, in our sector, we’re all going to be on the receiving end of care at some point, whether short-term or long-term. Being able to provide something that can help someone no matter where they are in the world – you’re never going to get that opportunity anywhere else. That’s exactly why I’m here and why I’m excited.
