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The state of eLearning isn't improving. In fact, to four of us who were conversing on the expo floor at yet another eLearning conference, it appeared to be regressing. And we cared, so we wondered what we could do about it. The conspirators were Julie Dirksen (author of Design for How People Learn), Will Thalheimer (one of the great translators of research to practice and author of Performance Focused Smile Sheets), Michael Allen (CEO of Allen Interactions and author of Michael Allen's Guide to eLearning), and yours truly.
As you might imagine, it wasn't easy to get four opinionated people to agree on what should be covered, regardless of how committed they were. We wrestled with the concepts to include, how to present them, all the way down to the wording and order of elements. But we diligently worked iteratively over months, mixing it in with our pre-existing commitments.
What ultimately resulted was a statement of eight specific ways that serious eLearning differs from typical eLearning (see Figure). The elements include being:
* focused on the performance outcomes, not on the content
* meaningful to learners, not just efficient for authors
* driven by engagement, not mere attendance
* presented through authentic contexts, not just knowledge
* driven through realistic decisions, not just fact testing
* developed through individualized challenge, not "one size fits all"
* retained through spaced practice, not an "event" model
* fostered through real consequences, not just didactic feedback
As you might imagine, it wasn't easy to get four opinionated people to agree on what should be covered, regardless of how committed they were. We wrestled with the concepts to include, how to present them, all the way down to the wording and order of elements. But we diligently worked iteratively over months, mixing it in with our pre-existing commitments.
What ultimately resulted was a statement of eight specific ways that serious eLearning differs from typical eLearning (see Figure). The elements include being:
* focused on the performance outcomes, not on the content
* meaningful to learners, not just efficient for authors
* driven by engagement, not mere attendance
* presented through authentic contexts, not just knowledge
* driven through realistic decisions, not just fact testing
* developed through individualized challenge, not "one size fits all"
* retained through spaced practice, not an "event" model
* fostered through real consequences, not just didactic feedback
Via Miloš Bajčetić
