Comments on: Click to learn less

By: Ruby Pearl Nathan

Ruby Pearl Nathan — Thu, 24 Jul 2014 10:22:06 +0000

I too would echo in with Mark and in the past have often found myself a victim of the Time-Cost-Quality triad. Converting content dumps to interactive ‘clicks’ became the sole foundation on which we ended built courseware.

However, linking each course to the organization’s performance objectives proved to be a game changer for us. Ever since Instructional Design has become more meaningful rather than some ‘click-to-reveal’ posters screaming for engagement attention!

This post has been awesome and has in many ways contributed towards strengthening our quest to tighten the learning around the core context of the training.

By: Clark

Clark — Tue, 22 Jul 2014 15:03:44 +0000

In reply to Mark Sheppard. Mark, understood, and spatially oriented visual to help cement the components in context isn't a bad step. It's just that giving them the conceptually related role of the components, and a task processing them in some meaningful way, is a step more. And, yes, unrealistic expectations on development time is an artifact of unrealistic views of learning (that spray and pray will lead to any meaningful change in behavior).

By: Mark Sheppard

Mark Sheppard — Tue, 22 Jul 2014 14:14:59 +0000

I think I might be guilty of some of this kind of “activity” in some recent work and I’m consoling myself by saying that I was forced into the constraints of the content by the primary stakeholder. While I would prefer a more “activity-driven” series of assets, the terminal objective is at the knowledge/recall level. So, instead of large chunks of text (e-reading) about specific aviation components, I’m driving the content through a more visual approach, showing an image of the components, with click-to-reveal actions.

So, it’s not what I’d prefer to do – or even what really should be done – but that Time-Cost-Quality triad is going to have a very short leg on this initiative.

By: Santhosh Kumar

Santhosh Kumar — Tue, 22 Jul 2014 06:02:11 +0000

“What will make a difference to the organization is not the ability to recite knowledge, but instead the ability to make better decisions.” – Absolutely agree on this and love your ‘call to action’, Clark. From our experience at Learnnovators, one of the most effective models that could help learning designers achieve this (meaningful interactions) is Cathy Moore’s ‘Action Mapping’.

By: Clark

Clark — Wed, 16 Jul 2014 18:21:43 +0000

In reply to nick shackleton-jones. Nick, great input. I might not expect learners to know what is good for them, but I would hope designer would know better. Sadly, it appears not to be the case in far too many situations.

By: nick shackleton-jones

nick shackleton-jones — Tue, 15 Jul 2014 16:04:43 +0000

I agree. About 15 years ago my team put this to the test, creating versions of the same content (information about the solar system) in 7 different formats ranging from plain text through to flash versions incorporating audio, video & interactive elements. Students were allowed the same time (30 mins) with each format and asked to take a test of recall. There was no significant difference in recall, though students using the text-only version did slightly better on average. They did, however, like the interactive version more. For the same reasons people prefer face-to-face training over elearning: they conflate entertainment with learning and interaction can provide some basic entertainment value (for both learner and purchaser) whilst actually detracting from the learning itself. But – as you point out – the context is the critical factor: if you’re basically wasting peoples’ time by dumping useless information on them, then ‘spicing things up’ with some interaction may feel like the right thing to do. To make the same point in a different way: if I’m using Google to figure something out, the last thing I want is interaction – I just want the answer.