Pre-order for Make It Meaningful now available

I’m happy to report that the ebook version of my next tome, Make It Meaningful: Taking Learning Design From Instructional to Transformational, is now available for pre-order! Why should you care?  Here’s a pass at explaining, and you can decide whether a pre-order for Make It Meaningful  makes sense for you.

Why this book?

Here’s the marketing blurb:

Learning Experience Design is, as author Clark Quinn puts it, about “the elegant integration of learning science with engagement”. While there are increasing resources available on the learning science side, the other side is somewhat neglected. Having written one of the books on the learning science side, Clark has undertaken to write the other half. The book is grounded in his early experience writing learning games, then researching cognition and engagement, and ongoing exploration and application of learning, technology, and design to creating solutions and strategies. It covers the underlying principles including surprise, story, and emotion and pulls them together to create a coherent approach. The book also covers not just the principles, but the implications for both learning elements and a design process. With concise prose and concrete examples, this book provides the framework to take your learning experience designs from instructional to transformational!

I hope that suggests why I think it’s important. Further, here are the short versions of what some early readers had to say:

“…the right emotional engagement tactics can be effective, desirable difficulties. The book explains why and how, with good examples.”
Patti Shank, PhD Author of Write Better Multiple-Choice Questions to Assess Learning

“… the notion of engagement, and its true meaning, is like the mysterious fifth element waiting to be discovered and summoned through three words in this book: Make. It. Meaningful.”
Zsolt Olah, Senior Learning Technologist, Amazon

“…systematically reveals the secret sauce for creating impactful learning experiences…brings to light the missing emotional design dimension that separates instructional design from LXD. Highly recommended..!”
Les Howles, Co-Author, Designing the Online Learning Experience

“As a fan of Clark Quinn‘s books, I‘m happy to announce this is another winner. Make It Meaningful closes a gaping hole in instructional design models by showing how to address the emotions in learning design.”
Connie Malamed, Publisher of theelearningcoach.com

Going a wee bit further…

What’s included

There are two sections, the first on principles, the second on practice. Initially I cover a bit of basics about learning, how to ‘hook’ people, then how to extend the experience, and some tips and tricks. In the subsequent section I consider the implications for the different elements of learning design: introduction, concepts, examples, practice, and closing, and then the amendments to your design process to incorporate the necessary elements. Thus, I’m trying to be thorough.

Who this is for

This is a book for those who already know the basics of science-grounded design, and are looking to take their learning experience design to the next level. It’s about addressing the emotional side. To be sure, it  also  makes mention of the cognitive essentials, but it is first and foremost focused on the emotional side.

What else should you know?

This is the first offering from the Learning Development Accelerator (LDA)  offshoot, LDA Press. (Note: as Editor-In-Chief, I’m biased.) In my own words:

LDA Press, an imprint of the Learning & Development Accelerator, is a boutique publisher focusing on evidence-informed titles that fill needed gaps in the literature while offering authors the relationship they deserve.

Hopefully, my experience with publishers (as author and consultant), is a good start. Then, the rigor of academic training in writing and reading should provide a reasonable expectation of quality. Additionally, I’m also looking to make the prose comprehensible. Finally, we’ve engaged professional copy-editing. We’ll see how that plays out, but so far it’s seems like we’re on track. Also, we’re actively soliciting additional needed works.

A further point: we’re keeping costs low. Thus, print copies of Meaningful  will be 22.99 (discount for LDA members), and the ebook is only $10.99 (also a discount for LDA members), plus there’s a special discount for pre-orders! The book releases 16 May, both ebook and print, but the latter may take awhile since orders will only be available on that date.

I think this book is needed, and immodestly believe it’s one that I am capable to write. At any rate, now you know you can make a pre-order for Make It Meaningful. Whether that makes sense for you is something only you can determine.  We now return you to your regularly scheduled blog…