Michael W. Allen, PhD
Chairman and CEO, Allen Interactions Inc.
As an international speaker and consultant to virtually every business sector over his more than thirty-five years of research and development in technology-based instruction, Michael Allen now speaks out about his frustrations and disappointments with e-learning and brings fundamental issues to light. From his pioneering work on learning management and learning assessment systems, authoring systems, and instructional design with IBM, CDC/Plato, Authorware, and Macromedia, buyers and experts alike follow his leadership and respect his opinion.
In this presentation based on his book, Guide to e-Learning, Michael will share specific, commonsense guidelines that can help organizations focus on performance opportunities rather than training costs, set appropriate criteria for e-learning designs, and reliably produce cost-effective learning solutions.
Michael W. Allen, PhD
Chairman & CEO, Allen Interactions Inc.
The challenge of good design is always much more about getting learners to participate and think than it is about the presentation of content. Yet our priorities are almost always reversed: First, we say, make sure to present all the content. If time and resources remain, then spend them on the mechanics of good instructional interaction. In all this, where is the guarantee that the learning application won't be boring? And if it's boring, it undoubtedly won't be good -- and it most certainly won't help students to achieve the necessary learning objectives .
In this presentation, Michael Allen draws upon his new book on the same topic to explain why so much of today's e-learning is boring, and to explore ways in which you can make your e-learning fascinating and, most importantly, effective.
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Edmond Manning
Senior Interactivity Producer, Allen Interactions Inc.
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Mary-Scott Hunter
Studio Executive, Studio M, Allen Interactions Inc.
How does Einstein's theory of relativity work? Is time travel possible? How can you rapidly prototype your content? This session addresses these issues by using Steven Hawking's The Universe In A Nutshell to illustrate how almost any content easily lends itself to rapid prototyping. A particular focus will be placed on building a prototype from one aspect of Hawking's book, evaluating the results, and determining how this process might work when using your own content.
Michael W. Allen, PhD
Chairman & CEO, Allen Interactions Inc.
With all that's written about good instructional design, why isn't everyone turning out inspiring, engaging, meaningful and memorable learning events? In a presentation loaded with examples, Michael Allen will happily throw tomatoes (come properly dressed) at much of the published "wisdom" upon which many instructional design guidelines are based. Find out how you can put research foundations in their place and learn how to apply frequently ignored values and procedures to your designs that are realistic, fun and successful.
Ethan Edwards
Chief Knowledge Officer, Allen Interactions Inc.
One of the features that distinguish classroom learning from online learning is the ability to give thoughtful feedback. In the classroom, the human teacher is able to react to countless situations, evaluate learners' performances and give rich, meaningful feedback and guidance. In online learning applications where learners are interacting solely with the computer, the feedback all too often turns into simplistic messages of "That's right" or "You're Wrong." When learners take their new skills back to the real world they find out that the decisions can't be so easily categorized; they may have learned what facts were right and wrong, but they didn't learn the consequences of their choices. This session will show examples of feedback in "typical" online learning applications and what happens when learners are faced with consequences rather than feedback. You will also learn about the powerful application of delayed feedback and you will be given examples of variable driven feedback. The importance of providing a context for feedback, self-evaluation, and student-to-student feedback in collaborative environments will also be explained.
Audience: Instructional designers looking to add interactivity and feedback into their courses.
Michael W. Allen PhD
Chairman & CEO, Allen Interactions Inc.
Ethan Edwards
Chief Knowledge Officer, Allen Interactions Inc.
One of the most important factors in creating effective e-Learning programs is building appropriate learner motivation. Motivation controls our perception and fuels our persistence to achieve selected goals. If motivation to learn is low, very little learning will occur; if motivation to learn is high, learning will occur even if instructional materials are poor. Yet most design paradigms virtually ignore explicit planning for motivation in e-Learning projects. This session presents concrete ways to enhance learner motivation in e-Learning programs. Many real-life examples from training projects for major corporations will illustrate these methods. You will leave this session able to apply similar strategies in your own designs.
In this session you will learn the importance of designing motivation into e-Learning programs, the pitfalls in traditional design that usually lead to failure, and seven key components that characterize motivating e-Learning programs. You will also learn how to incorporate motivational design ideas in traditional e-Learning through real life examples and case studies, and how to design interactivity that is both motivating and rich in content
Audience: Intermediate and Advanced e-Learning instructional designers
Ethan Edwards
Chief Knowledge Officer, Allen Interactions Inc.
In this 1-day workshop, participants will examine their views about what makes an effective interactivity design and will examine several examples of good and bad e-interactivity designs to expand and revise their thoughts about features they think must be part of an e-learning application. Participants will also be given a number of training problems and will be asked to generate design ideas. They will then be able to review the actual interactivity created to solve these problems, so that they can deconstruct the design, examining the rationale behind various interactivity design choices.
Agenda
- Examine one's own views about what makes an effective interactivity design
- Analyze examples of good and bad interactivity designs
- Expand and revise initial views
- Generate interactivity design ideas for short training problem
- Review lesson designs
- Analyze and deconstruct actual interactivity developed for these training problems
- Examine and discuss the rationale behind various design choices
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