Foreword
Between us, Michael Allen and I have more than 62 years in the interactive learning business. That’s probably more collective hands-on experience in designing, developing, and managing interactive learning than any other two people in the field. About 20 of those 62 years overlap. And we became friends of the road the first time we met and found that we shared a passion for learning and performance—and an excitement about using technology to achieve it. Over the years we have become friends of the heart as we have gotten to know and like each other. Our professional and personal relationship is largely anchored in a shared point of view, personal values, and a deep commitment to making a difference in the worlds we live in. Michael’s commitment to making such a difference is why he wrote this book—and his knowledge and experience will matter to all its readers. I am honored to introduce the book and Michael Allen’s thinking to you.
Michael Allen has done it all: He has designed and developed huge amounts of effective e-learning material. He has built several very successful businesses providing programs to sophisticated clients. He has managed development. He personally led the creation of Authorware, the benchmark authoring system used throughout the world. He has lectured. He has written. He has taught. His opinions and perspective are sought by many. But mostly, he thinks. And the results of that thinking are to the benefit of us all. I am glad he wrote down what he thinks.
I am a consultant in e-learning and performance support. I work with major organizations and vendors worldwide. I write: I work to articulate strategy, concepts, and possibilities. I also see a lot of e-learning. One of the things I do often is review and evaluate courseware. Just days before reading Guide to e-Learning I finished reviewing a commercial Web-based learning program. I was told the products were “enormously expensive” to create and that “no expense was spared to wow learners.” I was excited about seeing the result. The graphics and animations were almost Disney-quality; the videos were professional and the story lines slick. Sadly, within minutes, I was lost—out of control and frustrated.
The program’s structure was unclear. Navigation controls didn’t make sense or align with the course structure. I kept winding up in the wrong place and had to derive my own mental model of the program structure to gain control. But I was always a bit off. The visual effects and product values were most impressive, but the program basically was a linear sequential storyline with a bit of content thrown in with text overlays. Frankly, I was bored. I learned nothing. I paid no attention to content because I was being amazed by the visuals. I leaned back in my chair and watched. The only things with any interaction were the pre- and posttests. I was immensely disappointed and kept thinking: After all these years, couldn’t huge amounts of money buy excellence?
The answer is a resounding no! And in this book, Michael Allen tells us why. It’s not money that makes a difference, although money is always nice to have. It’s the thinking, process, focus on the learner and learning outcomes, and design that engage and sustain learner involvement and participation. In Guide to e-Learning, Michael Allen tells us how to do it.
When I wrote Making CBT Happen (Gery Performance Press, 1987—originally published by Weingarten Publications), I used the phrase, the Law of Diminishing Astonishment. This law states that any new technology, tool, visual effect, or software trick quickly becomes the baseline. What initially amazes people quickly becomes the new expectation. The Law of Diminishing Astonishment requires that we continue to up the ante to keep people attentive and involved. Many people think it’s gee-whiz features. I disagree. If I have learned nothing else during my 26 years in the e-learning field, I have learned what matters. It’s creating motivation, sound instructional strategies and design, significant and almost constant interaction—combined with learner feelings of control, progress, and power. Interactivity—what it is, and how to create it—is a major focus of this book.
As Michael explains throughout this book, buyers and designer/developers of e-learning programs must develop shared expectations and quality standards, and work jointly using proven processes to create the best result. Surely, someone must have noticed how inadequate and frustrating the learning program I described above was during the development process! But nobody did. And why? Because there was not an integrated development team focused on learning. Rather, the team was a collection of graphics designers, visual effects artists, programmers, and Hollywood types with a goal of doing cool things. Clearly, there was not a shared goal of significant and accelerated learning. Content and process were obviously ignored in favor of creative and rich visual efforts.
The reason Guide to e-Learning is significant is that Michael Allen:
- Carefully builds the case for good design—and describes the price of failure to achieve it
- Defines, describes, and prescribes the methods to achieve it
- Provides significant and practical examples of good interactive e-learning that have been developed using these sound methods
- Advocates shared understanding, point of view, and goals by all involved
- Raises to high levels of consciousness the specific variables that must be built into e-learning programs—and tells us how to do it
- Provides practical, usable, experience-based frameworks, models, and techniques that enrich the reader
- Generates confidence that good work can be done by normal people without fantasy budgets and resources
My Favorite Things
Sometimes deep experience in a field can be frustrating. The frustration arises from the increasing difficulty in learning new things. You feel you’ve seen it all, or the effort associated with incremental learning is so great that you are tempted not to bother. I learned many things from Michael Allen in this book—a turn of phrase, another point of view, an articulation of something that was just below the surface or that I hadn’t expressed quite right. Let me share some of my favorite things from this book in hopes that it will frame some of your thinking in reading it.
- Simplicity is good. There’s a great quote from Niklaus Wirth, a professor of computer science: “People seem to misinterpret complexity as sophistication.” Michael Allen advocates a minimalist approach to design with a focus on the experience outcomes, not on virtuoso technique or trivial, gratuitous use of media and other tricks.
- Successive approximation as a primary approach to achieving quality. It’s obvious when it’s described. And it’s obvious after designers and developers use prototyping, iteration, and successive approximation (or continuous improvement) to get closer and closer to a powerful result. But it’s not used as often or as well as it should be. Michael hits the nail on the head.
- The Seven Magic Keys to motivating e-learning. I don’t believe in cookbooks for design. But I do believe in sound ingredients that can be combined and recombined in many ways to turn out a simple—or elegant—meal. The difference in outcomes is not typically grounded in the ingredients, but rather in the particular combinations used and the sophistication of the chef. Sometimes these ingredients turn out “biscuits,” and other times “croissants.” Same starting elements, just more steps to do and more skill required. Michael’s Seven Magic Keys are fundamental and should be posted on the wall of every designer—and every client. They are clearly articulated and, as important, illustrated and described in sufficient detail to enable even the most inexperienced author to turn out an adequate and involving learning program.
There are many others—but I’ve said enough. Read this book. Mark it up. Put yellow sticky-notes on it. Use it till you wear it out. Don’t pass the book on. It’s too important a resource. But do pass the word: As Michael says, “Boring is bad.”
Gloria Gery
Gery Associates
Tolland, Massachusetts