Who Moved My Interactivity?
- John Low
- Dec 9, 2016
- 2 min read
The instructor-led classroom continues to dominant the way that training gets done in organizations. Increasingly this is getting offset by eLearning, where the lower level, knowledge-based content gets pulled from the classroom and packaged as “read-ahead” material. The term “read-ahead” is particularly apt in this case, because typically that is exactly what students do; they print out a PDF version of the course, (if available), and read it. This wouldn’t be such a bad thing, so long as we recognized it for what it was, a pre-reading assignment, not interactive multimedia eLearning.
Most of this content is made up of text, the occasional piece of clip art, and of course a “next” button (this is the interactive part). The real trouble is missed opportunities to support learning and performance, in a way that is uniquely possible with the technology.
Regardless of your budget, there are ways to use technology to develop story, provide meaningful feedback, and create something that delivers real value for the person going through the instruction. Here are three high-level considerations for designing a performance solution vs. PowerPoint speaker notes:
Align around the performance objective. Answer the question, “when this person finishes this course, they should be able to DO…” The DO is the important part. If this sentence ends with, “I want this person to know…” then reorient around the performance you want to see.
Design scenarios and activities in which the performance objective can be tested. Provide consequential feedback in keeping with the scenarios; this vs. breaking the story line with, “Correct/Incorrect and here is why” feedback.
Determine the essential knowledge and information needed for the student to go through the activity or scenario. (Only include the information that is essential to the activities. If you must include a stakeholders “pet” content, put it in a resources section.)
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