2007 · eBook
Engaging Interactions for eLearning
25 Ways to Keep Learners Awake and Intrigued
What it is
An eBook with 25 interactions for online courses, from Scattered Steps and Myth or Fact to Branching Stories and Solving a Mystery. First released in September 2007.
Why I wrote it
Online training has an awful reputation for being an information dump: walls of text, dry images, and a Next button you click through for 30, 45, even 60 minutes. Nobody likes those courses, and most people try to set a world record getting to the end.
I was seeing it with my colleagues and peers, along with a rush of poorly built courses. So I wrote this eBook to bring more ideas, structure, and rigor to how training gets built. I was thinking about both sides: what the experience is like for the learner, and whether they actually remember the material and get better at the skill.
Too much training is information in a pretty package. Writing this was a way to think the problem through for myself and share what I found with my colleagues.
How it landed
It was widely received as very helpful, and instructional designers still use it and reference it today.