Stop misusing the word ‘interaction’ in elearning development



One issue I have with standard practice in elearning development is the use of the word ‘interaction’. You see it in all the authoring tools, and hear developers talk about ‘adding interaction’ to the learning experience, when they add ‘tabs interactions’, an ‘accordion’ or a ‘process’.

Sometimes it is used to describe a meaningful learning experience, such as making the learner an active decision-maker in a scenario, to give them practice at a skill relevant to their goals. Sadly, this is the exception to the rule.

More often, once the elearning designer has compiled what basically amounts to a reference document covering all the information the learner could ever possibly need on the subject being studied, they try to make it look less onerous by hiding the various paragraphs that they’ve written on different tabs or windows that the learner has to click on to reveal.

What is this adding? In my experience as a learner, I have never found this anything except annoying. It is a way that learning designers can mask the fact that what that they have produced is no more selective than a reference document, but rather than putting the power in the hands of the learner to read it as and when they need, it is presented in the form of elearning so that organisations can track which pages have been clicked (and skimmed, and forgotten.)


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