Engaging and Interactive

So, at this conference the number 1 question among the participants is "How can we make elearning more engaging?" I think that this is a great question. They actually had everyone write a question down and pass it around, allowing everyone in the conference to rate the relevance of your question to them on a scale of 1 to 5. My question was how can we better disaggregate content and reassemble it for individualized delivery. It must have got all 1's.

I'm guessing the addition of effective simulations and games, which is a part of this the session content, is a good first step. But I am thinking that interactivity and engagement my really be somehow outside of the box that we put training in. I am more engaged setting here trying to articulate engagement, then I have every really been engaged in training.

Now, I know that this is difficult. Do you want me to have our employees blog about OSHA? I hear you saying. And I think the answer is yes, yes I do want your employees to blog about OSHA compliance. Well, maybe they should be presented a really cool, video-based scenario where someone is having trouble with meeting the rules. Then send them the hyperlink to the rules. Have them blog how the situation should be handled and have them cite the rules as within their explaination... Then, have their responses made available on a secure web site to future students.

I've seen something like this done with sales presentations. The culminating activity was to create a powerpoint presentation for a fictitous client, the best ones from all the students were made available for the following students. This is a way for the course to get better each time a person goes through it or at least the more that go through it the better it gets.

Interesting...

technorati tags: engagement, interactivity, elearning