What are others using to add interactivity to your e-learning courses. I just started working for a new organization. They have about 12 courses before I came and one of my projects is to go back and add course interactions. So far, I've been using interactive review games, we also have knowledge builders with links, and real life applications. What else is out there?

I would question why you are planning to add the interactivity in the first place. Mainly, is it necessary? It seems that many, many folks add it just for the sake of having "interactivity." Hopefully you plan to tie it back to a performance objective, and are not just going to randomly insert games, quizzes, etc. Just before lunch today, I clicked on a link that was posted here on the ASTD discussion boards. It was supposed to be an example of rapid e-learning - a demo. I found it lacking, to say the least. The primary reason I found it impossible to finish (just made it to page 12 out of 70 something pages) was precisely for the reason that it was flooded with "interactivity" that was not only meaningless, but it greatly interferred with focusing on the topic at hand - along with the pages that were incredibly slow to load. I can't imagine anyone finishing it. There was no value added by the "interactivity." I wonder if others out there have experienced the same thing with e-learning - rapid or otherwise........... Interactivity for the sake of interactivity is just poor design, and only serves to insult the supposed learner. However, the practice seems rampant.

Poor interactions most often begin with designs that center on TSATBDASWS theory of instructional design. This theory, years ago, was implemented in agricultural environments as a means of afternoon amusement. (TSATBDASWS = "Throw stuff at the barn door and see what sticks!)

A more recent advance in instructional design is based on the idea that training supports desired behaviors, and that those behaviors are articulated as training objectives.

Now! Based on that theory, the interactions (as well as content and testing) in courses (including web based courses), are all designed and developed to be absolutely congruent with the stated objectives. Courses based on this theory seem to have fewer inappropriate interactions than those designed with the TSATBDASWS approach. At least that's what I've been led to believe.

I agree with Pete and KaliKo that a design approach that uses interactions to support behavioral objectives creates more useful interactions and fewer inappropriate ones. And a lot of "rapid" elearning seems (to me at least) to be over-produced, with slow and unnecessary effects and games.

One approach you might take when overhauling old courses is to first identify the behaviors that the course was attempting to create or change. Then add only the interactions that will help learners practice or evaluate that behavior.

You might also find it helpful to chop some content, because it's common for courses to contain more information than is really necessary to support the behavioral goals. It's possible that you've been asked to add interactions to the courses because they're "boring," and maybe one reason they're boring is they simply have too much content.

Cathy

So, you all just use straight text? I guess I'm from a different generation where I enjoy interactions to keep me engaged.

I understand what you are saying that too much can interfer. I've been creating interactions that come at the end of the lesson so they aren't a distraction.

We keep our lessons 20 pages maximum. All content whether it is a question, or an example, or straight text is related to the learning objectives stated at the begining of each course. None of it is meaningless or requried if a student prefers not to utilize the study interactions.