Designing World-Class E-Learning : How IBM, GE, Harvard Business School, And Columbia University Are Succeeding At E-Learning

Book Description

"Schank's success designing teaching software has made him a much sought after figure among businesses, military clients, and universities."

-The New York Times

The majority of corporate training programs are weak, ineffective, costly, and inconvenient for the time-pressed employees they are supposed to train. Designing World-Class e-Learning explores on-line learning--today's hottest business training topic--and explains the "learning-by-doing" approach that the author and his firm have used to develop effective on-line courses for Harvard Business School, IBM, GE, Columbia University, and other world-leading organizations.

Roger Schank, a leading E-learning guru and innovator, demonstrates steps and strategies proven to excite employees, make them want to learn, and decrease training costs while increasing productivity. Schank's approach to E-learning involves:

e-Learning by doing
Encouraging learners to fail--and learn from failure
Just-in-time storytelling from experts
Powerful emotional impact

Customer Reviews:

Not for Instructional Designers.......2005-01-25

Designing World-Class e-Learning did not meet my expectations-so by Schank's definition, I must have learned something. As an instructional designer, I found it infuriating. Schank preaches, full-pulpit preaching, his perspective on effective training solution by bashing public education, university education, professional trainers, and professional instructional designers. What Schank does do is try and sell you his team providing eLearning solutions for your business. These solutions are excellent approaches for performance improvement, as seen in the case studies. They are ideal for uptraining. I am not yet convinced it is the right approach for new hire training. He also compares the "right" way of learning to that of a child, having expectations fail and changing one's mental models as a consequence. Since adults have some learning skills developed beyond that of a pre-schooler, I felt this was a limited basis of argument. Schank tailors the process, including evaluation, to his premise of what is "good" training. Unfortunately, he does not provide the tools or explanations so that the reader can also put into practice these ideas. Dr. Schank, my one question is, "If Learning by Doing is such an intrinsic necessity for effective learning, why does the reader never have any engaging opportunity to do something?"

Packed with Knowledge!.......2003-04-11

E-learning expert Roger C. Schank describes the secrets of a good e-learning program. He emphasizes using e-learning to train in-house employees, although his methods could work in any setting. Schank clearly establishes the basic principle that makes e-learning work: learning by doing. He outlines methods using scenarios and simulations that permit the learner to put new ideas into practice immediately. He's a little too fond of failing and trying over as a learning method, when one might learn just as well by studying others' failures and successes. However, he supports his approach with education-based examples that demonstrate how children learn, along with an inside look at IBM and GE programs. Visuals in the book show the computer screen in a teaching mode as displayed to the user, so you see how your e-learning material should look, whether on a Web site or on a local intranet. We from getAbstract recommend this solid hands-on instruction manual for training and development managers, and for those who are building e-learning experiences.

Modern Alchemy That Produces Some Gold.......2002-02-04

For masochists who can only learn from their own mistakes, this book provides the best way to teach them. Roger Schank's methods create temporary results that can help people react well in a situation but can limit a persons ability to think ahead avoid problems and communicate issues and solutions appropriately.

Schank's "Sink or Swim" approach of leading the learner to failure encourages educators to be clever and sneaky about the way they craft their training. He warns against telegraphing your punches to the learner. His methods manipulate peoples fears to get them to do what he wants them to do. The golden rule of education is to respect the pupil and Schank unfortunately treats learners with more contempt than he claims traditional methods produce.

The good news is there is plenty of useful insight and examples that aren't covered in other books that I know of. I have mixed feelings because I like so much of what he points out that is wrong with most training and education today. I am also in agreement on how he stresses the importance of good stories and examples and I'm in the car with him right up until he locks the doors, floors the gas and steers the car off a cliff.

Like many alchemists, Schank really believes in his methods to turn base metals into gold and is unyielding in his opinion that all other methods are worthless. He uses only the worst case examples of traditional training methods to reject the educational establishment while using the most idealistic examples to promote why he is the only one who can teach people anything. Thank god, he was there to help Enron communicate issues better to their employees. See the case study on page 44 "e-learning at Enron".

Schank's basic philosophy is that people can only learn from their own failures. He states, "Real thinking never starts until the learner fails." This is a serious flaw. Not many of us would survive if it were true. Learning from our own mistakes is how we keep from falling behind but learning from others mistakes is how we move ahead. And this is what traditional education methods can accomplish, if they are done correctly.

Schank states that "Small children are failure machines, failing hundreds of thousands of times before they learn." He seems to think this is okay and that's the way it should always work. But, most children don't need to be run over by a car to learn not to play in the street. Most children don't need to poke an eye out to learn not to run with scissors.

Schank continually refers to flight simulator training as the ultimate way to educate because pilots are immersed in a completely realistic three dimensional environment. But flight simulator training is just one part of a larger effort that pilots go through. If he would bother to follow up on this a little more, he would find that the FAA and the major airlines discovered a big problem, some time ago, with too much reliance on simulator training.

The problem is that people don't like being set up to fail. When this happens they begin to blame the computer training and don't take responsibility for the failure. The significant changes that have been made include providing more preparation of presentational information and guided practice before pilots enter the flight simulators.

Schank brags throughout the book about how people get through his training courses and graduate classes without learning anything new but that they know how to do something. Well, that just doesn't fly in most of the world. The reason you teach people a certain process and test for knowledge instead of just how to do something is because people tend to take short cuts that may seem productive in the short term but can get other people killed or in trouble. Schank's programs teach people to figure their own way to accomplish a goal. Who cares how they get there? Well sometimes, the Justice and Treasury Department care how you get there, often the news media care how you get there and usually your co-workers care. Ask the ex-employees of Enron whether they care.

Schank couldn't find any psychological research to support his theories, so he made up his own and refers to his own books for support. If you read a broader selection of books than what he recommends, you'll find that most research supports that people consider motivation to be a personal responsibility while they perceive de-motivation to be the responsibility of the system or person they work for or learn from. This means you can pump people up or scare them for a short period of time but ultimately people motivate themselves. However, they are quick to blame the system if you trip them up.

Schank's entire methodology is based on artificially imposing failure on people, to motivate them to learn. When you set someone up to fail, you may teach them not to repeat a mistake but they will become increasingly resistant to this form of training and will begin to blame the system for their failures.

Schank's psychology and methods are at odds with human nature but while Schank rejects all traditional methods of training and education, like multiple-choice tests and Instructional System Design (ISD), I can't reject all of his experience. Overall, he is too extreme and dangerous for me, but like all good agitators, he provides a unique perspective and makes some good points because he has so passionately pursued how to educate people.

Book Description

This all-new edition of Web-Based Training is filled with practical charts, tables, and checklists that shows you how to design winning training programs for delivering instruction on the Web. Well grounded in the time-tested principles of great instructional design and adult education, Web-Based Training takes a step back from the whirlwind of technical guides and offers a extensively-researched handbook. For everyone seeking to learn more about the subject, Driscoll gives you illustrative examples from a wide range of organizations large and small and the book's CD-ROM contains a strategic presentation with eighty slides and has helpful links to the World Wide Web.

Customer Reviews:

Must-buy for 'Pedagogist-Technologists'.......2002-10-26

The people in the e-learning industry could be divided largely into three camps - the Pedagogists, the Technologists and the Pedagogist-Technologists (people who bridge the two apparently divergent worlds). :-)

Book Description

Learning is at its best when it is goal-oriented, contextual, interesting, challenging, and interactive. These same winning characteristics also define the best computer games, which suggests that the most effective learning experiences are also engaging. Learning can and should be hard fun! The challenge is to get in touch with what it takes to design learning experiences that will excite your audience. Engaging Learning offers a much-needed guide for training professionals who want to create learning programs that are both effective and engaging. Clark N. Quinn Learning, a system designer, presents a unique framework for systematically aligning the key elements of learning and engagement with a proven design process for e-learning games. This nuts-and-bolts guide, which is both research-based and grounded in experience, offers the tools needed to transform learning experiences from humdrum to fun.

Download Description

"Learning is at its best when it is goal-oriented, contextual, interesting, challenging, and interactive. These same winning characteristics also define the best computer games, which suggests that the most effective learning experiences are also engaging. Learning can and should be hard fun! The challenge is to get in touch with what it takes to design learning experiences that will excite your audience. Engaging Learning offers a much-needed guide for training professionals who want to create learning programs that are both effective and engaging. Clark N. Quinn Learning, a system designer, presents a unique framework for systematically aligning the key elements of learning and engagement with a proven design process for e-learning games. This nuts-and-bolts guide, which is both research-based and grounded in experience, offers the tools needed to transform learning experiences from humdrum to fun. "

Customer Reviews:

Didn't find anything that was useful or particularly interesting.......2007-03-20

I had high hopes for this book what with Dr. Allen's apparent endorsement and Jay Cross writing a positive review of it. I found the book dry and boring. I started each chapter with the hope that it would reveal something useful that could be readily applied, but each chapter ended flat. I found a great deal of wisdom in Dr Allen's books. I was hoping that this book might give me somewhat of a different perspective that would expand upon (and even disagree with) the instructional design perspective in Dr Allen's books. Instead it caused me to want to go back and re-read Dr Allen's books to see if my present experience level would cause me to find new meaning. (Micheal Allen's Guide to E-Learning and Creating Successful e-learning)

I give this book 2 stars because Clark Quinn does include some examples. I think that this book would have been far more worthwhile if it was written around these examples. I would have liked to see him explain an idea and then really delve into how he applied that idea in the examples he shows in the book. Instead the examples seem somewhat removed from what the author is primarily saying in each chapter.

good but very basic.......2007-03-14

a very basic overview fo the situation; does not include major players like BTS, SMG, Real Learning that are the worlds number 1 in simulation these days from invoicing and development of simulations.

Engaging what?.......2007-02-15

I have yet to finish this book; however, for the portions I have already read, I am not impressed. To begin, his expanded usage of the English language is unnecessary for the simplicity of his context. He also has multiple run on sentences that can be as long as 64 words! Also, "his" concepts are more or less variances of colorations of others theory's. The first half of the book is lofty, very wordy and lacking clear definitions. Perhaps this may be a test to see if I can Engage in learning.

Also to gain my credit I am a student of new media including Flash and have read multiple books based on learning through interactivity.

Hard Fun!.......2005-07-04

I will be brief. That's the way you feel when you're engaged in an eLearning Simulation Game. You get swept up in it. You're turned on. You block out life's static in order to reach your goal. Clark's book is like that. BUY THIS BOOK!

excellent.......2005-05-29

I've known and worked with Clark Quinn for several years. He's written a very good book. Like the e-learning it advocates, Engaging Learning is fun, accessible and, well, engaging. Working from a solid theoretical framework, Clark explains why learning should be "hard fun" and then shows how to create that kind of e-learning. He includes several detailed case studies. As someone who develops e-learning for a living, I appreciated his pragmatic approach and acknowledgement that e-learning can be developed at different levels of engagement, depending on budget, schedule, quality of source material, etc.

What really shines through, though, is Clark's passion for incorporating simulations and gaming techniques into e-learning. If you read this book and some of that rubs off, you will develop better e-learning.

Designing E-Learning (Astd E-Learning Series, 6th Bk.)

Average customer rating:

Outstanding roadmap for departments moving to e-learning

Designing E-Learning (Astd E-Learning Series, 6th Bk.)
Saul Carliner
Manufacturer: ASTD
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 1562863320

Book Description

Don't design e-learning programs from scratch-use this book to adapt your instructional design expertise to the demands of this new technology. Receive step-by-step guidelines, discover solutions to key challenges, and learn how to balance the educational needs of your learners with the practical constraints of e-learning.

Customer Reviews:

Outstanding roadmap for departments moving to e-learning.......2003-01-17

It's been difficult to find a clear and thorough guide to recommend to clients and students who are working to move their corporate training areas to e-learning. This is an outstanding step-by-step guide written in a clear and accessible style. Even if you have never approached an e-learning project, you will learn where to start, what to consider, and how to proceed from beginning to end. Start with this one! I highly recommend it to my clients and students.

Workshops: Designing and Facilitating Experiential Learning

Average customer rating:

If you deliver or study workshops, you need this book.

Workshops: Designing and Facilitating Experiential Learning
Jeff E. Brooks-Harris , and Susan R. Stock
Manufacturer: Sage Publications, Inc
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0761910212

Book Description

This volume is designed to present a practical approach to designing and running workshops. It is meant to introduce novice facilitators as well as those with much experience to an integrated model of workshop design and development. Grounded in learning theory, this model is used to demonstrate how to design, facilitate, and direct workshops, as well as how to identify and improve existing skills. Practical, how-to sections assist readers in creating specific experiential activities designed to facilitate different types of learning. Readers also learn how to understand and attend to individual differences as well as to take all workshop participants through a universal cycle of learning. Workshops will be useful to anyone who facilitates workshops in higher education, adult education, business, health care, and other educational settings.

Customer Reviews:

If you deliver or study workshops, you need this book........2002-09-29

For those that deliver or study workshops, this is a must-have book. Drawing from the learning style theory of David Kolb, this guide book will help you to design and deliver workshops that cater to the four different learning styles. The book is packed with activities to help you plan your lessons and hone your teaching style. Don't enter the classroom without it.

MCSE Designing a Windows Server 2003 Active Directory & Network Infrastructure: Exam 70-297 Study Guide and DVD Training System

Average customer rating:

Good Condition Book
Highly recommended

MCSE Designing a Windows Server 2003 Active Directory & Network Infrastructure: Exam 70-297 Study Guide and DVD Training System
Neil Ruston , and Laura E. Hunter
Manufacturer: Syngress
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 1932266542

Book Description

MCSE Designing a Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Active Directory and Network Infrastructure (Exam 70-297) Study Guide and DVD Training System is a one-of-a-kind integration of text, DVD-quality instructor led training, and Web-based exam simulation and remediation. This system gives readers 100% coverage of the official Microsoft exam objectives plus test preparation software for the edge needed to pass the exam on your first try.

* DVD Provides a "Virtual Classroom": Get the benefits of instructor led training at a fraction of the cost and hassle.

* Guaranteed Coverage of All Exam Objectives: If the topic is listed in Microsoft's exam objectives, it is covered here.

* Fully Integrated Learning: This system includes a study guide, DVD training, and Web-based practice exams

Download Description

Customer Reviews:

Good Condition Book.......2005-10-15

Book arrived on time. Tracking showed it was shipped from VA, instead of TN as was stated. Book was in stated condition though.

Highly recommended.......2004-03-29

This is a well written and well presented book. It helps the reader decide which options are most appropriate to his/her scenario and includes lots of new information relevant to Windows Server 2003.

The book goes beyond the bare minimum information needed to pass the exam and instead offers lots of additional tips and useful pieces of information which the authors have no doubt acquired through their years of experience in the world of designing Active Directory solutions.

Book Description

Building on the materials in the two previous successful editions, Multimedia Projects in Education, Third Edition features approximately 40% all new material and updates the previous information. The authors use the DDD-E model (Decide, Design, Develop, Evaluate) to show how to select and plan multimedia projects, use presentation and development tools, manage graphics, audio, and digital video, create Web pages, and evaluate student work. Project suggestions come complete with scenario, an overview, topics, and reproducible worksheets, and can be easily adapted for different grade levels. Helpful assessment rubrics are included for projects. Teachers and library media specialists will enjoy this hands-on practical approach to implementing multimedia into their everyday classroom practice.

Customer Reviews:

Finally a book with immediate classroom application........2000-07-18

Students in my Multimedia Design course really appreciate the author's inclusion of materials they can adapt to their classrooms now. Too many times I, myself, have bought books weighted in theory and short on practical applications. Not so this time. Kudos to you for providing straight-forward information and specific examples. One suggestion, though, is an update soon. Some of the material has become dated and students will soon lose interest if instructors must constantly explain how what was said in the book is no longer true.

Web-Teaching, Second Edition - A Guide to Designing Interactive Teaching for the World Wide Web (Innovations in Science Education and Technology) (Innovations in Science Education and Technology)

Average customer rating:

Not a complete waste of time
Some insights, but quite dated
Excellent resource for teachers on effective use of the web

Web-Teaching, Second Edition - A Guide to Designing Interactive Teaching for the World Wide Web (Innovations in Science Education and Technology) (Innovations in Science Education and Technology)
David W. Brooks , Diane E. Nolan , and Susan M. Gallagher
Manufacturer: Springer
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0306465272

Book Description

Beginning with a brief history of the Internet, this book delves into a review of current research, active learning strategies, Web courseware, metacognition, strategies for Web discussions, promoting student self-regulation, building interactive Web pages, basic HTML coding, managing Web sites, using databases, automated testing, and security and legal issues.
Experience shows that Web teaching may be used in an extremely wide range of subject areas. Modern course management software has demystified the use of the Web for teaching, allowing instructors to focus on instructional design and improving student experiences instead of only the technical skills of building Web sites. Web-Teaching helps readers pick and choose what aspects of the Web to employ to achieve the greatest student learning gains.

Customer Reviews:

Not a complete waste of time.......2002-06-10

This book contains several generally accepted principles in creating learning environments. I was actually shocked by an original thought somewhere near the end. The author is very vague, and contradicts himself several times.

He says "A major advantage of the Internet is that teachers do not have to worry about software and hardware issues as much as in other situations." This is absurd. It is a major barrier to learning. Teachers often have to cope with just those things before any learning on the subject matter can take place. It was not any easier in 1997 when this book was published -- it was more difficult because the technology was still young and far less stable, and because learners were not nearly as comfortable in the environment!

I feel that in his push to get his book to market early in the game, he sacrificed content and ideas for (what was then quite forward-thinking) technology.

You can learn something here, but watch your step.

Some insights, but quite dated.......1999-04-20

The book does a good job of discussing teaching theory and how it relates to web-based instruction.

Alas, its technology discussions, which make up half the book, are quite dated (like the book says Java hasn't really shipped yet -- ok, quiet you cynics -- but will be incredibly influential).

Excellent resource for teachers on effective use of the web.......1997-06-17

I found Brooks' account of the instructional use of the web as practical and thought provoking. He does not portray the internet as the saving grace for all aspects of education but, demonstrates proven strategies for instruction

Designing Successful e-Learning, Michael Allen's Online Learning Library: Forget What You Know About Instructional Design and Do Something Interesting (Michael Allen's E-Learning Library)

Average customer rating:

E-learning isn't so different

Designing Successful e-Learning, Michael Allen's Online Learning Library: Forget What You Know About Instructional Design and Do Something Interesting (Michael Allen's E-Learning Library)
Michael W. Allen
Manufacturer: Pfeiffer
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0787982997

Book Description

This is the second volume of six in Michael Allen’s e-Learning Library—a comprehensive collection of proven techniques for creating e-learning applications that achieve targeted behavioral outcomes through meaningful, memorable, and motivational learning experiences. This book examines common instructional design practices with a critical eye and recommends substituting success rather than tradition as a guide. Drawing from theory, research, and experience in learning and behavioral change, the author provides a framework for addressing a broader range of learner needs and achieving superior performance outcomes.

Customer Reviews:

E-learning isn't so different.......2007-07-06

Although Allen says,"Forget everything you know," much of what he describes here is good instructional design in any context. What's unique is that he makes the book interactive. He teases out certain instructional components, like incidental learning, that have been alluded to in other books and fleshes out how to be more purposeful about these components. He also refers within the text to good examples of this in other literature, making it easy to "go after" a point that rings a bell for the reader right away.

Designing individualized learning experiences in higher education

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Designing individualized learning experiences in higher education
Arthur E Garner
Manufacturer: Memphis State University, Office of Public Service and Continuing Education
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

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