rickblunt.com ← I participate, therefore I learn.

eLearning Best Practices

Nov

24

2013

Instructional Design It’s not about what they need to know. It’s about what they need to do. Let them know what’s in it for them. Make the narrative human. Avatars make the course more human and more emotionally approachable. Let the learner explore on their own. Let them freely navigate on their own. Make them ...

Interactivity, Instructional Interactions, and Performance Interactions

Jul

13

2013

There is a difference between the traditional “levels of interactivity” for asynchronous e-learning and interactions. Actually, they are very different. Interactivity Levels of interactivity are usually used during the Request for Proposal (RFP) and Proposal stages of business development/sales/contracting to figure out scope and pricing for an e-learning project. Based on my experience, I use ...

Reflections Of My First MOOC 1

May

29

2013

I recently finished the Gamification course offered by the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business via Coursera.org. The course was six weeks long and had more than 63,000 registered students. Close to 6,000 finished and I was one of them. I kept notes as I took the course. Not of the content, but of ...

It’s Time We Think About Assessments

May

12

2013

Tell–>Test, Tell–>Test, Tell–>Test. Next–>Next–>Next–>Next–>Quiz. This is traditional e-Learning and I disagree with it. It’s a passive and punishment model. First, you passively read/watch/listen to content, then you get a superfluous test on it, usually multiple-choice. I hate multiple choice, matching, true/false, drag and drop, pull-down menu quizzes. I think they miss the mark for several ...

Learning Objectives—Yes, No, Maybe 1

May

2

2013

I hate Learning Objectives. Yes, they are a necessary evil. Yes, they do help shape and mold the learning experience. Sometimes they do this well, sometimes they completely miss the mark. Yes, we should ban forever the verbs “learn” and “understand” from our learning objective writing. Why are the necessary? Because, when done well, they ...

e-Learning Instructional Design Course

Apr

17

2013

I thought I would brush up on my e-Learning Instructional Design skills so I took the ATSD e-Learning Instructional Design cbd products course taught by the wonderful Ethan Edwards of Allen Interactions. One of the reasons I wanted to take it was I know Allen Interactions has some very great ideas about how e-Learning should ...

We Are Educating the Creativity Out of Our Kids

Apr

1

2013

I remember when my now grown daughter was three years old. I took her to a playground and she was playing in the sandbox. Up comes a little boy who plops down next to her. My daughter, at three years old, says “hello my friend.” The two of them now start exploring the sand and how ...

Hello and Welcome

Mar

14

2013

Hi everyone, Welcome to my blog. I thought it was finally time to start sharing my opinions to anyone who might be interested. It’s also a way for me to process my own reflections about my work. I like evangelizing about learning technologies. I’m also a Serious Games | Game-Based Learning “believer” and advocate. I’m also an ...