I happened upon a wonderful interview of Clark Quinn on Cammy Bean’s Blog / Kineo Audio Series today. Between the interview, Cammy’s summary and the Resources referenced it is an absolute goldmine for ID’s and eLearning authors.
Clark Quinn with a quick comment on the importance of emotional appeal for learners in eLearning content development at the 2010 eLearning Guild Learning Solutions Conference.
What is particularly wonderful about the interview / information is that Quinn goes beyond the theoretical concepts (which revolve around his battle to prevent ‘ID Malpractice’) and gives practical advice about ways to actually implement more effective projects.
Specifically Quinn focuses on a ‘skills centered’ approach – one which rather than focusing on churning out facts and data (most of which is of no use to the learner anyway) examines and anticipates the actual skills the learner needs to acquire. At one point in the interview he discusses the decisions the learners must make and uses this decision event as an anchor for the generation of a learning activity. It’s an approach that simply makes more sense than much of the eLearning content I see. By letting learners focus on decisions that parallel their actual life experiences, you are providing an opportunity for them to learn something meaningful, with obvious relevance and will be far more likely to meet your original objectives. Ultimately using great software like Adobe Captivate 5 and Adobe eLearning Suite 2 helps you reach your best potential, when you apply principles like the ones Quinn and others describe.
I generally get worried when instructional designers start to preach about following formulas and such, but I found Quinn’s approach to be solid and well concieved. This is definitely an interview worth listening to and while you are there follow the links to Cathy Moore’s Action Mapping PPT and most definitely check out Quinn’s Seven Step Program for eLearning Improvement. Definitely worth a read – with incredibly practical and universal tips that will help virtually anyone creating eLearning content.
I actually don’t agree with Christine’s comment. I think your video’s kind of impromptu POV charm captures very well the flavor of the moment on the show floor of the conference and does exactly what was intended, gives us a little nugget of wisdom from Clark. I added it to give others a kind of tiny hint as to ‘who is Clark.’ I always like to associate an image with a face. After all, what if I spot him at one of the conferences? As for edit / no edit: Well i’d rather have the information available than have folks not post videos because they require time and energy to edit. So i say keep on using that flip cam Cammy! Post them however you like in whatever time you can. It gives us all a glimpse into these honest little moments – and potentially gives us very important ideas we might otherwise not encounter.
Thanks, Allen!
The audio interview with Clark was great and he did indeed share a lot of wonderful resources. The audio interview is different from the video posted here and can be found at: http://www.kineo.com/e-learning-interviews/clark-quinn-on-id-malpractice.html
Christine – my apologies about the video bit there — that was my first flip cam experience and I didn’t take it into an editing tool — that’s learning on the fly.
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