Keynote Speaker

Title: What the e-learning revolution should have taught us.
Subtitle: Or . mistakes we do not want to repeat . over and over.

Session Description:

The e-learning revolution has been in full swing for over 15 years. Along the way advocates of e-learning have promised the utopia of inexpensive, quickly developed, and consistently high-quality education. Looking back, has the promise been fulfilled? Probably not. So, what can we do to harness the potential of e-learning while avoiding the siren call of competent mediocrity?

As a consultant, I am usually called in after the project has "crashed." I analyze the remains to pin-point where the plan fell apart. What I have learned over my long career is that it is not just one thing that influences the success of an e-learning project-it is a combination of factors.

This keynote will distill these critical factors into a manageable checklist that you can use to evaluate your e-learning project and increase its chances of success, while saving time AND money. Always a good thing, don't you think?


Presenter: William Horton

William Horton has been designing technology-based training since 1971 when, as an undergraduate, he designed a network-based course for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Center for Advanced Engineering Study.

William is an internationally sought-after speaker and instructor. He has delivered presentations to the Distance Learning Conference in Madison, the Human Resources Association National Congress in São Paulo, the Information Technology Training Association conference in Barcelona, the Knowledge Management Seminarium in Stockholm, the Institute for Information Industry in Taipei, and the Asian Development Bank in Manila and Tokyo.

He is a registered Professional Engineer, an MIT graduate, and Fellow of the Society for Technical Communication. He is a recipient of ACM's Rigo Award for contributions to software documentation, IEEE's Alfred N. Goldsmith Award for contributions to engineering communications, and the IF Award (Germany) for industrial design. He served on ASTD's eCC (E-learning Courseware Certification) Committee, which drafted quality standards for evaluating e-learning courses.

William Horton is a prolific author. His books include E-learning by Design, Designing and Writing Online Documentation, Leading E-learning, Evaluating E-learning, Using E-learning, and Secrets of User-Seductive Documents. He is co-author of E-learning Tools and Technologies (with his wife Kit), Getting Started in Online Learning, and The Web Page Design Cookbook.

William and his wife Kit, the other half of William Horton Consulting, live in downtown Boulder, Colorado, just five blocks east of the Rocky Mountains, in a hundred-year old house they are lovingly restoring. The kitchen, which he and Kit redesigned themselves, was featured in the April 1999 and September 2000 issues of Better Homes and Gardens.

Website: http://www.horton.com/