Workshop 7

Title: Activating e-learning

Workshop Description:

Does the "e" in your e-learning stand for "excruciatingly boring" or "effectively engaging”? E-Learning should put people into action, transforming passive reading and watching to active seeking, selecting, and creating knowledge. Learn how to make e-learning as engaging and effective as the best classroom training—maybe even more so.

See easy and inexpensive techniques that require little technology or advanced expertise. Learn to design and specify games and puzzles, brainstorming sessions, Webinars, drills, scavenger hunts, virtual field trips, story-sharing sessions, virtual laboratories, online museums, hands-on practice, role-playing scenarios, social simulations, e-consultants, job simulations, and other engaging activities. In addition to seeing dozens of live, working examples, you will actually design several activities yourself.

This workshop will teach you how to:

• Replace effective classroom activities with even more effective Web-based activities.
• Identify new ways of learning beyond those possible in a classroom.
• Dramatically increase the meaningful interactivity of your course.

About these workshops

These workshops are fast-paced, yet structured, heavy on examples and light on academic theory. They are brains-on rather than merely hands-on. Instead of learning to operate a particular brand of software, you will engage concepts and procedures directly. You will examine and critique dozens of live real-world examples, view animated presentations of crucial concepts, discuss design approaches with fellow students, and practice applying your skills in realistic design activities.

What else will you receive?

Besides the knowledge and skills you acquire, you will receive:

• Over 50 pages of handouts, notes, design forms, and job-aids.
• Access to hundreds of live, online examples of design techniques.
• Access to William Horton by e-mail or discussion group for follow up questions after the workshop.

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/