Customer Reviews

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)

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The second book in Michael Allen's series on E-Learning jumps right into the design aspect of E-Learning. The book assumes that you have read the first book in the series and is taking you along the path to the next logical step. It goes into more depth on the skills necessary not only to design a successful E-Learning program but any training or instructional program.

The author is writes in a very familiar style and tone. Reading the book feels more like a conversation with the author than a standard instructional text, which, in keeping with the theme of the book, makes a certain amount of sense. It takes a little getting used to, but once past the feeling of familiarity, the ideas were presented very well.

The subtitle: Forget what you know about instructional design and do something interesting, is the key aspect of the book. The author gives many examples of the tried-and-true and boring training and instructional programs that are used today. There are several key elements necessary in effective Instructional Design. The author suggest, and rightly so, that instructional programs need to be Meaningful, Memorable, and Motivational. Within each element there are four factors involved: feedback, activity, challenge, and context. When the design encompasses all of these elements and factors, it is useful, functioning design. Instructional programs that fail in any one category tend to fail overall.

Several real-world examples are used to help the reader understand the concepts that are being conveyed. The author gives examples of each key and factor throughout the book to drive home the concepts presented on Instructional Design.

As a basic book on training and instructional design, this book does a good job in getting key points across and holds some components and interesting ideas in training and development, applicable to E-learning and other areas.

Armchair Interviews says: Good basic information.

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.

I bought this book over a year ago but haven't yet written a review.

This is a practical, hands-on book for those who are in the training business. Whether you currently build e-learning courses or are looking to, this is a good resource for both background knowledge and helpful tips.

The author has deep experience and authority in the field of online training and it shows because the examples and case studies are detailed and well-presented. The flow of the book is clear and oriented toward readers who are already familiar with e-learning.

I agree with another reviewer who said that there isn't as much new in the book as the title may suggest, but this is still a good resource that should be part of your e-learning knowledge base.

This purchase arrived on time and in great condition. It was just what was advertised and I am very pleased with the purchase.

The content may be the best thing ever but the typos and format errors make the book unusable.

It looks like an unedited OCR scan of a print copy.

I would NOT buy an ebook from this publisher again.

Newsflsah publishers: if you expect us to pay full price for your products, you need to provide full service.