Upon reviewing the sources and questions posed, I realized that I had probably not addressed the correct question that Tony had originally posed. However, this second post made me think. These are some of my pet peeves with e-learning instructional design:
- lack of student control and choice: I know many times it is out of the control of instructional designer what clients want you to do, but can't we include some choice?
- poor writing: run-on sentences, poor punctuation, too wordy, no flow. I have fallen asleep having to read material in an online course. I also begin to loose interest if it is poorly written. Why would I want to spend my time trying to decipher what the author wants me to learn? I have enough practice with that reading my students' papers!
- No imagination or "fun". It is nice to have a "surprise" every once in a while to keep you on your toes. There needs to be some way to engage the learner. Why not have an interesting story? or a game?
- Lame tests: I had to take a test as part of the recertification process as a researcher. The tests at the end of the "units" were unbelievably simple or much too complex. I missed questions because some multiple choice questions would have only answer one question, followed by pick all that apply. Most of the time I missed the "pick all that apply" directions because they weren't highlighted at the top of the question! Some units (there different authors for different units) on the other hand were actually interesting in taking the test as they used cases. As the training was context based, this was much more appropriate.
- Make the units short: Just two words: INFORMATION OVERLOAD!
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