Interaction Design for E-learning

The e-learning industry in India has consolidated itself in the last decade. Despite its position of strength, the bread and butter of Indian e-learning companies today is creating ‘page-turner’ content. The effectiveness of such content as learning content is questionable, particularly in future as e-learning is applied in diverse contexts.

A learning experience sans interaction is counter-productive and a strain on human and non-human resources. One of the ways to realize the potential of e-learning is to make it meaningfully interactive—to go beyond multiple choice clicks and pop-ups.

One of the preferred and accepted views of interactivity is to engage the learner at an intellectual level.  E-learning applications that use constructivist design principles promise to keep learners’ engaged and make the learning more deep-rooted. E-learning set in rich and meaningful interaction supports learning needs required in the knowledge economy, like:

• Problem-solving

• Decision-making

• Analytical thinking

Instructional Design (ID) is a multi-disciplinary domain that helps people learn better. ID has unwavering focus on learning goals, content types, learners, and technology. The use of ID in e-learning ensures effective learning design.

ID is used extensively in the form of a process—the Instructional Systems Development (ISD) model being the most pertinent representative of over 25 development models that exist today.

The incorporation of the constructivist thinking can ensure that the ISD can be used effectively for creating e-learning for developing broad-based thinking abilities.

Effective interaction design has a high impact on the quality of an e-learning product and on the learning outcomes. At the very least, an e-learning product needs to be intuitive and usable, lest the interface itself needs to be learnt. In addition, the interaction can support learning in a direct, effective way.

Interaction design is a process. Any set of guidelines or standards to interface design is in itself not enough to solve all problems. On the other hand, a goal-driven, scenario-based design process can lead to innovative, high-quality solutions with optimal use of resources.

This workshop aims to provide an exposure to the underlying principles and practice in interaction design and constructivist learning theory. After attending the workshop, participants will be able to use the constructivist learning theory to create interactive e-learning products. Those who are already involved in interaction design will be able to improve quality and usability of the products they develop. Instructional designers will be able to convert their ideas into tangible, interactive products to better leverage the power of computing for the purpose of learning.

This workshop is for e-learning professionals who are responsible for converting abstract learning needs into tangible e-learning content. Instructional designers, interaction designers, visual designers, animation specialists, content development specialists and subject matter experts in e-learning domain will benefit the most. The ideal team to attend the workshop would consist of people from varied backgrounds, who can subsequently influence the design processes within the organization.