Charles Martinez 

EDU652: Instructional Design & Delivery  

Ashford University 

July 2, 2012

E-learning (electronic-learning) is the design and delivery of technology-enhanced and learning specific educational instruction and/ or electronic training online.

Horton (2012) defines e-learning as follows: “E-learning is the use of electronic technologies to create learning experiences” (p. 1).

“Standalone courses: Courses taken by a solo learner. They are self-paced without interaction with a teacher or classmates.”

“Learning games and simulations: Learning by performing simulated activities that require exploration and lead to discoveries.”

Mobile learning: Learning from the world while moving about in the world. . . e-learners participate in conventional classroom courses and standalone e-learning while out and about.”

“Social learning: Learning through interaction with a community of experts and fellow learners.

“Virtual-classroom courses: Online classes structured much like a classroom course, with reading assignments, presentation, and discussions via forums and other social media, and homework.

Today’s e-learning requires education professionals to move beyond the early types of e-learning involving software demonstrations.

West and West (2009) write that “Today’s learners expect more than online lectures or one-way communications. As a result, many educators are moving away from instructor-centered methods of teaching to more contextual learning and real world problem-solving techniques” (p. 2).

The key understanding for education professionals to take note of is that e-learning starts with effective instructional design.

Newby, Stepich, Lehman, Russell, and Ottenbreit-Leftwich (2011) write that instructional design is “the systematic process of translating principles of learning and instruction into plans for instructional materials and activities” (p. 310).

With regard to breakdowns in instructional design, Horton (2012) writes that

“Trying to teach too much. Instead of being precisely targeted, objectives were a laundry list of everything every subject-matter expert and manager on the project thought any learner might someday need to know.”

“Failing to teach what people really need. Too often projects try to teach disconnected knowledge when people need applicable skills. Learners do not value such objectives and put little effort into learning them.”

“Omitting supporting objectives. Projects often concentrate on the explicit goals and forget the underlying motivation and fundamental skills necessary to propel and validate learning. Courses are jam-packed with what people should know or understand but deficient in what they must believe or feel.”

“Teaching what is easy to teach. Builders of e-learning often take the easy road and teach what is easy or fun to teach rather than what learners really need. After all, learners are more likely to “like” the course if we make it easy.”

“Boring and frustrating learners. Many projects waste learner’s time by teaching what they already know or can easily figure out on their own.”

“Forcing people to learn in ways they find awkward and embarrassing. Sometimes creators of e-learning impose their own preferred learning styles on learners for whom these styles are totally unsuited” (pp. 3-4).

Some e-learning design perspectives and influences may have an adverse affect on the modeled design. For instance, it is increasingly important to recognize the difficulty inherent in instructional design, and not to treat instructional design as a perfect science.

Horton (2012) writes that “Instructional design is not rocket science – it’s harder . . . and some of its failures are even more spectacular than a cart wheeling Titan III missile. ” (p. 4).

Horton (2012) writes that “some instructional design expert’s claim that their methodology guarantees successful learning” and that “we cannot guarantee any outcome involving more than a few human beings . . . people are simply too unpredictable and outside factors intrude” (p. 5).

Horton (2012) writes that “Design must be applied to all levels of e-learning from whole curricula down to individual media components . . . it is important to understand these units because they influence what design techniques we use” (p. 5).

Richardson (2010) writes that “We are still at the beginning of a radically different relationship with the Internet, one that has long-standing implications for educators and students. The coming years will be marked by a flood of new innovations and ideas in teaching, most borne from the idea that we can now publish and interact in ways never before possible” (p. 155).

Matching learning objectives with goals is particularly important and it is imperative to design courses which analyze the needs and capabilities of students. The tyext indicates it is important to decern the needs and capabilities of learners. Horton (2012) proounds the most important capabilities we should concider include:

“Motivation for learning. Why would learners devote the time and effort necessary? Is it to accomplish their current job? Or to qualify for a new job? Also consider who pays for the learning, the learner or the learner’s employer.”

“Psychomotor skills. What is the level of the learner’s perceptual acuity, working memory capacity, and speed and precision of eye-hand coordination? These abiities determine how learners can get information and interact with devices.”

“Attitude and mindset. What are learners’ attitudes toward learning and toward authority? Are they introverted or extroverted? Social or solitary?”

“Mental discipline. Do learners have a short or long attention span? Are they easily distracted? Are they self-motivated and self-disciplined? Do they prefer to work alone or with others? Can they skip quickly among simultaneous tasks or do they need to complete one task before moving on to another?”

“Communication skills. How well can they read, listen, speak, and write in the planned language for the course?”

“Social skills. How well do learners work with others? Are they open to criticism? Can they motivate others? Can they offer empathy and support?”

“Talents and intelligences. What basic abilities do learners possess: verbal, visual, logical, mathematical, musial, performance, athletic, intrapersonal, or interpersonal?”

“Media preferences. Which media do learners attend to first: video, graphics, voie, music, or text? Which do they consider primary and which seondary? Which do they treat as more authoritative?”

“Background knowledge and experience. What do potential learners already know about the subjet? Do they know the basic principles, vocabulary, and taxonomy of the field? Or are they only familiar with detailed facts and rote procedures without understanding the bigger picture?”

“Learning conditions. Whre and when will they learn? How much time do they have available for learning? Do they have to learn in short spurts between other activities? Is the environment noisy and distracting?”

“Locus of control. What do learners have power over? Can they change their learning environment and conditions? Do they have the ability to apply what they learn in their day-to-day work?”

“Style of prior education. What kinds of learning have learners participated in/ Which will they find familiar? Which trigger negative associatios?”

“Digital fluency.

It is clear in examining teaching sequences, the order in which the material being taught must be aligned with the learning objectives.

This must be done in such a way as to make it easy for learners to reach the required objectives.

Three primary sequencing strategies intrinsic to e-learning by design are put forward in the course text. Again, it is important to determine in what order the education professional determines the hierarchy of learning objectives before selecting the sequencing strategy. With regard to the three sequencing strategies, Horton (2012) writes that

“The most common sequencing strategy is bottom up. In a bottom-up sequence, we teach prerequisite objectives before objectives that require these prerequisites. It makes sense. Unless we teach the prerequisite first, learners could become confused or frustrated.” 

“A second sequencing strategy is top down. In a top down sequence, we start learners at the top objective, as if they have all the prerequisites. Learners who lack prerequisites can continue down the hierarchy to access the objects that teach prerequisites they lack. 

“The third sequencing strategy is sideways. Here we let learners traverse the subject freely, discovering and satisfying prerequisites as encountered” (p. 43).

Horton (2012) writes that “Learning activities exercise basic skills, thought processes, attitudes, and behaviors. But more action is not a learning activity. People learn little by just clicking the mouse or chatting about vacation plans. People learn by considering, researching, analyzing, evaluating, organizing, synthesizing, discussing, testing, deciding, and applying ideas. Activities may use mouse clicks and tablet taps, but their goal is to provide the exact mental experiences that lead to learning” (p. 51).

Learners absorb knowledge, typically by reading text, watching an animation, or listening to narration . . . In an Absorb activity, the learner is physically passive, but mentally active” (p. 51).

Moreover, the author propounds that “Another type of learning activity has learners do something with what they are learning. For instance, practice a procedure, play a game, or answer questions. The learner practices, explores, and discovers” and that, “The third type of learning activity has learners connect what they are learning to their work, their lives, or their prior learning. Connect activities ‘seal the deal,’ making it easier to apply learning when it is needed later” (p. 51).

In short, Horton suggests that “These three activities are shown as a cycle starting with the Absorb activity. This is the most common sequence for cognitive subjects, but it is not a requirement and not always the best sequence . . . Different types of subjects and different instructional strategies will demand a different sequence” (p. 52).

Horton, W. (2012). E-learning by design. (2nd

ed.). San Fransisco, CA: John Wiley and Sons, Inc.

Newby, T. J., Stepich, D. A., Lehman, J. D., Russell, J. D., & Ottenbreit-Leftwich, A. (2011). Educational technology for teaching and learning (4th ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson.

Richardson, W. R. (2010). Blogs, wikis, podcasts and other powerful web tools for classrooms. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.

West, J. A., & West, M. L. (2009). Using wikis for online collaboration: the power of the read write web. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.