1st Edition

Individual Preferences in e-Learning

By Howard Hills Copyright 2003

    Trainers and educators ask: 'What personality types do best at e-learning; who really likes e-learning?' Better that they should ask: 'How can we make e-learning more appealing to more people?' E-learning is here to stay in the same way that the Internet is here to stay. The classroom, as a mass education tool, was an invention of the industrial age and we have made good use of it. E-learning is an invention of the information age but we have yet to properly realise its potential. Some of the steam has gone out of e-learning. Organizations have experienced problems with technology, variable content, poor course take-up and even greater drop-out. The problem is that what appeals to the organization, a mass training and development medium that can be used to train everyone at once, is at odds with - or at least ignorant of - the learning needs of the individual. Individual Preferences in e-Learning focuses on the process of e-learning, with the emphasis on learning and individual differences. With a firm rooting in previous research, in particular the author's in-depth knowledge of the MBTIâ„¢ functions, this book shows you how to make e-learning work for different personality types.

    List of Figures, List of Tables, 1 Perspectives on Learning, 2 Internet Growth and the Impact on Learning, 3 The Case Against e-Learning, 4 Observing Learners, 5 Personality and Learning, 6 Using Personality in e-Learning Choices, 7 From Theory to Practice, Index

    Biography

    Howard Hills has been applying technology to learning since 1972 in a career that has spanned banking, training consultancy, defence research, aerospace, nuclear industries, naval service and project management. He now provides coaching and training for internal training teams in e-learning, its design, development, implementation and benefit extraction. Howard is author of Gower's Team-Based Learning and applies the principles in this book with work teams to improve their performance. He is an MBTIâ„¢ practitioner and has carried out extensive research into the relationship between personality and learning.

    '...This book is essential reading for anyone about to design or implement an e-learning programme - providing both academic rigour and pragmatic realism in a format that is easy to read and understand.' Karen Velasco, Managing Director, PeopleSolve Ltd and Chairman, Forum for Technology in Training 'I found this book stimulating and interesting as I have found few book specifically looking at learning preferences in eLearning...I would recommend the book.' ITOL (Institute of Training and Occupational Learning) Website 'E-learning is often denigrated by those who have tried it but did not like it and this book shows with great clarity why this may have been so. Now, designers of e-learning will have no excuses if their products do not connect with learners. I recommend this book to any e-learning content designer or to anyone thinking of using e-learning as part of a learning programme. Detailed and rigorous throughout; the chapter summaries are particularly useful. You can be confident that you will not find a better treatise on this subject anywhere.' Vaughan Waller, Chairman of the eLearning Network, UK