Yes, in my e-learning pentagon I touched upon this angle and here now I write some simple tips on how you can engage your learners.
1) Break the course into independent modules: Yeah I know we all do that, but then we link and sometimes even arrange them like train bogies, one following the other!
What we need to really do is make them independent of one another. Break them free- let it be a roller coaster ride and let your learner decide which one he chooses first and which one he has had enough of!
2) Spruce up the course with varied contents, use texts, animation, graphics, video, audio, discussion forums, chat, etc. This will help you to appeal various facades of learners as an individual and /or a group.
3) Web 2.0 has made it pretty obvious for us to implement social media as part of our learning experience. Facebook, Flickr, blog, tweeter, etc. will help the learner to take learning to an unofficial level, breaking down traditional learning boundaries.
4) Add different levels of interactivity with peer-peer and peer-tutor; discussion forums and chats also try to engage the learner in building part of the course taking interactivity to another level!
5) And finally do not over deliver, what this means is Keep It Simple and Sober; do not overdo the course with lots of images, tests, graphs or interactivity, get a balance of everything. Best way is to get some users involved to understand how we are getting along!
