Michael Allen's E-Learning Library: Creating Successful E-Learning : A Rapid System For Getting It Right First Time, Every Time

This book provides valuable insight into the most important considerations for developing e-learning. I would say this is more of a prep book that focuses on gathering info, getting input, etc. not so much on production of actual e-learning modules. Good high level process overview, useful in the early stages, including some good checklists like Design Proof Evaluation Checklist.

First, let me say that I enjoyed Michael Allen's first eLearning book. It had solid content. My only beef with it was that there weren't enough chapter breaks and that made it tougher to read (some chapters went on for 70 or so pages). That is certainly not the case with this book; many of the chapters are 5-10 pages in length, which to me, feels too short, almost like a bathroom reader. This book is all about white space.This new book is mostly just a rehash of the first half of Allen's last book. It only contains 180 pages of actual text before you reach the indexes etc. so for $25+ one would assume their would be a lot of content packed into those precious few pages, right? Alas, instead the author uses oversized type, wide line spacing, and 2 inch margins on the outer edges.The text is in a two column formatand with so little page spaceactually being alotted for it,each line is only about 35 orso characters long. This makesthe whole book hard to readbecause your eyes are alwayshaving to dip down to the nextline after only a few words(you would think an elearningdesigner would take text linelength a little more seriously).I noticed that the next book inthis series does the same thing.Back to the content, very little new information is presented that could not be found in Allen's previous book. Yes, this one does give a few extra pages on each topic covered, but that is about it. Most of the additional information if fluff. I liked the examples of elearning given in Allen's previous book. None are included here, just a fictitous story about a fictitous company trying to implement elearning. A story that is neither engaging, nor insightful (fluff).I gave this book a 2 star rating only because if you haven't read the first book, it does have some useful information and interesting insights into elearning development...but like I said, it is mainly just rehash.

In my experience, creating eLearning is a very difficult thing (understatement of the century). You have to balance so many factors not the least of which is keeping up with the vast sea of books on learning theory. Don't get me wrong, the learning theory is certainly important, but at some point you have to get to the doing...the practical application. What I needed in a book was to hear from someone with experience. Someone who would be willing to cut through the theory and just write about how to get it done. Dr. Allen has done that with this book. I don't think that the book is perfect, but it is the most referenced book in my work library (needs more examples and more illumination on this whole "bonus babies" idea and how to pull that off).I hope that his next book in this series (on Instructional Design), is just as practically useful as this one is. How do I think you make a book on Instructional Design practically useful...lots of examples! That's right...just like what Dr Allen did with his first book (Micheal Allen's Guide to e-Learning), I would love to read about the learning theory, but I think that each theory should be backed up with a practical example. Screenshots work, but I would love to actually be able to try the examples. The first book did this well with its accompanying example CD. This book needs the same type of examples, but new stuff. I know that Dr Allen's company (Allen Interactions) has been very busy making award winning learning solutions...so lets open the coffers and see some of the new stuff.The information in this book is very valuable. Thanks Dr. Allen for being so generous in sharing it.