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I don't like "corporate" elearning. By that I mean the typical "click next to continue" multi-media learning resource - whether it's diversity training, health & safety, induction etc. I cannot remember any occasion when I've managed to get through from start to finish.
Yet, yesterday I spent a good 3/4 hour watching Stephen Downes's video presentation on web 2.0 and your own learning & development and then reflecting on it.
I will happily work through a mono-media (ie. all text) tutorial on w3schools on XML. I will listen to (and learn from) a 30 minute podcast on the basics of presentations whilst driving. I will read a novel (usually science-based thrillers btw) and not want to put it down. I'll occasionally read a book like Linked in a similar way.
What's the difference?
In one word: Engagement.
That engagement may come because I am in a position where I need to learn something, and will engage with anything that will help me achieve that.
It may come because the particular book/article/tutorial has grabbed my attention and interest.
It may come because I feel the need to argue with it.
It may come because I know the people who created it and know that I will learn something useful from it.
Usually something that engages me in these ways also prompts action - whether its downloading the next installment, making a change in a piece of work I'm doing, telling someone about it, or writing up my reflections here.
But elearning modules on the other hand...
Usually they are about something in which I have no intrinsic interest. And no matter how careful the analysis has been, or how clever the instructional design (another bugbear of mine), without that intrinsic motivation to engage it's very hard to grab my attention and keep it.
One of the principle characteristics of distance learning (of which elearning is just a subset) is that the learner is in control. There is nothing to stop me switching off and doing something far more interesting and useful instead.
I've said this before, but if organisations really feel that an expensive, well-designed learning resource is the right way to get a message/idea/technique/rule across, then how it is marketed is critical to engage people - so that they want to see what it's all about.
Just look at virtually any new show on television. I don't really know how the budgets work out, but there is obviously a largish proportion of the total budget devoted to making sure there is a buzz, making sure people know what to expect, and know what is special about that particular show.
Once the learner's started with the module, then it's over to the authors/designers to make sure they keep that attention. This is where designers really need to learn from journalists, novelists, playwrights, scriptwriters etc.
It's not just about putting the message in easily palatable chunks (otherwise all books would have chapters that are only a page long). It's not just about adding "interactive" elements to relieve the tedium (or documentaries would have "Press the red button now" on every third scene).
It's about telling a good story; about taking the learner on a journey that they already want to to travel with you.
Rant over.
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I'd say the real problem is that your exposure to corporate e-learning materials is of the compliance variety, i.e. things the company has to go through the motions of teaching. If you were learning to become something like an engineer, the e-learning materials were critical to you qualifying and were really well put together, I don't think you'd have any trouble being engaged.
The problem comes when that initial motivation to engage isn't there. That's when designers/producers etc have to go into overdrive to make the materials appealing. And that's particularly where organisations need to create the motivation to engage; whether it's through performance management, coaching, marketing gimmicks, advertising, promotion - the whole works.