Kidult learning

Senior Instructional Designer, Kai Merriott, looks to the kids to see how they're learning, and plots a cunning plan to make adult e-learning more fun.

Do you know what they're teaching kids these days? More importantly, how?

Despite the recent kidult revolution, where "skateboard" is a permitted method of travel for grown men and boring old chores are routinely shunned in favour of hours battering the PS3, it seems children are still having the most fun - at least where e-learning is concerned.

Channel 4 have been particularly busy over the last couple of years.

To encourage kids to talk about politics, check out The Curfew. You navigate around a police state, engaging with the characters you meet along the way. Video and gaming technology merge together perfectly (although it's a hefty download, so be sure you're on a good broadband package).

Alien Ink is an interactive comic that deals bluntly with those awkward issues that teenagers are reluctant to discuss with their, like, totally square parents, yeah?

Then there's SuperMe - a portal site to help young people get the most out of life (at the time of writing, the front page asks "What is happiness?"). There are games and quizzes, and a collection of videos featuring both glitzy celebrities and mere mortals.

Next, there are the more primitive (but no less fun) educational games on the BBC site. You can dress Henry VIII, create short animated films and even embalm a corpse.

I mean, when were you last asked to embalm a corpse in an e-learning course?

Joking aside, we can learn a huge amount from the way e-learning is developed for young people.

What are they into?

First thing developers think is: what are kids into? They like Xbox games, so let's make it look like that. Boys like to play war, so let's use that as a metaphor. Girls like fashion - they'll love a dressing-up interaction.

It's surprising how often we don't ask the same of our adult audience, then design appropriately. It's usually - "ah, well, they're into different things".

So you get a mish-mash of design that tries to appeal to everyone but ultimately excites no-one.

Well, kids are into different things too. But e-learning is produced for them on the basis that as long as it's fun, it's working.

So what if you use a "soap opera" design knowing a third of your audience have never seen Coronation Street? As long as it gets the message across, it'll work.

Battling the boredom.

When kids are bored, they say: "I'm booooooooored!" So every element of e-learning is designed to fight that boredom. Screen looking a bit flat? Quick, bring in the dancing penguins!

When adults are bored at work, they usually say nothing. So it doesn't matter if the e-learning is boring because nobody ever complains. They sit intently for the required time, idly clicking through the screens, lest they lose their job.

Wouldn't it be great if we were allowed to do whatever it took to get - and keep - the adult's attention?

People often think learning should be sober, academic, just like at school. It doesn't.

Don't mention the "L" word.

The games developed by Channel 4 all have one thing in common: there's no mention of "teaching" and "learning". They're just referred to as games. Kids are not stupid. They know the games are educational. It's just they don't care, because they're fun enough to keep them interested.

Why do we feel the need to constantly remind adults they're "learning"? We tell them what they're going to learn. We toss learning objectives at them. Even accessing the course involves visiting a learning portal.

Why do adults need to be told this? They already know, seeing as they've probably been shuffled into a training room and ordered not to leave until the hour's up. Besides, adults prefer to know why they're learning. What needs to improve in the workplace?

So give them something fun to do and tell them why they're doing it. That's the best way to change adult behaviour. For children, also add sweets.

Here's what we've learnt been talking about...

All of this proves that e-learning for adults is stuck in a bit of a rut. But it's just an attitudinal thing. So where it's appropriate, let's:

• design adult courses with strong designs based on popular culture (although be careful with "flash in the pan" stuff that dates quickly - better to go for institutions...think Eastenders, not Eldorado)
• assume the default reaction of the end users is "boredom"
• stop constantly telling people they're learning - it's scary, and reminds us of school.

Because let's be honest - we don't want to waste all our best toys on the children.

Just a final note. Using children's e-learning as a guide for designing adult learning is not the same as treating adults like schoolkids, where we tell the user what to do and monitor their every move for fear they - god forbid - learn when they feel like it.

There's a great article about this written by my esteemed colleague James Cory-Wright, called Style and substance.

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