e-Learning and the Science of Instruction: Proven Guidelines for Consumers and Designers of Multimedia Learning

1.10. Learning in e-Learning

The challenge in e-learning, as in any learning program, is to build lessons in ways that are compatible with human learning processes. To be effective, instructional methods must support these processes. That is, they must foster the psychological events necessary for learning. While the computer technology for delivery of e-learning is upgraded weekly, the human side of the equation—the neurological infrastructure underlying the learning process—is very old and designed for change only over evolutionary time spans. In fact, technology can easily deliver more sensory data than the human nervous system can process. To the extent that audio and visual elements in a lesson interfere with human cognition, learning will ...