project timescales too often stifled creativity and contributed to the poor reputation of much e-learning. Those issues will still be familiar to today’s e-learning vendors.


Much e-learning had a poor reputation and those issues are still very familiar. We are in a technology-driven business where it is important to be ahead of your clients so you are ready when they are. The reality of that wait can be frustrating. For years we had large clients with no CD drives, sound cards or even colour, which defined a lowest common denominator approach to learning design.


So the exponential increases in speed and capacity did not really bring any fundamental changes in CBT, just slicker versions of the same. The revolution was still to come.


Apple’s vision for technology in education (1988) - Steve Wozniak, Ray Bradbury, Alvin Toffler and other great minds discuss how technology would motivate learners through interactive e-books, games and access to vast quantities of information.


They predict the World Wide Web, there are even some hand-held devices.


Getting connected


When it first arrived, the internet set us back years. Doesn’t this noise bring a tear to the eye? You will recall the wait while a photo was revealed a line at a time. This problem of line speed pushed high-quality graphics, sound and video back off the agenda. Only in the last five years has it been possible to assume broadband speeds and publish content the quality of 15-year-old CD-ROMs. The result was e-learning design went backwards. Flat text took the place of engaging graphics wand ‘Click Next to Continue’ became the default interaction.


But the internet also brought something else - the really significant, game-changing technological advance of the past 25 years is connectivity. With connectivity came social media, first through the astonishing rise of texting that even created its own language, then Facebook, Twitter and the rest.


Today roughly 20% of total online time via PC and 30% via mobile is spent on social networking. It seems to me the rise of social media created the mobile revolution more than the other way round.


Pace of change – Boots (1993) - a Cluedo-style murder mystery with colourful hand-drawn graphics and more professional look. BACS (1998) - The Great Balloon Race shows another step-change in graphics with sound and video.


Both those courses show that gamification is nothing new.


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