The eLearning Guild presented Dr. Michael Allen, chairman and CEO of Allen Interactions Inc., with its Guild Masters Award, on October 29, at a ceremony held during the eLearning Guild’s Devlearn Conference & Exposition in Las Vegas, NV. 

The Guild Masters Award recognizes an individual for consistently contributing to the elearning community in terms of both quantity and quality of content—and thus helps make the community a vibrant center for learning.

Michael Allen is a recognized leader in the architecture and design of interactive multimedia learning strategies and authoring tools. He has more than 45 years of professional, academic, and corporate experience in the development, sales, and marketing of interactive learning and performance support systems. He is currently chairman and CEO of Allen Interactions.

Allen is a devoted believer in the power of e-learning to change human behavior: “We don’t care about what people know. We care about what they can do and actually do with what they know. Our challenge, as effective instructional designers, is to get people to make the leap from knowing to doing.” Allen maintains that, to be effective, elearning must be meaningful, memorable, and motivational. “While these principles are important for all forms of instruction, they are perhaps most critical to the success of e-learning where working alone on a computer can become boring so very quickly when there’s nothing interesting going on.”

The Guild Masters Award recognizes members who consistently and supportively contribute to their community of practice. These members share their knowledge, expertise, and ideas with other members, thus contributing to the overall success of the eLearning Guild’s extraordinary community.

As evidence to his life-long commitment to learning, Allen created the advanced design and development approaches―CCAF-based design and the SAM process for iterative, collaborative development. He was also the innovative force behind Authorware, a leading authoring tool for its time, as well as the current award-winning visual-based authoring and publishing system, ZebraZapps. He has been sharing his knowledge with the industry for more than a decade through eight published books on creating effective elearning, including the ATD bestseller, Leaving ADDIE for SAM. His most recent endeavor has been as an instigator of The Serious eLearning Manifesto, which puts forth a declaration to improve the state of elearning, helping elearning professionals regain the creativity and passion for their vocation.

About The eLearning Guild:

The eLearning Guild is the oldest source of information, networking, and community for eLearning professionals. As a member-driven organization, the Guild produces conferences, online events, eBooks, research reports, and Learning Solutions Magazine—all devoted to the idea that the people who know the most about making eLearning successful are the people who produce eLearning every day in corporate, government, and academic settings.

The Guild’s goal is to create a place where its 60,000+ worldwide members can share their knowledge, expertise, and ideas to build a better industry—and better learning experiences—for everyone.

For more information about membership levels and benefits, and to join The eLearning Guild visit: http://www.elearningguild.com.

About Allen Interactions:

Allen Interactions creates powerful custom learning experiences that help achieve organizational business goals by improving performance one interaction at a time. With more than 20 years of deep experience in instructional design, technology, creativity, process, and project management, Allen Interactions consistently achieves positive business impact. For more information visit: http://www.alleninterations.com.

In 2009, the Company established Allen Learning Technology to create a revolutionary, web-based authoring and publishing system, ZebraZapps, which allows developers and non-programmers to create rich interactive media applications, as well as share, publish, and sell objects or entire applications. For more information visit: http://www.zebrazapps.info