Allen Interaction: 25 Years of Learning Innovation

The most expensive training is the one that doesn’t work. As a learner, no one wants to sit through hours of slides or discussion without context and relevance to their role. Dr. Michael Allen, Scott Colehour and Steve Lee realized the same and founded Allen Interactions in October of 1993 to define unique methods of instructional design and development to provide Meaningful and Memorable learning experiences through “true” cognitive interactivity. They believed that creating training that was developed using advanced design and development approaches for iterative, collaborative development. 25 years later, the vision of Allen Interactions is still the same: to build great learning that helps to affect performance change. Challenging activity within training content allows learners to internalize the topics of study in order to effect the needed change through visceral learning.

A pioneer in the learning games space

Allen Interactions has been a pioneer in the serious learning games space for many years. The company’s learning solutions often combine instructional design with gamified sequencing to captivate learners and encourage a stimulating learning experience. The company’s client list includes some of the most exciting fortune 100 companies in the country and continues to grow. “We have been given top honors in the form of Brandon Hall, Communication, Summit, Davey, Omni, and Stevie awards year after year. And Training Industry has included us in the Top 20 Gamification list for the past six years. Our hard work pays off four our clients every year in the form of increased revenue, better employee retention and stronger safety results,” Dr. Allen asserts.

Driven by the best instructional design and latest technologies

Allen Interactions provides a wide range of learning services driven by the best instructional design and latest technologies to meet clients’ training and business goals. Some of them are as follows:

Custom ELearning: Allen Interactions’s award-winning custom elearning solutions are all about the learner and driven by the absolute best instructional design. Clients’ final instructional products will be Meaningful, Memorable, and Motivational experiences that solve their specific business challenges and result in seriously elevated performance!

Blended Learning: Depending on clients’ organization’s needs, sometimes elearning alone won’t cut it. Therefore, Allen Interactions creates comprehensive blended learning curriculums that combine the best of both online learning and in-person learning, enabling them to get the performance results and behavior changes they need.

ELearning Games & Simulations: Allen Interactions marries game mechanics and elearning instructional design elements to improve employee engagement, motivation and, ultimately, performance. Because at Allen Interactions, the team believes that learning should be fun, engaging, and contagious—just like games!

Micro-learning: Technology is changing the way many organizations offer learning content. Instead of long courses delivered in one extended sitting, micro-learning delivers learning activities in “bitesized” portions. Allen Interactions helps clients design their microlearning strategy so they can meet modern learners where they are.

Together Everyone Achieves More

Allen Interactions brings 25 years of experience to its clients. Not only is Dr. Allen a pioneer of the e-learning industry, he continues to innovate and drive the company to new heights of learning. The industry is evolving as new technologies are developed and Allen Interactions meets that challenge head on with solutions developed using Artificial Intelligence, Virtual reality and real time analytics. The Allen Interactions team is comprised of highly skilled and experienced media artists, instructional designers, developers, project managers, strategists all of whom share a passion for creating contextual learning and creative training solutions that effect performance change to help organizations achieve their objectives. “We build our solutions using the CCAF design methodology that Dr. Allen developed. With Context, Challenge, Activity, Feedback based solutions, learners are able to internalize learning directly by interacting within scenarios that replicate their everyday experiences. The learning is self-paced and challenging to encourage learners to make mistakes in a safe space and the lessons can be as individualized as the learners themselves,” Dr. Allen adds.

Continues to create new learning platforms and go beyond industry

Recently, Allen Interactions has partnered with The Game Agency to collaboratively build out some exciting new gamified learning offerings with even more new to come in the next few months. Allen Interactions has also launched The Game Lab an innovation division of Allen Interactions. “In the coming years, we anticipates significant growth in both size and scope. We are creating new learning platforms and broadening our reach both within and beyond the industry,” Dr. Allen concludes.

Meet the pioneer

Dr. Allen is a prolific writer with nine published books on designing effective elearning solutions, including his latest second edition: Michael Allen’s Guide to ELearning. He is a sought-after conference speaker and recognized industry leader in the learning and training industry. In 2011, he received ATD’s Distinguished Contribution to Workplace Learning and Performance Award. Dr. Allen was selected by The National Ethnic Coalition of Organizations (NECO) Advisory Committee as a recipient of the 2012 Ellis Island Medal of Honor. The eLearning Guild presented Dr. Allen with its Guild Masters Award which recognizes an individual for consistently contributing to the elearning community in both quantity and quality of content. Dr. Allen holds M.A and Ph.D. degrees in educational psychology from The Ohio State University and is an adjunct associate professor at the University of Minnesota Medical School in the Department of Family Medicine and Community Health.

Michael Allen was also the director of advanced educational systems research and development of Control Data Corporation’s famous PLATO computer-based education system used around the world. He was the founder, and former chairman of Authorware, Inc. and also the primary architect of Authorware Professional, which was based on Allen’s extensive research on creativity and creative problem-solving. It became a groundbreaking authoring tool combining power and ease of use, and ultimately the industry standard. Authorware, Inc. merged with Macromind/Paracomp to become Macromedia, which was later acquired by Adobe.

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