You have enrolled in a fairly technical course called IT Service Management. As you work through the first module of this course (with the title The Service Desk), you visit these four different areas:

Library. This area contains a collection of content resources for the module. When you click here, you see a list of titles of video recordings, audio recordings, and a variety of text materials, including articles, glossaries, job aids, diagrams, You are encouraged to select the items that you want to explore and study them at your own pace, using your own learning style. None of these content materials throw pesky little questions at you to force interactivity.
Playground. This area contains a collection of web-based games (complete with graphics, animation, and sound effects) that test your mastery of the content from the library. If you are reflective, you can conscientiously work through all the content in the library before playing these games. If you are impulsive (and eat desert before the main course), you can play a game first (and probably get trounced) before reading the related content in the library.
Cafe. This area contains forums and chat rooms where you can hold discussions with your classmates. It also contains OQs (Open Questions) for which you type in your answer and read other people's answers.
Assessment Center. This area contains performance tests related to the training objectives for the module. You find out that you have two chances to take a performance test. You pass if your score is 80 percent or better.

Library

Being a somewhat systematic person, you visit the library and read the first text resource which is labeled The Service Desk. This piece begins with a set of training objectives. The text is presented in plain language and in short paragraphs, bullet lists, and meaningful headings and subheadings. However, the text is not dumbed-down. Initially, you are surprised by the absence of interspersed questions since you were expecting frequent interactivity. Very soon, however, you become thankful that you can read the text using your own preferred learning style and take your own notes. As you read the material, you focus on the big picture and the relationships among the concepts without being distracted by intruding multiple-choice questions that emphasize factual details.

Playground

Sometime in the middle of reading the article about the service desk, you catch yourself yawning. You are getting bored with this self-imposed passivity and you decide to go play for a while. You visit the playground.

You are given a choice among five different games. You click HANGMAN, and you are presented with a game display and initial instructions. You click the Play button to see a short-answer question followed by a set of blank circles representing letters in the answer. Some of the circles are already filled in with free letters. You read the question and try to guess the answer. Since this question is on a topic that you did not encounter during your study time in the library, you are forced to make a guess. Being smart, you type the letter E and immediately all occurrences of this letter in the correct answer appear in the corresponding circles. A tone and a green light on the side indicate that your guess is correct. You continue by typing the letter A. A different tone and a red light indicate that your guess is incorrect. After the next guess, you are sure of the answer. So you type all the remaining letters 14 seconds before a timer at the bottom of the display counts down to zero. When the answer is complete, the score box displays 9 points. The next question (along with blank circles representing the answer) pops up on the play area. Since you know the answer to this question, you rapidly fill in the blank circles. Your score increases by 10 more points to 19. You use the same procedure to play through the total of 10 questions in this round of play.

At the end of your first round of play, you discover that you can play the same game repeatedly. Every time you play, you are presented with a mix of new and old questions in a different sequence. You also discover that you can play the game at three levels of difficulty: If you find the game too easy, you can advance to the medium level of difficulty where you play without any free letter clues. At the hardest level of difficulty you have to spell the answer, one letter at a time, in the correct sequence.

After you get a perfect score of 100 at the most difficult level of HANGMAN, you move on to the other games.

After playing these games (and replaying some of them), you make a mental note to work through the next module by having fun in the playground first, then studying the text resources in the library, and returning to the playground again.

For the present, you return to the library and study the remaining parts of the material about the service desk. You feel confident that you have mastered the topics and achieved the learning objectives. So you decide to visit the cafe.

Cafe

When you visit the café, you are presented with an OQ (Open Question) that asks

What one piece of advice would you give to a new employee who has been assigned to the service desk?

You type a facetious answer (Ask the employee to bring a giant bottle of aspirin) and click Send. Your answer disappears and you are presented a choice of three buttons that enable you to display

a checklist to evaluate your answer
answers from different experts
answers from other participants

You review the earlier answers from your fellow participants and feel reassured that you could have given a good answer if you had taken the task seriously.

In the cafe, you also see a discussion forum. You visit this forum and see several discussion threads where other participants have made comments and asked questions. You review some of the entries but find them bland and boring. So you skip that section and visit the assessment center.

Assessment Center

When you enter this area, the first thing you notice is a dire warning that this is the Examination Hall where your answers will be scored to determine if you pass the test. You can pass out of the course by taking the test any time you want--even before you have studied any of the content or completed any of the activities. However, you have only two chances to take the test. You must score at least 80 percent in order to pass.

You decide to take the test. If you pass, you can move on. If you fail, you can return to the library and study some more before taking the test again.

The test in the assessment cetner contains 10 multiple-choice items. These items are different from those used in the playground. Each item presents an authentic scenario of something that happens at the service desk and asks a question. You have to select the best alternative among four plausible choices. With some difficulty, you complete the test and click Submit. You immediately receive your score (90 percent), a congratulatory message, and a brief preview of the next module on capacity management.

Continuation

As the days roll by, you work through the other modules of the course. The format for all modules is the same, but you keep experimenting with different study strategies depending on your mood at the moment. Eventually, somewhere around the seventh unit, you work out your most efficient strategy of taking the test first, failing it, then working through the library and the playground to gain mastery, and then taking the test for the second time. You know that you are living dangerously (because you cannot afford to fail the test the second time), but you enjoy the twinge of excitement.