Should (e-)learning be fun?

Sure, you heard it before: 'that course was pretty boring, it didn't engage me at all'. Or using an expression of a client: 'it didn't speak to us'. Similar comments are heard about e-learning. 'It's just a page-turner' (isn't that normally a positive comment about a book?). 'The e-forum is empty, it just doesn't work'. Roger Schank, big guy, big ideas, on his crusade to change training design (basically: don't tell,focus on doing), gives us guidance: he argues that a lot of training (and most e-learning) doesn't engage, because it doesn't appeal to the learner's fascination, exhilaration, confusion, anticipation, curiosity, determination, emotional identification, excitement and arousal. So what to do? Schank refers us to the film making industry for tips and presents storytelling as a tool to break the mould of what he calls the LIBITI problem (Learn it because I thought it!). If you define fun to be a state that your engaged in something and are not aware anymore of your environment and are not thinking about doing anything else, then yes, learning should be fun.

But: didn't that hold for the exams you took? May be they were fun in hindsight...