Here is my presentation for tomorrow’s GLTC conference
Category Archives: Instructional Design
GLTC Workshop: Web 2.0 for educators
Here is the presentation I will use for tomorrow’s workshop at the GLTC conference
Want to build apps for iPhone and iPad? Start with Xcode
Once your purchase the license to develop for Apple ($99) you are ready to download Xcode, which is the program used to develop you Apple apps. Xcode is a development tool created by Apple. With Xcode you can create your app, test it with an emulator, and publish it to the iTunes app store (after extensive apple review of course).
How difficult is Xcode? If you are new to programming, its going to be very difficult. Xcode allows you to use C/C++ to program your app. In addition to knowing the language you need to understand Xcode interface as well as design for iPhone/iPhone, so it can get complicated very quickly. For the experience object oriented programmer, Xcode should not be too difficult to pick up. Overall, this software is not made for designers, rather experienced programmers.
What to look for in an Instructional Design and Technology Master’s Degree Program
I see this question posted time and time again on LinkedIn so I figured it was time to blog about it.Here is a list of things you should look for and consider when looking into that ISD Master’s program.
1. Do your research – Not all instructional design programs are the same. Some focus on K-12, Corporate, or Higher Ed. Some focus on all three but more than likely focus on one more than the others.
2. Who are the professors? Do you recognize their names? Have they worked in the field? For instance, if you are planning to go into the corporate world after graduation, make sure the professors (or at least some) have worked in the corporate world as full time instructional designers (not just consulting either but full time jobs).
3. Look at the professors resumes and/or website. Do they have degrees in Instructional Technology (or similar field as our field has 20 different names)? Where did they go to school? Are they involved in professional organizations in the field?
4. Are the professors publishing? Do they present at conferences? Do their topics interest you? What organizations do they belong to and work with? Does any of that align with your goals?
5. Are the professors full time or adjunct? Adjunct professors usually have other full time jobs meaning you and your class may not be their highest priority. A program should have mostly full time professors.
5. What does the program look like? Do they have a comprehensive website? Do they have a facebook page? Twitter? LinkedIn? Not that these are vital but they do show the program is keeping current with social media. Additionally, a facebook page can be a great place to learn about the students and alumni in the program. I would encourage you to join it and see if its active. An active social media page indicates there is a lot of interaction in the program.
6. Where do the students who graduate from that program end up? What kind of jobs do they get?
7. What kind of reputation does that program have? You may not really be able to find this, but are they from a respected university? If you cannot find information about the program from their website (like who are their professors), I would be very hesitant of that program.
8. Talk to students from that program if you can. Students will offer advice that differs from professors.
9. Please before you apply, talk to a professor in that program (PLEASE make sure you talk to a professor in addition to anyone else you talk to). Have a list of questions for them and see what kind of feeling you get – even if its a phone/skype meeting: Please have it. This is a sign of the kind of access you will have to faculty once you enroll.
10. Do you get to work with real clients or is an internship required? You need at least one real experience before you graduate if you want to get a job in instructional design. Look at the job market, every single jobs asks for some experience and everyone else you will be competing with in the job market will have that internship.
I hope that helps. While this list is not everything you need to look for, it is a great start.
PhoneGap Tutorial
Here is a good phonegap tutorial from learning solutions magazine. While PhoneGap does provide these tutorials, this does have some good info related to trainers and is worth the read.
Multimedia Design Book – A must for Instructional Designers
If you are not familiar with the Multimedia Principles then this book is a must read for you!
This is pretty much the best multimedia design book I have ever read. If there is one book I can recommend to my students that will help to improve their design, its this book: The Cambridge Handbook of Multimedia Learning by Richard Mayer. While this book is from 2004, I still reference it a lot and use it for all of my research. If you are an instructional designer and have not ever read this book, you HAVE to get it and I cannot over emphasize that enough. It is a must read for all instructional designers because not understanding the principles discussed (in the book) in your training design could be disastrous and unfortunately I have met too many ISDers that do not understand or even know of the design principles discussed in this text. Here is a link for amazon but I’m sure you could find this used on half.com for even cheaper:
Article Review: Why I hate learning objectives
Article:
Overall I think this article brings up some good points. I do have some issues with the implementation and think it takes the wrong direction but the overall message is a good one. Here was my response to the article that I posted in linkedin in the ASTD group forum. Let me know your thoughts:
“I like the idea of telling learners why they are going through this training ie why its important. I actually cannot imagine designing instruction that does not include that as all training should have learners apply and use the knowledge (ie problem solving/application learning objectives). So if learners are using the information they learned in a valuable way (good designed instruction with application/problem solving learning objectives), wouldnt that be better than only telling them why its important but rather include having them actually use/apply the material for their job? It seems that if learners did that, they would not be questioning why they are going through the instruction unless the material was not relevant to their job. I would mark that as very poorly designed instruction with probably bad learning objectives/bad assessment/bad content/bad instructional designers/etc
As far as adding the E to instructional objectives, well that may be overkill. I think it might be adding to the increased jargon you mention. I usually never write ABCD learning objectives for my learners but always modify them and use ABCD where appropriate. For instance, I may not say the A because the learners understand that the A is them (the learner). But the A is important to be included in the design (design document/analysis) for the ISDer. E should be a learning objective where learners apply and use the knowledge (apply/rules/procedures/problem solving).
To answer the question, are learning objectives as valuable as we think they are? Well do they guide the design of instruction and let the learners know what they are expected to be assessed on? If so, then the answer is yes because that is what they are designed to do. They are not designed to tell the user why they are important, rather to tell what is being done. There should be learner objectives in the design/content that actually tells the learner why they material is valuable ie how can this be applied, and have them apply it. I do agree that training that does not include that piece of information for each high level objective is very poorly designed. All learning material needs to be applied and reach that problem solving level of learning.”
Time and Cost to develop one hour of training? Infographic
Source: http://leanforward.com/cost-to-create-elearning/
Also, see my other blog post on cost and time to develop training: https://raypastore.com/wordpress/2012/01/instructional-designers-figuring-out-how-many-hours-it-takes-to-develop-training/
Should instructional design programs include creating writing courses?
As an Instructional Designer we are expected to be a good technical writers because we will be designing curriculum for clients and good technical writing makes them happy. However, does technical writing make the employees happy? When was the last time you read a good book? Ask yourself, what was the writing in the book like? Then ask yourself, why isnt my training written this way? Training should be fun and motivating for employees and technical writing is not fun or motivating. Nonetheless, this is what clients usually want and it’s what instructional designers have been trained to do. However, with the push for more interactive-game like interactions in our training, there is a need for more creative writing to capture the readers’ attention. When I read technical writing, I want to go to sleep. Seriously, it just makes me cringe. When I read a great book, I can stay and read through the night and never put it down. Sure there are different purposes for each of these but why can the training not incorporate some elements from each? So we need to combine the creative writing style (with stories etc) from that fun book with our training in order to capture the readers attention. Now some companies are doing this, but for the most part (I think it would be safe to say 99%) its not fun or exciting. Employees should be excited to get training, not bothered by it. So, how do we do this? Well I believe it will start in ISD programs. We need to train our students to start writing this way from day 1. That means incorporating this kind of writing into our classes or even having our students take a creating writing course in the literature dept. I believe learning how to write stories will help training significantly more than purely focusing on technical writing.