This is my newly created blog site where you are encouraged to read posts and leave feedback as it pertains to the field of instructional design, education, and technology.
Below are a few of my current favorite blog sites that offer information and valuable insight that you may find helpful. I have briefly described each site and the content that you may find within. Take a look around and feel free to leave your comments and feedback.
http://christytucker.wordpress.com/2010/07/06/instructional-design-and-e-learning-blogs/
This website was created by Christy Tucker who is actively engaged in the field of instructional design, public education and corporate training. Christy began as a teacher and has spent the last several years developing courses for K-12 teachers. Some of the articles that Christy writes about include instructional design, corporate E-learning, and technology. She also includes a topic called Weekly Bookmark Posts where she includes useful or interesting topics.
This website seems to be an appropriate learning tool for those in the instructional design or education field. It has garnered much positive feedback from those who have posted to this site. One of the things that attracted me to include this site on my own blog was the fact that there have been several past Walden students from the MS Instructional Design and Technology field that have utilized this site.
This site appears to be user friendly in that there are many hyperlinks available that will link you to other sites to aid in the search for more information. This site also promises to keep your email address confidential to reduce the possibility of spam.
Let’s save the world from boring elearning!
This blog was created by Cathy Moore who has more than 28 years’ experience in the field of performance improvement and instructional design. This site promises to help you develop action-packed learning materials for working adults. There is a lengthy list of clients who have utilized her advice and designs including the U.S. Army, Microsoft, Amway and many more household names. Cathy’s writing and design have won awards, and she has served as a judge for awards in instructional design. Through her blog, she shares ideas with about 8,000 international subscribers.
This site is packed with information and looks to be well laid out and user friendly. It contains lots of graphics and covers a wide variety of topics. There are 4 blogs and 6 topic headers on the home page with the availability to read more posts from each category.
This blog is hosted by Tom Kuhlmann who has over 15 years in the training industry. This site is dedicated to disseminating the proper information to those seeking it in the quickest amount of time. The stated purpose of this site is so that those without specialized technical skills can get in touch with those who do in order to get their projects completed.
There are many subjects from which to choose and there are also many rapid E-Learning 101 tips that will
help you rapidly learn the basics. There are listed posts that cover the essentials and within those posts are additional recommended materials to speed your learning. This site is simplistic, straightforward, and easy to navigate. Seems to be just what a beginner is looking for.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteHello Keith,
ReplyDeleteI really like your blog, being new to blogging I found yours informative and the lay out great. I especially liked the link to Cathy Moore, let’s save the world from boring eLearning. One of the reasons that I chose this field of Instructional designing was to better acquaint myself with eLearning since this is where my field of instruction seems to be going in the future.
In reading through the blog dated December 13, 2011, Are Learners Idiots?, I found it a very interesting read, Per Cathy Moores Blog, Jerry Weissman tells us in Presentations in Action . “Your audience has been there, done that, and they get it.” The blog stated that the article said that:
“We should tell them how to navigate the course.”
“We should define ‘safety’ to make sure everyone knows what we mean.”
“We should explain that they’re about to be shown a story in which a character will have to make a decision, and they’re going to make the decision for that character.”
After reading this blog, I understood that Cathy Moore was trying to educate her audience to understand how the corporate office thinks since this is her main point of interest and current work. Some of the feedback from the above article Presentations in action are: Providing optional help in instructional sites called “How to navigate this course”, but one problem may be linking to definitions, and optional popup explanations guiding learners by the nose are symptoms of a deeper issue that can poison your materials, regardless of your optional help tabs. Cathy Moore states that our job is to insert knowledge into their brains without considering any knowledge that might already be there.
I remembered reading an article for class and found a correlation between this blog and the article titled, Behaviorism, Cognitivism, Constructivism: Comparing Critical Features from an Instructional Design Perspective. I notices these differences revolve around a number of key issues that ultimately delineate the instructional prescriptions that flow from each theoretical perspective. Schunk (1991) list five definitive questions that serve to distinguish each learning theory from the others:
1. How does learning occur
2. Which factors influence learning:
3. What is the role of memory
4. How does transfer occur? and
5. What types of learning are best explained by the theory?
Some of the commenters felt the same way as the blogger and that the biggest obstacle ran into is when stakeholders have no real connection to the learners and just assume that they need remedial instruction, comfort and assurance to get through the course. Hence the title of this blog, “are learners idiots” Insulting learners intelligence, even if just for navigation is a big no - no and turn-off for learners of all ages and levels of experience. As future instructional developers we will have to understand every learning style to reach every type of learner.
Good Morning Jarice!
ReplyDeleteThanks for your comments. I'm glad that you like the layout of my blog. Due to my very limited time, I have never been a blogger nor have I explored the world of blogging. Therefore I'm happy that this was an assignment for our class, otherwise I would still be in the dark.
I've found that Cathy Moore really hits the nail on the head with any of her blogs. I believe that this will be a good resource for material as we journey toward becoming better instructional designers.
I look forward to the next several weeks and hope that we can bounce ideas off one another.
Again, thanks for your comments, Keith.