THIS IS ONLY A TEST

Just set up my first RSS feed through The Old Reader  and it was surprisingly easy to use.
I want to see if this update to my blog triggers a notice to my email!

Wish me luck :)

Instructional Design and Technology - And the Search for Competency Begins...

Welcome to the wonderful and somewhat elusive world of Instructional design, educational technologies, instructional strategies… these concepts can be quite the mystery and either compel new learners or discourage them. I am confident though that with a little research and some step by step guidance through this mysterious and yet thoroughly fascinating world of instructional technologies, we will be able to reach learners in a more engaging and meaningful way… and who knows? We may even learn a thing or two ourselves!

In my search of the instructional cyber world I came across Daniel Stanford’s Seven Deadly Sins of Online Course Design. Right from the beginning Stanford does of a fine job of bating his reader with a captivating article title

The concept of reeling in the reader from the very beginning is old news to instructional designer Cathy Moore who also emphasizes in her blog article 5 Attention Grabbing Ways to Start a Course  the importance of capturing the learner’s attention before the course even begins. Cathy suggests that designers “Use a meaningful course name and skip the explanation”. Tech girl’s take on it, if instructional designers can’t pique the interest of a learner by the course title, we may very well not keep their interest when the class begins. Pity the learner who has to take the class as a required course- the title alone might subconsciously cause them to lower their expectations of the class and not participate to the extent that they might have. I think I will have to do some further investigation on creating creative course titles…

But back to the Stanford’s Seven Deadly Sins. This witty but informative blog postulates 7 common and mistakes made during course design and some easy to implement strategies to avoid or overcome these areas in the future.  Stanford’s clever tips on “How to Atone” provide clear examples of what to do and not to do; making the article a good reference point and can act as a checklist of what not to do. Such a reference can be used as a quality assurance tool when checking your own design work or that of your colleagues.  

One of the biggest challenges when learning a new skill is trying to organize the learning material. There is so much information out there it can be difficult to know where to get started. In my slightly OCD driven search for clarity and organization so that I try to find some footing in IDT, I came across Christy Tucker’s word press blog Experiencing E-Learning. The title caught me right away as it was simple but alluring in a way that spoke to my need for greater depth of learning that I believe comes from experiencing it firsthand. I want to experience e-learning, I don’t want it to just happen to me or to pass me by. I want to be a part of it; to feel it; to let the new thoughts pour out of me as I turn my experience inside out and try to make it more tangible for me. Then and only then, when the experience becomes a part of me can I really learn something to a deeper and more meaningful extent.

Ok so I did not have a spiritual awakening when I read the article as my last paragraph might have misled you to believe. Instead what I found was a very simple, matter of fact list of tools that Tucker uses to keep herself organized.  And so it turns out that the article was perfect in its simplicity; a sort of laundry list of bread crumbs that can lead me to experience e-learning in my own way by and on my own terms.

Until next time friends,

Tech-Girl is signing off!