Technology

information & communication technology

What do instructional designers design?

by

Don Morrison has made available his speaker notes for a presentation on “What do Instructional Designers design?” Much of what he says resonates with my own experience and perspective. First, that traditional instructional systems design cannot address the multitude of alternatives available to us today – such as knowledge management, performance support, blogs, workflow learning, communities of practice, etc.

Morrison also says that Google is a learning tool [I agree, it’s how I learned HTML], and that it favours information over instruction. This is an interesting point. A few years back, I had a conversation with the design team at Tecsult-Eduplus about their learning programs for astronauts. They recounted how they had initially designed some courses which adhered to the “standard” rules of using only 7 points of information per screen. The feedback of the astronauts was that they wanted not only more information, but the maximum information possible per slide. For these bright students, time was of the essence and they couldn’t waste it by clicking on the next button. I have noticed that medical school students are the same in their learning style – they absorb information like sponges, and later reflect on it. Speaking for instructional designers, Morrison says:

That if Google is being perceived as the best learning tool ever, it’s because it has developed relevant notions like adjacency, weight and PageRank, implemented them in a smart, innovative process which is embedded in a lightning-fast, user-friendly interface.

What LMS, what LCMS, what competency engine, what third-party or custom course library or curriculum, what instructional design theory has done anything close in terms in responding to today’s learning needs?

I think you and I both know the answer. Not one.

In comparison, our response has been linear, turgid and unimaginative.

Morrison goes on to discuss a number of design models, including some more advanced models (and lesser known within many instructional design teams) such as vanMerrienboer’s Four-Component Instructional Design Model, as well as more general Cognitive Load Theory. The whole text is worth a read, and worth the effort of reviewing or researching Morrison’s references. This text should also be read by anyone in higher education where educational technology is taught, to show that there is a heck of a lot more to learn than how to put courses online.

ATutor 1.4 soon to be released

by

ATutor has announced the latest version of its open source, standards compliant LCMS, which should be available in a couple of weeks. The new version 1.4 includes:

Templates for creating your own custom look-and-feel
Roles & Privileges for students to create teaching assistants or additional instructors
Automatically marked tests
Search the TILE learning objects repository, and import content packages directly into ATutor by entering a URL
Evaluate content with the content editor accessibility checker to ensure learning materials conform with international accessibility standards
Visual Content Editor (currently disabled) format content without knowing any HTML
ACollab Groups for running group activities within ATutor courses, as well as file sharing, managing assignment submissions, collaborative document authoring and archiving, and more (also available as a standalone)

I will be putting the standalone version of ACollab through its paces in a short while, and will provide a detailed evaluation of this platform as we go along.

The inevitability of Laptops

by

Via Stephen, is this article from USA Today on the use of laptops in schools. It’s getting to the point where the the conservative majority will not be able to argue against students being connected with information technology. In a short time, using laptops will be more economical.

Back in the Dallas suburb of Forney, Superintendent Smith doesn’t know what he’ll do after the experiment with textbook-loaded laptops next year. It all depends on the price, he said.
"A child’s set of textbooks costs $350," Smith said. "If they can get these notebooks down to $500, it gets cost-effective in a hurry."

Understanding DRM

by

Digital Rights Management (DRM) and copyright are all in the news today. I’m not a lawyer, and haven’t studied the legal field, but it’s becoming obvious that we all have to understand the impact of DRM on our lives. It’s no longer enough to be legal, as the laws, and their digital applications, keep changing. From The Shifted Librarian:

So in summary, iTunes, MS Reader, and Palm Digital Media DRM: bad.
This is what really scares me about libraries getting into the digital files business, even outside of all the issues surrounded subscription-based access versus ownership. When terms change on a whim, upgrades take away existing rights, and files become locked and inaccessible, how is this going to affect how we circulate titles to our patrons? It’s not like libraries have any leverage in this situation since publishers and Congress are doing their best to eradicate fair use rights, including the right of first sale.

These are the same issues that keep coming up with academic clients who are looking at selling learning content. Do you need to control content? How are you going to control content? Are your partners controlling content? What are the effects of controlling content? How will this influence your business model?
I should have followed my mom’s advice and become a lawyer ;-)

Worms & Viruses

by

Yesterday I found out about the Sasser Worm, the latest evil creature on the ‘Net. The first thing I did was open my Norton anti-virus software and click on "LiveUpdate". I then received one update. This morning I did the same and received another update. Each time I checked, an update was available, but at no time during the past 24 hours did Norton/Symantec "push" an update to me. Since I pay for this service, which most of us do, I must say that this is poor customer service. There are many people I know who only update when they receive a notice from their anti-virus service. I guess this is what happens when you have an oligopoly (or a "pigopoly", as the Register says) – bad service :-(

Intellectual Property Legislation

by

In Mark Federman’s post The Fundamental Problem with Intellectual Property Legislation, he reports on an interview with Jack Velenti, head of the Motion Picture Association of America. In the interview, Valenti shows his ignorance of the fact that copyright laws are infringing on a lot of people (at least 2 million Linux users) who are doing what should be "legal" activities.

And that’s the problem. There are a lot of things that Jack Valenti – and the legislators whom he lobbies with stunning effectiveness! – don’t know, and haven’t realized about the issues of copyright, the evolution of culture, the cultural history of their (and other) countries, and the reversal of conventional distribution and marketing models in an age of instantaneous communications.

One of the problems is the disconnect between policy makers and the creators (not publishers) and users. Fortunately courts in Canada are more enlightened.
It’s true that "markets are conversations", and I believe that politics is conversation as well. It’s just that some of us are only allowed to converse every four years or so. If you think that copyright issues are important – copyright is inextricably linked to innovation and creativity – then get informed and join in the conversation.

Would you turn down a speaking opportunity?

by

One more reason that blogging is becoming a business medium is provided by Robert Scoble, the famous Microsoft employee who blogs.

I think the time is coming where executives and employees who blog well are going to start getting promotions. Why? Ask your execs what happens to them when they start turning down keynote opportunities at major industry conferences. Ask what happens to them when they consistently get invited to speak at industry conferences and they do a good job at it.

As a free agent, most of my business comes from referrals. Speaking at conferences or workshops has been my best venue for meeting prospective clients, because you are not giving a marketing pitch, and the audience is receptive to what you are saying (or should be, if you’re doing a good job). I’m relatively new to blogging, but it will be interesting to see over the next year or so if my customer contacts come more from my blog than from speaking engagements.

Via Lilia