New Directions for Instructional Design and Technology

1. Distributed Learning

• Distributed learning www.library.cornell.edu/DL/tutorial/tut_2.htm
• Hybrid classes www.mcli.dist.maricopa.edu/ocotillo/hybrids/what.php
• Skills-based learning www.thegrid.org.uk/learning/1419/skills/#2
• Virtual classroom http://education.qld.gov.au/learningplace/onlinelearning/virtual-classroom.html
• Knowledge-based learning www.ehow.com/about_5403738_knowledge-based-learning.html

2. Reusability...or the lack thereof...

In trying to think back on a class that I have taken that didn't have good reusability, I hit a road block. That doesn't mean that all of my educational experiences have been awesome and useable on a regular basis, but I just can't think of an obvious example right at this moment (On December 18th I will probably shout, "Aha! My _____ class would have been a great example of a course with poor reusabililty" but that doesn't help me much now☺). What does come to mind is a training I recently had for our church auction where I and others had to learn how to enter the information for all things purchased at the auction and country store into a spreadsheet and how to successfully complete a credit card transaction online. The woman who facilitated this training course didn't allow us to have any practice working in the spreadsheet with her supervision. She spent her time showing us what to do by doing the tasks herself and then turning her laptop computer around so that we could see what she had done. I left the training feeling somewhat prepared but not totally confident in my skills/abilities. On the night of the auction I ran into a few snags while trying to enter information into the spreadsheet (I was the only person actually using the computer)--some of the formulas were incorrect and weren't totaling the purchases correctly. Having very limited experience with spreadsheets up until now, I didn't have much in the way of troubleshooting skills. I had to track down someone else who was also at the training so we could work together to figure out a solution to the problems we found. The same problem was found with the credit card transactions. The training we had only consisted of screen shots of the various steps in the credit card process that had been printed out on paper and stapled together. When the time came to actually run a credit card purchase, all went rather smoothly except when I tried printing out a receipt. All in all the evening went well, but I feel that training could have been much more beneficial had we been given the chance to work on a computer during the training so that we could practice entering information, creating formulas, etc.

3. This is a video I found on YouTube that shows different examples of rich media found on the MSN home page.

4. As a wife and mother, I know laundry. What I hadn't realized is that I have been laundering examples of nanotechnology. What I discovered while researching this topic for this assignment is that stain-resistant clothing is a form of nanotechnology. I am always looking for clothing that is stain-resistant, wrinkle-resistant, etc. to help make my life a bit easier in the laundry room. My husband and child both react strongly to mosquito bites--the bite sites swell up into horribly itchy whelps. While shopping one day, I came across a 3-button golf shirt that boasted a built in mosquito repellent that would last even after multiple washes. I bought that shirt for my husband, and he wears it despite the fact that it is purple--he looks quite handsome, I might add☺. Now I don't know if the shirt really repels mosquitoes like it claims to do, but this seems to me to definitely be a form of nanotechnology at work.

5. I prefer the broad and inclusive road that is discussed in the text. I appreciate the fact that it follows the straight and narrow road to a point, but it also encompasses much more to make it more versatile. As a teacher it is my job to reach and teach all of my students, all of whom have very different learning styles and abilities. With the broad and inclusive approach it seems that the potential to accommodate a greater number of my students is better represented.

Getting an IDT Position and Succeeding at It

1. Job #1: Instructional Designer (Part-Time) at Mount Saint Mary College in Newburgh, NY

General Nature of the Position:

The purpose of this job posting is to find a person to develop blended online courses in collaboration with the faculty and instructional design team of the college. This position requires that the employee collaborate with others in order to design, develop, evaluate, and refine blended online courses, participate in required training and meetings in order to follow and refine established instructional design procedures and frameworks for course development as appropriate to project goals, timeline, and budget, and ensure the application of appropriate guidelines to blended online courses in areas such as assistive technologies, accessibility issues and copyright laws.

Required Qualifications and Skills:

• Master's degree in instructional design, instructional technology, curriculum and instruction, or other relevant discipline areas
  
• experience in the development of online courses in higher education settings
  
• application level understanding of instructional design theories and models, online pedagogy, and adult learning theories
  
• demonstrated proficiency with Web conferencing systems (i.e. Skype, WebEx) and Web/multimedia development tools (i.e. Dreamweaver, Flash, Photoshop)
  
• experience with and working knowledge of learning management systems, such as Moodle, Blackboard, Sakai, and Desire2Learn
  
• demonstrated ability to regularly collaborate with others in a team environment, and work independently on assigned duties with minimal supervision
  
• excellent organization and project management skills and the ability to meet project deadlines
  
• outstanding verbal, written, and interpersonal communication skills

Preferred Skills include: experience with educational applications of emerging technologies, such as videos, podcasts, wikis and blogs

Do I have these skills? Yes, for the most part. I would be able to quickly pick up on any other needed skills as I went along.

Job #2: Instructional Designer at John Hopkins University in Baltimore, MD

General Nature of the Position:

The instructional designer will provide expertise in designing, developing, delivering, and evaluating face-to-face, online, and technology-enhanced curricula, courses, training, and instructional materials for public health and public safety professionals.

Required Qualifications and Skills:

• bachelor's degree in instructional design, instructional technology, education, or related field
  
• three years experience in the online learning field
  
• understanding of pedagogical issues related to teaching and learning, particularly adult learning
  
• experience in the development and programming interactive, computer-based multimedia educational materials
  
• ability to work collaboratively within an academic community
  
• experience with training, staff development, and teaching
  
• ability to assess client needs
  
• commitment to customer service
  
• demonstrated written, presentation, and interpersonal communication skills
• effective negotiation and diplomacy skills
• ability to solve problems in enterprising and proactive ways
• ability to manage and meet deadlines
• experience in the field of instructional/educational technology, including designing, developing, and managing higher education technology-based instruction projects and programs
• Master's degree can substitute for some experience

Do I Have These Skills? Again, yes, for the most part. The only thing I read about that I feel I truly know little about is that of public safety and health guidelines. I don't know a great deal about these guidelines, but I feel I could be quick to familiarize myself with the necessary data.

Job #3: Instructional Designer at Gallup Consulting in Omaha, NE

General Nature of the Job:

Instructional designers at this company assess, design, develop, and implement learning solutions for their clients by:

• interpreting client's needs into creative learning solutions that leverages Gallup's philosophies and principles
• creating customized curriculum that align with sound Instructional Design methodologies
• understanding how learning and technology intersect to develop effective e-Learning solutions
• partnering with internal design coworkers, internal technology teams, and client teams to deliver results

Required Qualifications and Skills:

• two years experience assessing, designing, developing, and implementing learning solutions as well as evaluating them
• bachelor's degree in business, education, instructional technology, educational technology, or a related area

Preferred Qualifications:

• experience with e-learning systems and modules
• Master's degree in education, instructional design, or a related field

Do I Have These Skills? Not so much.

2. Self- Assessment

I visited http://www.careeronestop.com/ to complete my self-assessment. I decided to identify my skills instead of trying to identify the type of job I might be looking for. What I found is based on the skills that I identified myself as having, and the computer has decided that the jobs that best fit with my skills is that of coroners (90%), followed by jobs in property, real estate, and community association management (89.5%), real estate brokerage (88.9%), and as an insurance adjuster, examiner, and investigator (88.2%). Rounding out the list of top ten jobs best suited for my skill set are positions as an adult literacy, remedial education, and GED instructor (85.7%) or working in advanced practice psychiatric nursing. I'm not really sure how accurate this assessment is, although my dad has been a real estate agent and property manager for 30+ years, so rating high in real estate and property management makes sense to me.

3. Professional Organizations

American Educational Research Association (AERA) http://www.aera.net/

Mission: "The American Educational Research Association (AERA), a national research society, strives to advance knowledge about education, encourage scholarly inquiry related to education, and to promote the use of research to improve education and serve the public good."

Cost of membership: Beginning with 2011 membership renewals and new memberships, annual dues will be as follows: regular and affiliate members-$150, student members-$40, international affiliates-$110, and international affiliates from low-income countries-$55.

Publications:

Studying Diversity in Teacher Education (coming in 2011)

Handbook of Education Policy Research (2009)

Estimating Casual Effects Using Experimental and Observational Designs (2007)

Handbook of Complementary Methods in Education Research (2006)

Conferences and Meetings: The 2011 AERA Annual Meeting will be held Friday, April 8-Tuesday, April 12 in New Orleans, LA. This year's meeting is titled "Inciting the Social Imagination: Education Research for the Public Good."

Opportunities for Professional Development: are available for registration and attendance at each annual meeting

Academy of Human Resource Development (AHRD) http://www.ahrd.org/

Mission: "The Academy of Human Resource Development (AHRD) was founded on May 7, 1993, to encourage the systematic study of Human Resource Development (HRD) theories, processes, and practices; to disseminate information abour HRD; to encourage the application of HRD research findings; and to provide opportuities for social interaction among individuals with scholarly and professional interests in HRD from multiple disciplines and from across the globe."

Cost of Membership: Regular-$235/year, International/Trial-$90 for the first year, then $235/year, Program Excellence Network (PEN) membership-$150/year, Student-$135/year

Publications:

Advances in Developing Human Resources (ADHR)

Human Resource Development International

Human Resource Development Quarterly

Human Resource Development Review

AHRD Newsletter

Conferences and Meetings: The 2011 annual AHRD International Conference in the Americas will be held Wednesday, February 23-Saturday, February 26 in Schaumburg, IL. The title of this year's conference is "Reshaping the Landscape: HRD in an Uncertain Economy."

Opportunities for Professional Development: are available at each annual conference

Professional Publications

American Journal of Distance Education (AJDE) http://www.ajde.com/

Focus/Goals of the Journal:

AJDE is a journal of research and scholarship in the field of American distance education with a mission of disseminating information about research and scholarship in the Americas.

Submission Guidelines:

Submissions shuld be based in reserch, although all methods and approaches to research are welcome. Submissions should be appropriately grounded in a review of existing literature. All submissions will be subjected to review and editorial revision and should not have been previously published elsewhere, nor underconsideration for publication with another journal.

Peer Reviewed: Yes

Offered Online: Yes

Journal of Distance Education (JDE) www.lib.unb.ca/Texts/JDE

Focus/Goal of the Journal:

The aims of JDE are to promote and encourage Canadian scholarly work in distance education and provide a forum for the dissemination of international scholarships.

Submission Guidelines:

• submission has not been previously published, nor is it being considered for publication by another journal
• submission file in in Microsoft Word or RTF document file format
• all URL addresses in the text are active and clickable
• text in double spaced, uses 12-point font; employs italics, rather than underlining; and all illustrations, figures, and tables are placed within the text at the appropriate points, rather than at the end
• the text adheres to the stylistic and bibliographic requirements outlined in the Author Guidelines found on the web site

Peer Reviewed: Yes

Offered Online: Yes

Journals and organizations such as the ones I reviewed online for this assignment are a great way to support a person and his/her career because both provide a means for becoming better informed about a particular field. Prior to this assignment I knew little to nothing about most all of the organizations and publications I found listed in our textbook. Some, such as T.H.E. Journal and the American Educational Research Association, I had heard of due to the classes I have taken for my librarian's certification, but I still don't know that much about them and even less about the others that are out there.

Trends and Issues in Various Settings

1. Rapid prototyping provides a working model of an instructional product to aid in the design and development of an innovation or project. I think that a way to use this concept in the classroom would be to provide students with various examples of types of project ideas when assigning class projects. My mom is an 8th grade English teacher, and she likes to save examples of past students' works to show future classes when assigning projects. She shows some of the best examples, as well as some 'not-so-good' examples so that her students can see what an A, B, C, or F project looks like. The students then have a better understanding of what she expects and what they need to do in order to receive a desired grade.

2. I have been having a very difficult time figuring out how to respond to this week's assignment requirements...especially this one about military training since I have absolutely no experience with the military and its needs. After reading Scenario Three: Full Spectrum Training in the textbook, I feel that using DLRCs, Deployable Learning Resource Centers is the best way to fuse technology into military training because it allows for the training technology to travel when and where needed.

3. Guidance System for Transforming Education & Step-Up-To-Excellence

Both of these models facilitate improvements in school performance and seem pretty similar to one another. From the description of this particular requirement for this week's assignment, we are to outline a professional development activity to introduce both models to our colleagues. This seems rather difficult to me because I am thinking in terms of a one-day professional development/training day, and the idea of introducing two different campus/district improvement models in one day seems overwhelming...especially since both models share some similarities... so I would have folks form two groups--a group to work on GSTE and the other to work on SUTE. The groups would work through the steps of their model, forming support teams, leadership teams, identifying missions, planning a strategy, etc. At the end of the activity the two groups would share what they learned about their assigned model, discuss the pros and cons of each model, and possibly make a decision about which model they feel would best meet the needs of their campus/district.

4. Stephen F. Austin State University - Teaching Excellence Center

• different names used for faculty development: professional development, teaching circles, workshops


• division this is under: Teaching Excellence Center


• services offered: workshops, socials and speaker events, individual consultations, teaching tips, etc.


• frequency of offered programs and specifics: Teaching circles meet once a month to discuss and share ideas about teaching and strategies to improve teaching effectiveness. New faculty orientation and professional development occurs at orientation and throughout the year during weekly meetings that focus on camps offices and resources(i.e. advising, disability, faculty senate), training modules covering teaching pedagogy issues (i.e. classroom management, effective content presentation, handling student problems), regular opportunities to interact with faculty from across campus, etc.

Stephen F. Austin State University - Office of Instructional Technology

• different names used for faculty development: workshops


• division this is under: Office of Instructional Technology


• services offered: training in fundamental computing skills, new faculty workshops, Blackboard training, online instructor certification, special applications and methods, and Interactive Television (ITV) series


• frequency of offered programs and specifics: Workshops and programs are offered regularly throughout the year. The workshops include: training in Blackboard for faculty who wish to provide course enhancements or fully web-based courses, courses for online instructor certification, training for special applications and methods, such as Elluminate and Elluminate Publish, creating digital videos, creating web pages in Dreamweaver, and podcasting, and training for faculty wishing to deliver courses using ITV.

Stephen F. Austin State University - Office of Human Resources

• different names used for faculty development: training, development, personal and professional growth, and learning opportunities


• division this is under: Human Resources


• services offered: student employee training--Advancing Students As Professionals (ASAP) and QPR training (Questioning, Persuading, and Referring)


• frequency of offered programs and specifics: ASAP training is offered every Tuesday and Friday for an hour to address topics such as phone etiquette, customer service, professionalism, ethics, and confidentiality. QPR training is offered numerous times throughout each semester and is focused on addressing and identifying the needs and troubling issues of students and becoming aware of the signs of suicidal thinking and how to respond in these situations.