Wednesday, December 8, 2010

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.


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