April 2009 Archives

Are We There Yet? Is it Time for the 'Instructional Technologist'?

By MATTHEW N MEYER on April 29, 2009 12:08 PM | 4 Comments | 0 TrackBacks
I'm in a mood to throw a little gasoline on the fire of an old debate within the instructional design community. That debate is about the term "instructional designer" itself and how it is defined. Trust me, I know this is a topic that pops up from time to time in the community and it never seems to get resolved.  But I've noticed some recent trends that, at a minimum, should cause us to revisit the conversation.

Describing what an ID is and does...to others
Typically, we always start with the term "Instructional Designer". It is still the most generic of terms for those in our profession and personally I feel that this term has only gotten traction in the mainstream in the past 10 years or so.  But it has taken a while. I think all of us in the profession can relate to the problem of trying to define "what we do" to those outside of our realm. You know the conversation I'm talking about.  You're at some type of social gathering or business function and you engage in small talk with someone you've just met who I'll refer to as "New Person". It goes something like this:

New Person: "So, what do you do?"
You: "I'm an instructional designer at [insert employer here]
New Person: (eyes slightly squinting now) "An information....what was that again?"
You:"In-STRUC-TION-al designer"
New Person: (feigning a moment of understanding but their confusion is still transparent) "oohhh...so, what does an instructor designer do?"

At this point, depending on how many years you've had to deal with this question and subsequent verbal dance, you launch into your response.  Newbies, as I once used to do, try to actually explain what an instructional designer does.  As for me, I try to respond with a one-sentence response that spares New Person having to emit a prolonged glazed look had I given them the long version.  Note that I give the one sentence version not because after all these years I've nailed down the perfect response to what an ID does. No, I boil it down simply to save everyone's time.  Because whether you give the textbook (or wiki) definition with examples OR the one sentence response, you will typically get the same missed verification verbal response from New Person.  No matter how detailed you get in your description, New Person just won't get it. Here are some of my favorite responses from New Person(s) over the years:

  • "Oh, so you work with computers and stuff"
  • "Oh, so you write lesson plans"
  • "Oh, so you're a trainer"
  • "Oh, so you're like a webmaster?"
  • "Oh, so you make those hotspots on screens"
  • And my favorite (because I know we can instantly move on to talk about something else), "Ohhhhh."
There are times I wish that our profession was easily recognized by title.  Imagine how much easier life would be to respond "I'm in finance" or "I'm in sales" or "I'm an engineer".  A simple answer that needs no definition or awkward follow up. New Person would never ask, "So what does a salesperson do?" 

You may think that after all this whining, I have and idea of gaining wider acceptance of the title of instructional designer out there. Well, I don't- not directly anyway.  Actually, I'm proposing an idea that will make it even harder to define what we do to outsiders.  Yes, after 17 years of personally focusing on the term "Instructional Designer" being accepted in the mainstream (and seemingly getting closer all the time), I'm proposing to blow it up and start anew.

Re-introducing: "Instructional Technologist"
First, let me confess something: I'm not a true instructional designer. My master's degree is actually in Instructional Technology.  When I finished my graduate studies in the early 90's, I was told I was an Instructional Technologist.  So I went out in the world and told people I was an Instructional Technologist and spent a lot of time trying to explain what that meant.  My first recruiter took that description and promptly went out and got me some great job offers.  The problem was, they were all network engineer-type jobs.  It turned out that the term "Instructional Technologist" translated to others as "IT" and "IT" meant Information Technology.  And that meant network and desktop help desk jobs.  My fellow Instructional Technologist graduates quickly abandoned using that term unless it was amongst ourselves at cool alumni functions.  From then on, we labeled ourselves as Instructional Designers and molded our description to the next opportunity.  But I think that as time rolls on, it might be time to see what the world thinks of the title "Instructional Technologist".

Why it might be ok use Instructional Technologist
  • Here in 2009, technology is becoming ubiquitous.  To the common person, 'technology' used to mean back-end code and hardware type stuff.  But today, the explosion of user-oriented applications (especially through mobile means) has reached into more lives than ever and is accelerating rapidly.  Therefore, the "technologist" part of the term isn't as fear-inducing as it once was.  In fact, because so many people are immersed in some level of technology through work or their personal life, they may actually ask "what type of technology?"
  • More people are familiar with the outputs of instructional technology. When I would talk to people 10-15 years ago and mention "CBT" or even "online learning", they rarely knew what I was talking about.  Today, I'll throw the term "online learning" out and almost everyone can relate to it.  More people have been exposed to this type of learning in their jobs the past 10-15 years, especially with the acceptance of web platforms and technologies.  People just 'get it' more now.
  • The demand for the skills of instructional technologist is going up. I posted previously about the central role of ID's in the future (see "My Biggest Takeaways from this Conference"). With the increasing technology innovation and it's adoption at the institutional level, enterprise leadership will need people to make sense of it related to learning.  Especially during this current economic downturn, when organizations are taking time to retool (train, educate) resources for future direction. And who is equipped to strategically bridge that gap and execute such plans? Instructional Designers with technology know-how, otherwise referred to here as Instructional Technologists. When leadership needs a skill set, they like a term that is intuitive to their understanding of the world. Wouldn't 'Instructional Technologist' fit the bill?

Can Instructional Design and Technology even be separated anymore?
I think the modern role of the ID has become so incredibly expansive, that the term Instructional Technologist is more descriptive.  Besides knowing the principles of good old fashioned instructional systems design, here is just a brief list of other things most current ID's are also responsible for knowing and performing in their job:
  • Learning delivery platforms
  • Content authoring platforms
  • Media development capabilities
  • Learning and course management system capabilities
  • Scripting multiple types of media objects; know the functions/limitations
  • Provide overall development process
  • Project management
We could have a lot of fun building this list but I think you get the idea. Practically every item on that list refers to technology and if we built the list out further, it would reflect the same trend: technology related knowledge of the ID in his/her job role.  We are either at the point or past the point where there's no separating technology know-how from the role of an ID.  

So, given that the world is accepting technology in every phase of life and ID's role is forever integrated into technology, isn't it time we dusted off the term "Instructional Technologist" and give it a whirl out there?

Perhaps I'm just on a personal quest to tell New Person, "I'm an instructional technologist" and get that cool, raised-eyebrow response that says 'oh, ok, yeah, you're one of those.'

Wait. That sounded weird.  Perhaps "Learning Design Technologist"?

Biology 12 Course Design Project

By MATTHEW N MEYER on April 20, 2009 5:37 PM | 0 Comments | 0 TrackBacks
Challenges
  • Running out of physical space: As enrollments continue to increase, there is no corresponding increase in lab space.
  • Update material: The course material has not been updated in many years and there was a desire to find a way to make it more engaging and interesting to students.

Meeting the Challenge
Biology approached us with the following general guidelines in which they wanted us to follow when redesigning Biology 12:
  • Utilize new educational technologies to redesign the course
  • Redesign the material in the lab to make it more engaging and interesting
  • Be sure that the new course runs through the ANGEL CMS

The New Course Design
  • Create a modular learning event that will be self-paced. We wanted to design the course so that students could take the lab on their own time and at their own pace, a basic benefit of basic e-learning.  Instead of having to get everything done within the current 2 hour class format, the online lab would be available all week long for them to complete.
  • Develop media learning objects. We proposed taking the more static elements of the learning for this lab, such as plant structures, pollination and plant reproduction and create narrated animations.  We designed these to be modular and usable by themselves (therefore, an object).  We also created a number of interactive exercises that allowed students to apply their mastery of the content.
  • Use of the Blogs at Penn State platform as the content assembly and delivery tool.  We decided to employ this platform because it made sense for many reasons:
    • Using the blog platform to create and integrate media is EASY. You can create and publish quickly.
    • The output (web pages) are deliverable on any web platform ANYWHERE.
    • There are many built-in features to the Blogs at Penn State that make it easy to COLLABORATE on the content development and beyond.  If desired, an instructor can integrate the Comments feature for student feedback and conversation on material.
    • With the blog platform, especially a university-wide platform, the content is PORTABLE at several levels.  At it's most basic, the resulting blog (web) site can be exported in one easy step and provided to another person to import into their own blog (web) site.  From that point, the new content owner can edit the content as they see fit.
  • Integrate the lesson material with ANGEL.  This was an easy requirement to meet because ANGEL allows you to hyperlink to websites with little effort or problem.  Additionally, the Biology faculty wanted to utilize ANGEL's assessment feature, of which we used the Drop Box format for the learning assessment.
  • Instructionally, put a contemporary context around the material. The Biology faculty wanted to use the current environmental issue of the sudden decrease in the bee population (Colony Collapse Disorder) as a way of adding more meaning and impact to the material to the students' lives.
The Pilot- See It For Yourself
Because we developed the content outside of ANGEL, we are able to provide access to the Biology 12 Flowering Plant Reproduction lab learning material...without forcing you to go through ANGEL first.

To view the course going through ANGEL, I have provided this view. Keep in mind that you have to be assigned to the BIOL12 course, section 001 (as I currently am) to access it.  Otherwise, you will not be able to view the content.

Innovations
  • Content available via Creative Commons concept.  Because the learning content is on the blog platform, the course can be used in an open manner.
  • Use of Google Forms to collect feedback during development.  During the Alpha and Beta phase of development, we embedded a form on every learning page to collect reviewers' feedback. We created this with the form creation feature in Google Docs.  Reviewers could add comments on each screen and they were funneled to a spreadsheet in Google Docs.  This eliminated the need for multiple documents being passed around and manually pulled together on the back end.
  • Streaming media elements can be reused anywhere on the web. We created narrated animations and interactive exercises in a manner that they can be used independently of each other.  Because of this, these objects can be easily integrated into other web platforms (YouTube, other blog platforms, etc.) 
  • Availability of Comments feature on blog platform. Each learning page in this course can be commented on by anyone taking this course. While we used it only in a limited capacity during this pilot course development, Biology faculty are considering ways to utilize this feature for future use.

Current Outcomes of the Pilot Course
We received course evaluation feedback through a form in ANGEL from students from April 11-17.  Overall, the feedback showed that:
  • Students generally like this format and found it instructional and easy to navigate
  • Plurality of students would like a combination of online and hands on wet labs 
  • Students would like to see more interactivity in an online lab
Here is the summary data analysis of the course evaluation feedback.

Packing, Finding Old Stuff and Sharing Some

By MATTHEW N MEYER on April 20, 2009 12:06 PM | 0 Comments | 0 TrackBacks
As some of you already may know, I'm approaching the maddening end-game of the moving process.  My wife and I have for weeks been in a mode of sorting through old stuff and determining whether it gets packed or not (ok, actually it's mostly my wife doing all the work).  I've recently carried this mode into my work-life as well the last few days.  I've been looking at old stuff and determining whether it stays or goes.

I've come across some old stuff from my previous job I thought I'd share.  This is a handout for my presentation at the e-Learning Guild's DevLearn conference last year.  My presentation was "How to Get More (and sometimes less) from your SME".  This document was the written version of my presentation. I haven't really thought of sharing this before, mostly because I wasn't sure it's message applied in the higher education dynamic.  However, after attending the TLT Symposium this weekend and seeing some of the excellent sessions, I felt it might add some value for any ID's who may be interested. I saw a number of projects where there has been learning content development done via the instructional designer and subject matter expert (SME) relationship.  While this presentation was aimed primarily at custom e-learning developers in the private sector, it's message can be 'bent' enough to make sense to instructional designers working in higher education.

I certainly welcome thoughts, feedback and any other comments on this subject.

My Take on the Chronicle's Technology Forum

By MATTHEW N MEYER on April 8, 2009 2:46 PM | 3 Comments | 0 TrackBacks
I'm on the train coming back from The Chronicle's Technology Forum in Arlington, VA.  I've been to many conferences in my career but this was my first one since coming to the higher education side of the world 3 months ago. I definitely felt like an outsider looking in. I expected this conference to consist of enthusiastic, high-level discussions and showcases of unique learning solutions using emerging technologies in higher education.  And, there was some of that.  However, what I came away with most is that the make-up of this audience showed clear and deep divisions of what people believe technology's place in Higher Ed should be. 

Let me start by describing what I saw as the different groups that I felt were there. In a nutshell, there were three main factions:

  • The Believers: This group consists of those leading the charge of learning technologies. This group sought to present the emerging technologies, the current and future trends of students and how the combination of the two can lead to richer educational experiences

  • The Old Guard: The name I've given this group sums up what you're thinking.  This group seems to resist the notion of embracing all these technologies.  They come from the line of thought that technologies are mostly distractions for students in the pursuit of scholarship, keeping students from being able to 'focus on real learning and thinking'.

  • The Seekers: This is the middle group in the spectrum between the Believers and the Old Guard.  This group came to the conference seeking answers, guidance and help.  Within this group, there are those with specific sets of issues they want to address on one end and those that simply don't know where to even start on the other. Many come with very open minds, truly seeking direction.  This group is looking to return to their organization with some ideas for moving forward.

That seemed to be the lay of the land from my perspective.  The forum this year sort of served as the battleground for the Believers and Old Guard, with the Seekers trying to sort the most usable information out of the back and forth.  To get a flavor of this 'battle', read the Chronicle's take on Cole's presentation and the subsequent comments to it.  By the way, Cole pushed things even further yesterday, getting another conversation roaring.  Nice!

My Biggest Takeaways from this Conference:
As the volume of technologies continue to roll out, the demand for instructional or learning design skills will increase.

  • Think about it: The role of the Instructional Designer is the ultimate connector of everything going on in this field.  ID's are at the epicenter of all the elements of learning and technology.  What other skill set is so perfectly positioned to provide the science of learning with the application of technology?  I'll leave it at that because I think a fuller, more detailed description of the role of today's instructional designer is at least worth a full blog entry. 
    • To illustrate this point, I can describe a conversation I had on Monday.  I was talking to a [guy from Honolulu] who simply asked "We are looking into providing more blended courses to students.  We have a lot of media we are cataloging.  How could an instructional designer help us?"  Wow.  It was hard to even know where to start.  As I went through a list of things and ID can do, I couldn't help but think 'how can organizations in higher education still not know what an instructional designer can do for them?'
  • Think about all the questions someone may have about teaching, learning and technology in today's environment.  The "who can put all this together?" question should have the same answer: instructional designers.
The Old Guard cannot be dismissed off-hand by the Believers.

  • The Believers have a tendency to ignore the Old Guard's criticisms, but the Old Guard still possesses vast amounts of experience, knowledge and networking connections (the traditional kind). And, like any organization, they are typically in major decision -making positions.  Believers mostly want to just "wait them out" and work around them in order to continue to innovate. True leaders in the Believers camp must recognize that there is a certain amount of value in engaging with the Old Guard and then learn how to most effectively listen to their concerns and decipher enough to pull out the usable nuggets of feedback. Remember, the Old Guard has seen a lot of fads come and go in their time and they'd rather wait until the dust settles.  Generally, risk is not rewarding for them.  Engagement, a steady dose of well-oiled persuasion and patience are a good plan for the Believers.  And the Old Guard still has valuable contributions; it's important to truly listen to their concerns and objections.  Certainly there will be ideas fostered through this engagement.
Like anything else, change doesn't happen overnight.

Everyone knows this already but it has to be remembered sometimes.  But I think it's important to recognize that acceptance of change can be even slower than the change itself. 

OK, I know, I know.  My pseudo-social analysis is not exactly original or deep but I think it accurately describes what was going on.

The Chronicle at a Crossroads
The Chronicle's Technology forum seemed to be more Old Guard in nature.  The first issue that tipped me off was that they really have no plan for making their presenters' presentations available online for conference attendees.  None.  When asked about this, their staff response was a not-very-reassuring "uhhh, we can look into making that happen".  This indicates it's something they hadn't even though about.  In today's conference market, that is simply unacceptable.

They ended each day's sessions with what I consider "not-so-inspiring" topics.  The first day ended with John Markoff's "Insiders View of Silicon Valley" where he promptly sucked the air out of the room with a history of his neighborhood then left us with visions of internet security scare stories.  I'm not saying he's not correct about that last part, but is that the type of message to end the day with for your conference attendees? I guess it is if you have no interest in having them return for next year's conference.  The last day was somewhat the same.  It was a session on "Insider Computer Attacks".  For myself, the presentation was very interesting, but again, not what I would want attendees walking away with as their last presentation of the conference.  Not the type of topic that has people walking out and getting pumped up to return to the office with all their newly acquired ideas.

Obviously, I think this conference needs to re-invent itself a little bit.  If they are going to be a conference on technology in education, then gear it toward it all the way.  They conference needs to "live" it.  Things like making presentations available online, having monitors that display twitter conversations and blogs are just a start.  At a higher level, I think they should make a priority of addressing the Old Guard/Believers conflicts through more formal means.  Perhaps some sessions that address this conflict and then carry it through with planned, informal (even offline) conversations and exchanges of ideas.

My guess, after conversations with people at the conference, is that The Chronicle itself is having it's own internal conflict.  This could explain how this conference played out.  If so, then I think The Chronicle may have to do some re-inventing of itself first.

Bio12: Approaching Launch

By MATTHEW N MEYER on April 8, 2009 12:26 PM | 0 Comments | 0 TrackBacks
For those following the Bio12 project, here is an update:

This past week, we completed and integrated all of the edits and changes requested during the Alpha review from the Biology department resources. Although there are still a few minor tweaks to do at this point, the lab content is ready for delivery to students.  So far, we have gotten positive feedback on this design from a number of reviewers, including some of the folks in Biology.  We are becoming anxiously interested in what actual students will think of this lab.  If you haven't seen it yet, check out the Bio12 online lab content.

Next
Our goal is to have this lab up and running live by April 9th, in time for the TA's to go through the lab and become familiar with it.  With that in mind, we still have some work to do:
  • Migrate course to live ANGEL server
  • Revise some of the course evaluation questions
  • Develop and integrate a navigation help page
Once these items are complete, it will be ready for the students, who begin taking it April 17th.
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