HOW Magazine Article on Instructional Designers, “Learning by Design”

Things have been pretty busy with the grad program and the current Info Mapping content development project. All things progressing with me….hoping the same for everyone else.

So, how excited was I a few weeks ago when I received my December 2008 issue of HOW magazine. There is an excellent article by Michelle Taute titled, “Learning by Design.” The lovely article is all about how instructional design is not only a part of the educational world, but the design industry as well.

There are so many juicy parts. I’ll just extract a few.

“From the classroom to the boardroom, instructional designers create training materials for all kinds of learners, bridging the gap between teacher and students. Here, we explore this little-known facet of the design industry.” (p 96)

“Almost everything I build is designed to be repurposed…I create the framework, then the professors provide the content — whether that’s multiple-choice questions, video clips of them demonstrating something or creative writing samples.” (p 96) Daniel Stanford, DePaul University Instructional Design Consultant

All the reason why I work on my new media design skill.

***Resources relevant to this article***

http://www.danielstanford.com/

http://www.scadelearning.org/

http://www.ecollege.com/index.learn

Person Daniel Stanford,

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De Anna L Fench
eduTech gEEk writer

Instructional Technology Design: Answering The Challenges Of a New Media Dependent Society

Remediation…I had to revisit the Bolter and Grusin reading on Remediation. In the text, remediation is described as our cultural desire to erase the medium in an attempt to be closer to that which the medium is responsible for delivering.

Very true…many people enjoy the connectedness of web-based, virtual worlds like The Sims and Second Life. A virtual connectedness that, arguably, is closer than that connectedness which experienced in physical reality.

Still, remediation…this word was just not connecting for me. How does it relate to my interests as a new media designer? Then, I came across a very interesting description concerning the refashioning of old media as a way to meet the demands of a new media dependent society:

“What is new about new media comes from the particular ways in which they refashion older media and the ways in which older media refashion themselves to answer the challenges of new media.” (p. 15)

In that moment it HIT me: Instructional Technology Design/Educational Communications Technologies/Instructional Systems Design, or whatever the academicians are calling it this month, is older instructional practices answering the challenges of new media’s influence on education. Online learning, digital learning objects, computer-based training, and simulated learning environments are all examples of how education has refashioned itself to meet the demands of digital design and media.

When I began studying instructional design, I was challenged by others with those dreadful questions: “What is an instructional designer?” “How does educational technology work?” “So, you’re like a graphics person?”

My answer then: “It’s the design of instruction and/or instructional environments such as eLearning and other forms of computer-based training.”

Fair enough.

My answer now: “We answer the educational communities demand for new media-based learning through the form of digital learning environments and digital documentation. Some of us do a little digital authoring and publishing for print instruction, some of us create multimedia learning objects, others manage online learning environments, and a good portion of us manage the inclusion of technology into training curricula for companies and educational systems. Pretty much…We’re diverse, but the foundation of ‘what we do’ is: transition older instruction into newer digital instruction!”

Haha. I doubt I’ll remember that entire professional spiel. But, it will go something like that!

De Anna L Fench
eduTech gEEk writer

DDN: Digital Divide Network

Quick Post: Interested in learning about the digital divide or how to combat digital literacy in your community (or workplace)?…Check out the DDN.

I do a lil’ blogging on this site as well, but really I use it to stay up on many of the digital literacy news and initiatives going on worldwide. It is such a great network of technology professionals, many in education, who recognize a problem and seek solutions. One day, within next year or so, I hope to have a better clue as to what digital divide issue I will be dedicating my career and non-profit initiatives toward.

In the meantime… http://www.digitaldivide.net

Letting the Work Flow with InDesign CS3 (Pt. 1)

InDesign vs FrameMaker…What is the difference?

Since they both are used for DTP needs, that was my question. This morning, I viewed a really good tutorial that  answered that question. To give credit and thanks, it was created by the people over at Lynda.com (YouTube ID: “lyndapodcast”).

This InDesign CS3 Tutorial focuses on workflow and showing how efficient InDesign3 is for these tasks:

• Creating a layout
• Creating text and image frames
• Importing text and images from non-ID files
• Editing  imported frames
• Working with multiple layers
• Working in between multiple Adobe programs (as I do daily).

…Know of any other good tutorials out there that cover Adobe products?

If so, Please comment to this post with the URL.

***More information on InDesign CS3 found here!