What are the key functions of an Instructional Designer in Higher Ed?

This article presents an interesting perspective on working in Higher Ed as an Instructional Designer. The author, Todd Taylor shares what his 18 months of experience in the field have been like.

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/three-perspectives-instructional-design-higher-education-todd-taylor

He makes the point that many IDers are used for two main functions in Higher Ed:

1) To review course material and ensure its accuracy

2) To develop graphical content such as PowerPoints, videos, etc.

He proposes that our main function is that we should be doing design thinking. This includes working backward by reviewing assessments and evaluations in order to determine learning gaps and learner needs. In fact, this is what instructional design curriculum is all about for graduate students. What he is saying is that we need to be prepared to advocate for ourselves in order to define our roles. If we don't we can end up performing a lot of tasks that aren't the greatest use of our education and expertise.

Comments

Blogs and Vacation

Taking a vacation while maintaining a blog is a challenge. Time changes, air transport and heavy bags are enough. To add to this I visited family who has lie bandwidth Internet. I used my small, 4-year old Android to create blog entries, final papers for a graduate course, and blog entries. There were snags but the challenge was invaluable. Do you have similar stories to share?

Digital Pioneers?

Social Media: who uses it, who is oblivious to it, and who masters it? The generation you are part of may influence the degree to which you use social media. Let's say you're a grandmother of three and you retired from the corporate world 15 years ago. Your grandkids are ages 2, 4, and 8. You live three hours away from them and your daughter keeps you updated through Facebook which you've mastered. Your daughter uses Instagram and Snapchat with her friends to stay updated with each other's kids. My question is: is the grandmother a social networker, a digital native, a digital pioneer, or something else? What about the daughter? The point is that a person's generational status doesn't define a person's social net...

Smartsheet: an alternative to Microsoft Project

For years Microsoft Project dominated the market for project management software. It has a steep learning curve and is an expensive per seat cost. I was a technical writer for a small software company that used MS Project for the three project managers and myself. While I enjoyed learning about the science of project management from them in our meetings, I discovered that using the software was not that intuitive. I plugged in the tasks and timelines for several projects only to discover how challenging it was to have to refactor dates. It seemed to mess up the entire project such that I just stopped using it. It was more time consuming setting it up and refactoring it than just inputting status to show our progress. It looks like a better option is SmartSheet which is used by many major companies. You can sign up for a free trial to get familiar with it. The more you can learn about tools to manage instructional design projects, the more likely you are to be considered for the team. T...

Dzine2learn

Search This Blog