Tony Karrer's eLearning Blog on e-Learning Trends eLearning 2.0 Personal Learning Informal Learning eLearning Design Authoring Tools Rapid e-Learning Tools Blended e-Learning e-Learning Tools Learning Management Systems (LMS) e-Learning ROI and Metrics

Wednesday, September 13, 2006

Learning Design in a Nut Shell

I've recently updated my mental model of how I go about Learning Design, so I thought I'd share.




These days is that we have such a big mix of different delivery models, tools, etc. and such different kinds of blends that emerge that it's difficult to feel comfortable and confident with what tools to use in what situation.

In fact, the Art of Learning Design is dealing with the variability of the myriad of performance needs, considerations and possible delivery models and tools; working through the combinations; to arrive at a delivery pattern that will be effective.

Update: Sep 14 - Lee Kraus posted Learning and Technology: Learning Design about this and asked an interesting question - "Does this apply to both formal and informal learning?"

Great question and I'm not sure that I have a good answer. The first cut answer is that it does apply in that from a Learning Design standpoint, you would define Informal Learning Delivery Models as part of the overal Delivery Pattern. For example, I might say that we plan to provide a Wiki that will be used both during up-front formal learning for collaboration around key questions and then in informal learning as a means to collect best practices.

However, all of this assumes that I'm in the Top-Down, Intentional mode (see eLearning 2.0: Informal Learning, Communities, Bottom-up vs. Top-Down). There's a case to be made that you could provide the tools out to the users / learners and allow them to determine what they need and have it grow organically. It would be a completely different picture. But, I'm not convinced that this really works - see:

But - this is still a great question that makes me wonder if there's not a completely different bottom-up model based on empowering Personal Learning and letting individuals figure it out for themselves. I'm just not convinced it gets us where we need to go.



Keywords: eLearning Trends

3 comments:

Rina Tripathi said...

This is an amazing post and deserves comments.I have been working as instructional Designer at NIIT for some time and reading your article is giving me an understanding and and overview of what exactly Instructional designing and e-learning is all about.
Regards
Rina
I want you to visit my blog and see how non- professional blogs too are making world smaller!


http://au.blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-KOxfltcifqizd1Pl300ZHcuBkQ--;_ylt=AvnA5jC1v95f.fie2BuZN5PkdeJ3?cq=1

Rina Tripathi said...

I left Instructional with small i, thats bad, its Instructional Designer! lol

Blair Smith said...

After searching extensively on e-learning (its tools and techniques), I've found that there is a lot of "gobbledygook." Few good examples exist out there. The notion that PDFs, or assignments via Internet -- by moodle, or wiki, or whatever -- is at best "e-reading." The e-learning that's out there doesn't seem to use the advanced tools they should to do detailed instruction that's actually instruction and not assignment.

E-learning has been my means of instruction for grades 5-8 for the last eight years. This technology works on both smart and slow students. The only time it doesn't work is when kids don't watch and listen to it. Even then, if a student's face could be duct-taped to the monitor, I could guarantee success. My 'site uses mostly flash video -- there's some animation used in math instruction -- but students work on their own, at their own rate. Children do screen-captures or digital images to place their work in an web-page-type portfolio. To date, I've seen no other college, or business, or public school perform that kind of miracle. The Koreans are supposed to be ahead of us in e-learning, but no websites have popped up on my screen to prove otherwise.

Blair Smith
Http://Site3E.Com