Is Instructional Design Becoming a Commodity?
The trend in the industry, writes the author, is to produce instructional design "fast and cheap", which seems to rule out the third part of the equation, "good". He opines, "Some LCMS vendors suggest that with automated instructional design methods, we can drag and drop our way to excellence by using a few simple tools." Heck, name me one vendor who isn't (at least implicitly) suggesting that this can be done. But the author sees a brighter future for instructional designers - keep in mind, he argues, how the positions of graphic designers were enhanced, not eliminated, by the introduction of new tools. Jerry Murphy, ELearn Magazine, September 9, 2003. [Link] [Tags: Gaming, Content Management Systems] [Previous][Next]Comments
Is Instructional Design Becoming A Commodity?
Shovelware, and the LMS systems that encourage shovelware (which is most of them) are becoming a commodity. You can take any number of lame 'courses' on 'Introduction to Excel' for all of $0.20 at a variety of online training providers. But if you separate out the creation of electronic content from the creation of 'instructional significant learning events' then , far from becoming a commodity, instructional design seems like a very rare bird indeed. But you got to give this author credit - a catchy title will get your readers' eye. [Comment] [Permalink] [Previous][Next]
Re: Is Instructional Design Becoming A Commodity?
Instructional designers will eventually become obsolete.
The assumption that people need an kind of expert called an instructional designer in order to determine how they will "learn" is a retrieval of the industrialized mindset. The technology we refer to as "instructional design" is really a process that is used to impose a scope and sequence on information as well as the temporal assembly line we call the online classroom.
What we are currently referring to as "e-Learning" really has very little to do with what learning is. It may be better to reduce the claims being made and refer to it as "e-Education" or e-Training." Unfortunately many "e-Learning" companies and designers cannot see past their own assumptions and biases.
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