The best thing about this week's eLearning Guild's Annual Gathering (AG09) for me is that it brings practitioners together for the ultimate social networking experience. And now that we can tweet and blog and email and - yes maybe even call each other while we're there - events like this become even better catalysts for engagement, connections and reconnections, maybe even a new idea or two.
This was my "ID (Instructional Designer) Moment" year. I didn't want to go into this past Thursday's Great ID Debate with Curt Bonk armed only with my personal opinion. So I reviewed job descriptions for instructional designers. I went and looked at academic programs at a number of universities. I organized my thought enough so that I posted a blog about it. Curt and I got together about 45 minutes before the debate. He'd prepared a list. We started talking about it, jotting down a few words, and then it was off to the races.
Everybody pretty much agrees that IDs do a lot of things, and job postings reflect that: content analyst, technical writer, screen writer, video producer, project manager, budget manager, evaluator, test-writer, statistician, graphic artist, web designer, content author, scripter, coder, analyst. Manager of the LMS. Trainer. Teacher. People continue to agree that nobody outside "the field" really understands what IDs do.
But people believe that the role of ID continues to be important, even more important today and going forward as people are finally really seeing the value of elearning in all of its forms. It's finally accepted as a solution to doing more with less without sacrificing quality. 'Bout damn time.
There was general but not complete agreement that it is still really important to have an ID degree from a credible institution, and that an understanding of learning theory continues to be essential for the basis of our efforts. But given the number of things that IDs are expected to do, it's getting really really hard to find programs that give people ALL the skills that are needed to be successful today. I also heard that graduate program enrollments in ET/ID/IT seem to be suffering, especially at the Ph.D. level. It's getting harder to find ET/ID/IT faculty. This is important, because as several of we seasoned professionals noted this past week....SOME of us are getting mind-numblingly old and really do need to retire. From the industry side a few of us expressed our concern that its getting harder to find graduates who can do the things they need to do when they find themselves on the job.
I wonder how many ET/ID/IT programs know that this is the week of SXSW, a music, film, multimedia, video game, new media, design, trend-setting, opinion leading festival that is THE place to be if you are anyone in the design, media and entertainment industries. I'm sure you have seen the many tweets from the industry cogniscenti who have descended upon the City of Austin, Texas. Very happening. Amazing energy. Lots of stuff. Lots of young designers, producers, entrepreneurs.
And that next week is the GDC, the Game Developer's Conference. This is the very influential, see and be seen gathering of the game industry. From casual games to edutainment, Wii to 3D, MMOGs to geo games, the GDC is a meeting ground for developers, producers, distributors and pundits. Lots of young designers, producers, entrepreneurs.
When you look at the job titles, you see things like content analyst, technical writer, screen writer, video producer, project manager, budget manager, evaluator, test-writer, statistician, graphic artist, web designer, content author, scripter, coder, analyst. LMS manager. Trainer. Teacher.
They are coming from design schools, art schools, multimedia departments, computer science departments, engineering, video and film, media and advertising. Business schools. They don't seem to depend so much on learning theory.
Does anybody else see anything wrong with this picture? Especially as games, Web 2.0 and new media are purported to be the future of elearning, and this is what IDs typically design?
Are IDs really still as relevant as we want to think we are?
Yes, yes, yes. We are on the same wave length with this, Ellen. Time has come to highlight the new roles for those who support learning to fill. IDs are shifting into more productive and valuable functions. You've stolen the thunder from my next column in Chief Learning Officer, which starts with this: http://tinyurl.com/c27fnf
Posted by: Jay Cross | March 30, 2009 at 10:11 AM