eLearning Roadtrip

New Rules for Engagement

While at the Virtual School Society's LearnNowBC conference in Vancouver, British Columbia last week, I had the opportunity to speak to conference attendees during Thursday morning's general session. I shared my "New Rules for Engagement" - things to consider when thinking of ways to make learning experiences more engaging for learners of all ages. It's been a topic of interest for me for several years now.  I've included a link to a 300-word summary on the subject here  Download Top 10.Campus Computing 2007.  I understand that the LearnNowBC conference organizers are going to make my slides available to conference attendees; if you want the full presentation deck you should check their website. I will be posting an abbreviated version of the preso here on the blog in the next few days. If you are feeling brave, you can sign up for a free LearnNowBC account to watch a webcast of my presentation here.

What I didn't talk about in the presentation was some of the technical background for my interest - the fact that web designers and developers are coming up with remarkable ways to engage consumers with content, services and experiences. Web applications have come a long way from the first hard-coded unchanging Web pages and CGI Web server scripts. We've all come to understand that experience (alternatively UX, for user experience) is a hugely important variable used with Web 2.0 schemes and beyond. In some cases experience refers to some fairly explicit things that RIA (Rich Internet Applications) developers need to think about, including a view of what it takes to enable a high-quality, interactive online experience:

• It must use a ubiquitous client to maximize the audience reach.
• It must run unchanged across the Internet on multiple platforms.
• It must execute well across low- or high-bandwidth connections.
• It needs to restore processing power (not just rendering capabilities) to the client.
• It must deliver engaging user interfaces with high degrees of interactivity.
• It needs to represent processes, data configuration, sale, and feedback complexity.
• It must use audio, video images, and text in a seamless manner.
• It must support the mobile work flow by allowing users to work on and offline.
• It must allow the client to determine for itself what content or data to access and when.
• It must access multiple middle-tier services (both .NET or Java) and back-end data stores.
• It must provide a dynamic and powerful front end for the evolving Web services–based network using emerging standards such as XML, Ajax.
• It must integrate with legacy applications and systems.
• It must allow the incremental addition of new functions to existing Web applications and environments to get the most out of existing Web application investments.

(NOTE: I learned all this stuff when I was at Macromedia during the early 2000s -when Macromedia was working on what Beth Davis, Tom Hale and others had started calling "Rich Internet Applications". Whoda thunk they were going to end up naming a new category of web applications. Way to go you guys.)

But experience is also a subjective construct. And I did talk about this part in the session last week. I suggested that educators could learn some important lessons from the "experience economy", and pointed to some very specific and well know examples of experience extending the value of a brand. Specifically:

• Starbucks is more than a cup of coffee (e.g., expectation of a place to hang out; WiFi; consistent expectations for coffee, snacks, all over the world)
• iTunes is more than music (micro-economic exchange model for content authors, demonstrated with iTunes, iTunesU, and now with the App Center)
• Amazon is more than books (gift recommendations; purchase recommendations)
• Why shouldn't learning be more than good pedagogy and effective instructional design? 

In the new eLearning, engagement and experience really do matter.

I also suggested that that we needed to look to other disciplines to see how they are dealing with life in the "Age of Engage". I offered some examples specifically from advertising, and summarized empirical evidence describing what it takes to bring about a sustained change perception, opinion, affect and ability.

So, from all that, I boiled my research and readings, stories and experiences on this topic down into eight heuristics, New Rules for Engagement for teaching and learning stakeholders to consider every time they think about what it takes to enable learning experiences that engage and inspire.

Here are my 8 Simple Rules for Engaging Learners:

• Capture your learners' attention - With everything going on out there, you need them to focus.
• Convince them to care - What difference will this new information make? Don't keep it a secret.
• Motivate them to change - Can you articulate the WIIFM ("What's in it for ME?") for stakeholders?
• Give them choices - Engagement comes from finding ones own way, with guidance to make it happen.
• Connect them with community - everyone likes reinforcement from others who think the same way.
• Induce them to participate - Make it seem like it's THEIR idea.
• Enable opportunities to contribute - See Point 4, above.
• Make it an experience to remember.

Enough said.

My Top 10 for IDs

ID is about producing value through the design, development and distribution of learning solutions. Used to be that IDs looked more like psychologists than programmers, but that's not the case any longer. Any ID looking for a job these days must expect to work with technology tools, because so much of today's learning and performance support is enabled / managed / distributed via technology. But IDs are not just elearning content authors. IDs are also engaged in supporting and enabling distance learning's web collaborations. IDs are starting to work more with mobile learning's apps and podcasts. IDs are learning first-hand that game design and instructional design have a lot in common. If only we don't suck the fun out of it...

For better or worse, I don't think about ID competencies as a supervisor or a professor needs to think about them. I think about ID more in terms of what I hope to see from our emerging professionals - the ones that will be strong enough to take technology-mediated learning to the next level. I would hate to lose the learning part of what we do. I do think we need better business skills. I think we need to stop thinking about instructional design as a process and to think about what we do as product development. We need to be more assertive, more focused on the so-called business of our respective businesses. Maybe head in the clouds, thinking of new solutions...but definitely feet on the ground. It's the only way to get things get done.

So. My fantasy. Ellen's imaginary ID-cathelon. MY Top 10. It's not ADDIE. It may not even really be instructional design when you get right down to it, maybe more like ID Life Cycle Management. Whatever. Don't tell me about your favorite learning theory du jour (although I do expect that you have one). I don't really care which model you use, although I do hope that you use one. What I really care about is whether or not MY ID can do these things:

1. Determine real opportunities /consequences. Show me how a learning intervention can drive sales. Increase revenue. Open new markets. Create new lines of business. Attract new customers. Save money. Even if you are working in education or non-profits.
2. Propose solutions that respond to real problems/opportunities. Help me see what my alternatives are, give me scenarios to consider and help me make a good decision for moving ahead.
3. Socialize proposals with key stakeholders. Do you believe in your plan enough to pitch it? Can you persuade funders to your point of view? Can you articulate value, make the pitch, create some buzz?
4. Analyze solution requirements. What are you going to build? For whom? what does it need to do? How does it need to work? What platforms will you use?
5. Analyze customer requirements. This is much much more than thinking along the lines of whether one is a visual learner or an auditory learner. This has more to do with defining the attributes of the target market. The kinds of distribution and management requirements that need to be met, Funding cycles. Hiring cycles. Platforms. Networks.
6. Create Prototypes. More than a clickable model. Calls for research. Content development. Scripting. Storyboarding. Rough cuts. Final cuts.
7. Field Test solutions with stakeholders, customers. Collecting real data describing real life experiences of real live customers/users. Factoring in what people want.
8. Develop and produce solutions. Or finding the people who can produce it for you. It's product management, pure and simple. Developers, Coders, DB analysts. artists and programmers.
9. Launch the solution, get organizational buy-in and get systems online. Knowing how to get the word out, how to go to market. How to successfully socialize and roll out a new learning intervention. How to determine if everything is working and ready to rock and roll. Keeping the power on. Keeping the LMS up and running.
10. Evaluate, Summarize, Document. Building the assessments. Validating the screening tools. Summarizing costs, comparing to benefits. This also means having a handle on statistical methods, survey methods, evaluation methods as well as basic budgets and financials.

Whew. That's a lot. Maybe too much for one person. But maybe not. That's what's so great about thinking of this as an ID-cathelon. It's not for everyone. Only the best.

Lessons eLearned

This is the time of year for professional meetings and conferences. I'm not so fond of getting on a plane and flying off somewhere to attend the meetings - until I get there. However, it's always so energizing to meet F2F with people who are interested in the the same things that I am.

I just returned from several days in Vancouver, BC where I attended the Virtual School Society's annual LearnNowBC Conference. It was a great few days. There has been so much distance learning leadership from Canada over the years, I always find myself coming home from meetings like this with a whole new appreciation for what learning technologies help us achieve. I don't necessarily love technology - but I sure have become fond of the stuff that it lets us do.

As I listened to the various speakers and listened to the conversations that their remarks were generating I was reminded of how much and how long I've been tracking this space. I've studied it, researched it, evaluated it, learned more software that I could have ever have imagined to represent content used in its pursuit. Even got involved in helping design software used to build learning content. And even after all this time, there are certain truisms that never seem to change, in spite of all the spinning on the tech side of things.

My most important "lessons elearned" about learning and technology:

• First and foremost: Learning is a deeply personal act. It is facilitated when learning experiences are relevant, authentic, and engaging. Sometimes “doing learning unto others” demotivates and disengages the very people we hope to serve.

• Secondly, we've got to remember that different kinds of learning demand appropriate strategies, tools, and resources. THAT'S the TRUE blend to maximize learning outcomes!!! More than twenty years of empirical evidence underscore that there is no such thing as a “one size fits all” technology solution for learning.

• Technology may not guarantee better learning. But it can focus attention, attracting and maintaining a learner’s interest. It can engage by expressing, immersing, display, demonstrating, simulating. It creates connections and encourages collaborations. It allows us to have relationships with information in our own, unique ways.

• And finally (at least for this post) the better the experience the greater is the likelihood that learning will occur. And when technology can help strengthen learner motivation, focus attention, make a learning moment more memorable, or demonstrate the relevancy of learning to performance, the greater is the likelihood that technology will have a direct positive effect on learning.

You can find more about the context, background and research I summarized to come up with those four points in an article I wrote for the EDUCAUSE Review back in 2005 entitled Enabling Mobile Learning. These words still seem as true today as they did when I wrote them almost 5 years ago. Thanks for letting me share.

When the Rubber Hits the Road

Depending on who you talk to, instructional designers - IDs - are either (1) the learning and teaching-oriented people to turn to when it's time to come up with great ideas for an engaging learning experience, in a presentation or a video or an online class, or (2) technologically proficient people with an awareness of learning principles who develop, produce, distribute, and manage elearning assets and programs. 

Generally speaking, there has always been an expectation that IDs are technically competent learning specialists. Seems these days that the more dependent we are on the distribution and management of learning resources and experiences via technology, the more IDs feel the pressure to be technologists first, learning specialists second.

There is a concern in the worlds of technology, learning, elearning, distance learning, distributed learning, mlearning, virtual learning et al that perhaps IDs have lost their relevancy. In recent weeks I have seen tweets and blogposts positing that ID is an artifact of the 20th century, to deal with 20th century problems. Inferred in this statement is the notion that in the age of Web 2.0, Learning 2,0, eLearning 2.0 et al, that ID has got to go, that ID is already preprogrammed in many of the authoring tools du jour, so we don't really need it anymore.

I take a different position on the topic. For me ID represent the essential core of what makes our work unique when compared, say, to the work of a graphic artist or a web designer or an LMS administrator or a content author, or a technical writer or a research analyst.

Think about it: what do ILS, CBT, distance learning, distributed learning, elearning, mlearning, game based learning, virtual world learning et al have in common? They ALL depend upon the participation of instructional designers to ensure that learning goals are met. The systematic framework IDs use for problem-solving provides essential structure needed to respond to whatever kind of learning or performance support opportunity that may present itself, regardless of the technology framework or paradigm being used.

Does this mean that the skills needed for CBT are the same skills needed to be a good webinar facilitator? No, of course not. But it does suggest that anyone who calls themselves an ID who isn't always working on and modeling new media competence of some kind or another is not a particularly good ID. Because without THAT experience, it's impossible to anticipate what kinds of design competencies will serve learning best.

About a month ago I mentioned that my ID was less concerned about working to the specification of the ADDIE model, and was more concerned about producing solutions that empowered stakeholders to do more, better, faster. My ID is a decathelete, skilled not just in one or two area of professional activity, but in a full range of activities, each demanding the development of unique competencies and skills. I also mentioned that there are a lot of things that I expect my ID to be able to do even before we ever set eyes on each other - specifically, being an exceptional writer, a persuasive presenter, a technologically competent media producer/consumer and have a more than passing familiarity with and appreciation for design.

So when we get right down to what I want my IDs to be able to do it looks a bit more like the 10 item on the following list than it does on the ADDIE process model. In my experience, these are the places when the true ID rubber really hits the road:

(1) First, determine the "business" opportunity /consequences    

(2) Propose a solution that responds to a real problem/opportunity

(3) Socialize solution proposal among key stakeholders

(4) Analyze solution requirements

(5) Analyze customer requirements

(6) Create a Prototype

(7) Field Test with stakeholders, customers

(8) Develop, Produce, Implement

(9) Launch solution

(10) Document, Evaluate, Hold Post-mortem

Thoughts? Comments? Additions? With the understanding that each of these 10 points has depth, with additional competencies implied?

Join us for Learntrends, April 21-22

Ellen Wagner is Principal Analyst with Sage Road Solutions, LLC. This is her blog.

Please join me, Jay Cross, Tony Karrer, George Siemens, Marcia Conner, Clark Quinn, Charles Jenning, Curt Bonk and many others for a 24 hour global discussion on the future of organizational learning.

What is April Learntrends?
Learntrends is a series of online conversations among people with an interest in improving the process of learning in corporations and government. It’s the April installment of Corporate Learning Trends and Innovation.

Who may attend?
Learntrends welcomes anyone interested in organizational learning. We are expecting a diverse mix of newbies, old hands, managers, practitioners, specialists and generalists. We hope to have storytellers and provocative thinkers joining in.

When does Learntrends take place?
The conversations begin at 9:00 Pacific time on Tuesday, April 21, and conclude 24 hours later at 9:00 Pacific on Wednesday, April 22. As Jay has noted n his FAQ, at any given time, some participants will be in their pajamas, others will be huddled around conference room tables, while others will be enjoying a cigar on their yachts after sumptuous dinners.

My session at 11 am, where I will be joining Charles Jennings and Curt Bonk for a discussion on the profession, will be coming to you direct from the Red Carpet Club at the San Francisco International Airport. Please see the main event page for the schedule. No cigars or yachts for me this time.

For more information about Learntrends please take a look at Jay Cross's FAQs for participating in the April, 2009 event.

Here is the link for joining the Elluminate session. You don't need to register, just be sure to check your system before logging in, and you should be good to go.

Talk to you in a few!

Learning in Less than 140 Characters

Ellen Wagner is principal analyst with Sage Road Solutions, LLC. This is her blog.

I lurked on one of Marcia Conner's LearnChats (#lrnchat) tonight on my Tweetdeck. It was great. I follow Marcia, Clark Quinn and several others who participated in this evening real-time microblogging event so I *think* I have a pretty good idea of what people were talking about, just from reading their various tweets. Was interested and amused to see that the topic of discussion was, ta-daa...IDs. I watched microblog after microblog roll past asking about what we should be calling IDs these days, what IDs should be able to do, how IDs should try designing for iPhones, that ID is a 20 century solution to a 20th century problem. Is instructional design still relevant? An ID isn't just someone who thinks they can teach.

It was fun to participate in the virtual conversation. It's quite satisfying to see so many people concerned about the future of the profession, the roles that we play, the things that learning professionals who design digital experiences need to do differently in the future. Marcia Conner. Clark Quinn. Mark Oehlert. Kris Rockwell. Cammy Bean. Jay Cross. Clive Shepherd. Curt Bonk. Venudhar Bhatt, Tony Karrer. I know that the eLearning Guild is sponsoring ID Forums this summer and I know that they have webinars in the works. It's good to know that so many of the big minds of the profession are taking a good hard look at this.

PS. A Summary of Classic ID Models

Ellen Wagner is a learning industry analyst with a passion for sustaining innovation and accelerating enterprise adoption of technologies for education, training and performance support. This is her blog.

Allison Rossett once wrote an article for Performance & Instruction magazine that described how I tried to teach her to cross-country ski and did the whole thing wrong. Having just seen Allison this past week I am mindful of always striving to do my best and to do things the right way.

I have made a number of references to Instructional Design models without providing clear or direct access to those models. I expect that, for those who have not had the experience of having the models drummed into your head by your ID professor, it's all a bit like code. Here is a very brief de-coder. I found a very nice introduction to ID models that Dr. Steve McGriff, San Jose State University, prepared for his EDIT 226 class a few years ago. The whole thing is posted here. Download Models. I have extracted 4 instructional design models from his handout that will be familiar to those of us who have taken graduate courses in ID in an American University in the past 20 years.

NOTE: The Assure Model, below, is the one that Sharon Smaldino was talking about in my last post.

Enjoy!

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The ID Grrlz are Alright

Ellen Wagner is a learning industry analyst with a passion for sustaining innovation and accelerating enterprise adoption of technologies for education, training and performance support. This is her blog.

I had the opportunity to spend Friday in Marina del Rey with several very smart women who have had significant impact on how I think about instructional design (ID). Serendipitously, it also happens that two of them are the authors of two very important non-ADDIE models that have been used for designing formal learning for more than 20 years. It seemed like a perfect opportunity to ask a few pointed questions about the roles that models play.

I joined Doctors/Professors J. Ana Donalson, (Northern Iowa University), Sharon Smaldino, (Northern Illinois University), Allison Rossett, (San Diego State University) and MaryFriend Shepherd (Walden University) to talk about leadership and management in educational technology.  A video crew from Laureate Education, Inc. recorded a series of panel discussions and individual interviews with each and all of us for use in Walden ET classes later this year.

If I were to tell you about the credentials and achievements of my co-panelists I would run out of space for today's post so please take a look at the link for each to get the full picture of their diva achievements.

I've known each from back when I was a baby assistant professor who hung around the big dogs hoping they would let me play with them. They held the interventions when I left teaching to get involved with my first company. We've watched each other's careers take off and mature over the years. It was wonderful to reconnect with people who have been a part of my evolution - my ID Grrlz. I told them I would name a blog post after us. Here it is :-)

I mostly told them about my recent posts about instructional designers and pontificated a bit on the need to get serious about upgrading ID skills for the future of new media.  They made me wear the devil horns in the segment we did on "The Many Hats of Leadership and Management".  Coincidence?

As it goes, Sharon is one of the authors of the ASSURE model, used by instructional technologists who are supporting classroom teachers in schools at all levels. It is also taught to students in NCATE -approved teacher education programs by virtue of being featured in THE textbook used for "technology in teaching" classes required for teacher certification. As it also goes, Allison is one of the authors of the Human Performance Technology (HPT) Model, used to differentiate between designing instruction, and designing performance improvement solutions that may not demand a class. (In other words, the HPT model helps designers conceptualize ANY kind of performance improvement solution, from instruction to informal learning solutions.)

All agreed that ID models are best served as heuristics, "rules of thumbs", that help a designer navigate his or her way through the process of designing learning solutions and experiences. All agreed that sometimes instruction is just the right solution to improve learning and performance, and that sometimes more informal performance support at the point of need is better. (Sidenote - "learning" and "performance" are not necessarily the same thing in this world. It's worth a post of its own. Some other time, tho.) All agreed that models are very effectively used to help newbies conceptualize the abstract process used for creating experiences that maximize the probability for bringing about a change in learning, behavior or performance. But all agreed that the model is the means to the end, not the be-all and end all in its own right.

Sharon was telling me about the exercise she does with her students to work through the ASSURE model, and how she asks them to take out different parts of the model and see how the process of instructional design works (or doesn't). By the end of the course, the students are asked to design instruction without the model. At that point the students can appreciate the heuristic beauty of the systematic process of instructional design.

And that's when it dawned on me.

If one accepts the premise that models are used primarily with newby instructional designers, then it would follow that the fastest way to show that one was no longer a newby is to break away from the tightly held standardized ID model and add one's own "signature moves" (Remember, designers are artists who create with function and form). And so we use the model like training wheels on a bike, to keep us from tipping over before we really know how to ride.

Here's where it gets tricky. Just at the moment that a new designer gets a job in training or HR or IT or Instructional Support, thinks that the training wheels are off the ID bike and that it's finally time to create engaging, inspiring learning experiences, they learn the hard truth.  ID in practice is sometimes even more locked down to a prescribed ID model, and it's locked down because it is used as an algorithm, not a heuristic. Learning enterprises sometimes feel the need to keep training wheels on the bike, keep everyone safe, traveling at a manageable speed, having everybody doing things, in systematic, reliable, repeatable ways.

No wonder IDs feel disoriented. Just about the time we get our wings, we get clipped back to something that may be more rote than we'd expected.

What's a creative, resourceful ID to do??

Where ID Comes From

Ellen Wagner is a learning industry analyst with a passion for sustaining innovation and accelerating enterprise adoption of technologies for education, training and performance support. This is her blog.

Some of the questions I've seen in recent days about ID, ADDIE and other related topics remind me that some of us coming to the practice of ID haven't necessarily been exposed to the depth and breadth of ID's epistemological underpinnings. 

Quick History of ID

So, for those of you who have come to the practice through engineering, graphic design, HR, or  business, here is a quick history. With its roots in behavioral psychology, the professional practice that we now call ID first emerged in the 1920s. This was right around the same time that Thomas Edison declared that his moving picture machine would make textbooks obsolete. Another way of saying that the links between ID and learning and between iD and technology are long-standing.

ID ultimately came into its own thanks to its successful use for training large numbers of soldiers during World War II. In those days ID was all about stimulus - response learning. By the late 1940s, developments in communications technologies (specifically TV) pushed us toward Sender/Receiver, Feedback/Response metaphors.

In the early 1960s IDs gravitated away from behavioral and communications-based approaches and moved toward computer models that considered inputs, process workflows, and outcomes. By the 1970s the discipline we now know as Instructional systems design (ISD) jumpstarted programmed instruction and computer-assisted-instruction. Cognition reintroduced the notion of learning-as memory, not just learning as behavior.

In the 1980s Digital era, the focus was to move learning content into digital forms that could be distributed via "sneakernet" - disks, CDs, videodisks. The divestiture of AT&T started converging computers with telephony and TV.

In the Web 1.0 era, ID has been marked by greater dependence upon online courses and digital learning content creation and networked distribution. Distance learning. Our ability to construct relatively personal learning experiences gives rise to constructivism. We started becoming reliable, scalable, repeatable. The emergence of "eLearning" started bringing many new practitioners to the practice - people who knew how to code and script and build the back-end data bases, who could create animations and websites. People who knew how to administer program and manage a training management system / learning management system / learning content management system / content management system. We also cared about our networks and connections. But what about testing and assessment and evaluation?

Web 2.0 technologies have enabled greater interactivity, richer digital experience, and far more mobility that ever before. While it would be tough to shake behavioral training altogether, today's models of learning engagement depend more upon social learning theories.

What IDs have needed, currently need, and must be able to do in the future

Whether one is dealing with representative media, digital media, Web 1.0 media or 2.0 participative media, In each and all of these venues, IDs must be able to......drumroll, please....

• Analyze the learner, the context, the situation.
• Design an intervention.
• Develop and produce it.
• Implement it.
• Evaluate it.

Whether its ILT or CBT, eLearning or mLearning, 2.0 or 1,0. IDs are responsible for managing the conditions , inputs and outcomes of experiences that actively promote and enable an improvement in learning and performance. Yes, IDs DO need to understand the technology du jour, of that there is no doubt. But in my experience, an ID is not necessarily someone who identifies him or herself by the technology tools that they use.

So for those who don't understand why we haven't come up with more than ADDIE. Well, in fact, we have. Let's us not forget Dick & Carey, Reiser & Dick. Heinich, Molenda, Russell and Smaldino's ASSURE Model. Kemp, Ragan & Smith. Merrill. Reigeluth. Rossett. Tessmer & Grabinger. Ryder. To name just a very few.

Mostly we talk about ADDIE because it's shorthand. We all know what it is. It's easy, it's non-contextual, it's media-independent. It helps guide new practitioners who don't have a lot of experience so they stay on "on design". It provide structure, which seems to engender predictable, quantifiable results.

But ID is much more than any single process model. And my ID is more than a multimedia content author. Not that there's anything wrong with that, of course.

How do your IDs help transform intangible information assets into things of great business or epistemological value?

My Prerequisites for IDs

Ellen Wagner is a learning industry analyst with a passion for sustaining innovation and accelerating enterprise adoption of technologies for education, training and performance support. This is her blog.

My interests in this ongoing discussion about instructional design competencies are both professional and personal. I have always been drawn to the way that one can structure, direct and produce a learning experience very much in the way that one can construct a museum exhibit, or art-direct a photograph, or write a screen play. Today I continue to be drawn by the possibilities for ID that are emerging at the intersections of RIAs, social networking, new media, e-publishing and mobility and games. 

Today's IDs are guided by an instructional design/media model that virtually every aspiring teacher and certified learning professional in America must learn. And that model, of course, is ADDIE, the Analysis-Design-Development-Implement-Evaluate model that I have been poking at in the last several posts.

My issues with ADDIE have nothing to do with the model. It's a fine model. My issue rests with the naive expectation on the part of some that knowledge of the 5-step ADDIE process model is the same thing, or as good as, knowing how to do all of the things called for in each step of the model. And that is just not the way it is.

One of the biggest "a-Ha" moments of my ID career came after years of seeing ID models as a way to guide our professional processes. I came to understand that value is realized from ID models when they are used to guide production - of solutions, of interventions, of digital learning products. A focus on production suggests that something real is being created. In other words, an ID model may serve us better as a product model rather than a process model. For better or worse, a " process model" suggests "that which someone should be able to do", without insisting that one can actually do that which is being specified.

This would suggest that before one even gets to the point of thinking about ADDIE as a product model, there are some prerequisite skills to be mastered. In order to be productive and all.

There are essential things that an aspiring ID - well, an aspiring new media professional of any kind - will be well-served to know. Even before analyzing audience requirements, or producing a solution to a learning or performance problem, or creatively express ideas and information in digital form, or measuring the impact of a lesson on knowledge or performance. If an ID model can effectively guide production, than all IDs must be able to produce.

First, one must be able to express oneself effectively in writing, using a variety of forms and styles to achieve different effects. Of course this means emails, blogs, IMs and tweets. But also means knowing how to write a variety of types of documents, including things like a status report, a review of professional literature, a market analysis, a course syllabus, a creative brief, a grant proposal or two or three, project proposals, a statements of work, a bid for services, white papers, press releases, website copy, research proposals, case studies, a business case or two, a concept specification. If only I'd known.

Second, one must know how to present ideas to others in such a way as to inform, engage, persuade and to get a response to a call for action.This means expressing oneself verbally, both with and without a variety of presentation media, using a range of forms and styles.  This includes public speaking, conference presentations, teaching, training, briefings. But it's more about learning the psychology of persuasion, overcoming objections, inspiration, engagement and motivation.

Third, one must develop a moderate level of technological proficiency, and will need to be able to demonstrate those proficiencies using a variety of software. Powerpoint, Excel, Word. Photoshop. Premiere Elements. Garage Band. Illustrator, Fireworks. Web tools. SWF tools. Acrobat or some kind of PDF/ portfolio platform. Web conferencing platforms. Social media tools. User-generated media production. Yes, you really do.

Fourth, one must have an appreciation for design. So many instructional designers jump into the work without have a broad view of the process of determining the form, function, appearance or characteristics of something. There are many categories of design, including graphic design, industrial design, fashion design, and interior design. For some, design is closely linked to art and can be considered the expression of an artistic aesthetic in a practical environment. For others, design is a process of specification, composition and construction. A large element of contemporary industrial design is web design, which includes both the technical and aesthetic aspects of creating websites. Increasingly, rich internet application design emphasizes user experience, demanding even more sophisticated design sensibilities.

My .02, anyway.