I recently contributed an essay to the inaugural issue of the Journal of Applied Instructional Design. This is a new journal, sponsored by the Association for Educational Communications and Technology, aimed at giving the ID scholar - practitioner greater voice. I contributed an essay, called "In Search of Secret Handshakes of Instructional Design", that talked about the importance of finding the "know 'em when we seen 'em" attributes for recognizing fellow ID practitioners when we encounter them on the long and winding road to enterprise learning. I also observed that theoretical foundations guiding the study of the evolution of a field can fall awkwardly out of alignment with the evolution of a professional practice, particularly one so directly affected by the speed of technological change.
Here is a link to the full essay.
And here is a 5 minute summary:
Whether we use a constructivistic approach, a social learning approach, a connectionistic approach or a behavioral approach, IDs produce value through the design, development and distribution of learning solutions. We used to look more like teachers, trainers and psychologists than artists, scripters or programmers, but that balance seems to have shifted a bit. Today's IDs work with technology tools, because so much of today's learning and performance support is enabled / managed / distributed via technology. IDs create learning content and courseware. But IDs are not just elearning content authors, either. IDs are also engaged in supporting and enabling distance learning's web collaborations and with mobile learning's apps and mediacasts, too. AND running the LMS.
IDs used to mostly come to the practice out of graduate instructional design and educational technology programs. Today, perhaps as many as two-thirds of today's ID practitioners come to the practice of ID from applied settings. We come from creative professions (e.g. artists, designers, producers). We became IDs when assigned with learning and development responsibilities. We are the IT professional who is put in charge of the enterprise LMS. We are the training manager who gets put in charge of the new elearning – mobile learning – game based learning – virtual world learning – initiative that the enterprise wants to explore.
Regardless of our epistemological roots, our professional training, the number of or lack of our graduate degrees or the places where we work, we call ourselves IDs.
Do we know how to recognize each other when we see each other??
(Of course it will. You don't think I would get this all queued up and walk away do you??)
The internet is truly an amazing place when you can connect with old acquaintances through somewhat bizarre technology means. I currently subscribe to Stephen Downes' "OLDaily" e-line. He included the JAID in a headline today, where he also mentioned Ellen.
Though I don't expect you to remember me Ellen, we first met, I believe, at the NSPI conference in Toronto in 1990. You were the "distant learning guru." I was one of the new guys (MS ED-ID, 1989) trying to drink water from a fire hydrant and meet as many gurus as possible (Gilbert, Harless, Gagne, Mager, Rummler, etc.). That's what my former boss, Judy Hale, expected of me...and I remain forever thankful for that.
Being in the job market again, trying to continue a so far successful 22 years of consistent employment as a performance consultant, I am amazed by the variety of job titles companies use to describe IDs and the terms they use to describe their "training departments." But when I happen to talk with a recruiter or hiring manager, we usually learn right away that we are connected via the "secret handshake." In other words, if they know ID, we can usually connect immediately. It's the ones who don't know ID, who just want someone to create cool Articulate courses, that I walk away from pretty quickly.
Glad to re-connect.
Craig Polak
[email protected]
Posted by: Craig Polak | November 16, 2011 at 01:54 PM
Do you recall in 1998 when you designed (instructional design) and produced "The Online Certificate in Fundraing" and in 1998 we decided to add an audio portion to each module? What fun - we wrote a script and hired a professional actor to create the audios. Along with all of our hyperlinks -we had a multimedia elearning program and we were very proud.
Posted by: Libby | May 18, 2011 at 10:30 AM
Hi Ellen,
That was an excellent essay and I agree that IDs need to expand our universe. Like the field of cognitive science, Instructional Design is really a synthesis of many disciplines, even if it is it's own discipline. Depending on the context, we might be product developers, edutainment designers, curriculum specialists, promoters of social learning and supporters of informal learning. That's why I love this field!
Best,
Connie Malamed
Posted by: Connie Malamed | April 27, 2011 at 03:22 AM
Ellen, great article!
It's really interesting to read this when coming from the corporate space, where I see teams and individuals that sometimes have a lot of tech/multimedia skill, but not much grounding in ID theory. Are they better off or worse than academics with no practical experience?
I used to think what we needed was more research into the effectiveness of different approaches. I still believe that, but now I see companies as the natural place for that research to happen, in the form of learner analytics, rather than at universities. It's disheartening sometimes to see how little companies are interested in measuring the effectiveness of their training solutions, because without measurement, the CCBB-ers win.
Hmm, maybe I should have posted this on one of your previous posts instead...
Posted by: Judy Unrein | April 25, 2011 at 11:30 AM