Daily Bookmarks 10/02/2007

Are the Basics of Instructional Design Changing? ~ Stephen’s Web ~ by Stephen Downes  Annotated

• 2005 article from Stephen Downes on instructional design. Behaviorism and cognitivism are contrasted with constructivism and connectivism. He writes about the importance of the context of learning, especially as it relates to distributed knowledge.
   – post by christyinsdesign

Two major sets of affordances offered in online learning are not found in traditional learning. First, online, communication occurs not through a channel, but through a network. And second, communication flows not merely through a passive medium but through a computational environment…

The theory of distributed representation has a profound implication for pedagogy, as it suggests that learning (and teaching, such as it is) is not a process of communication, but rather, a process of immersion. Put loosely, it suggests the idea of teaching not by telling or even demonstrating but rather through the creation (or identification) of an environment into which a learner may be immersed.

elearnspace. Context: Planning for the space of learning  Annotated

• George Siemens writes about problems with traditional instructional design processes and suggests we change our focus to context rather than content.
   – post by christyinsdesign

The very intent of ISD, however, is its weakness – namely making explicit intended learning and planning clear, concise approaches to achieving intended outcomes. Clearly defining learning assumes “things won’t change” (content, nature of interactions, changes in related disciplines which impact the information being discussed) between the point of design and the point of learning. This may work for many fields – especially where change is not significant – but models which neglect the adaptive nature of learning and the emergent structure of interactions are less appropriate to today’s work environments than they were in the past…

As stated, instructional design needs to make two substantial changes:

1. Stop seeing learning design as a task that occurs in advance of the intended learning, and begin to see it as a part of the learning process itself
2. Begin to focus more on the context of learning (designing environments of learning) and less so on the intended content of the learning activities (course, workshop, or program)

Brenda’s Piano Studio – Online Recital

• Online piano recital with Voicethread–what a cool use of this technology!
   – post by christyinsdesign