Pédagogie & Technologie

"Learning — to some it is the sound of chalk on blackboards,  the search through stacks of scribbled notes, and backpacks full of heavy textbooks. For others with a less traditional lens, learning is the summoning of professors with a click of a mouse, assignments no longer living on paper, but in a cloud, and the ‘classroom’ being everywhere. Education has changed considerably in recent years and we don’t expect it to slow down anytime soon."

Let me just get this off my chest--instructional design sometimes feels too academic, too stodgy. Sometimes it feels like the entire profession is stuck back in the 1950’s or 60’s. Perhaps it’s the way instructional design is still taught today or perhaps it’s just the way it’s practiced. Our systematic approach to instructional design often yields training that is too similar to the last course we produced; today’s training looks remarkably similar to the training from 10 years ago.

Where’s the true innovation in learning? Where’s the creativity? How do we design solutions that actually engage our learners?

What will learning look like in the latter half of the 21st century or 22nd century? How do we get there from here?

I’m not saying that innovative solutions aren’t out there, I’m just saying I want to find them. I want to study them. I want to build them.

I want to talk to others about instructional design challenges and opportunities with all the excitement and passion that NASA scientists must have felt when they heeded President Kennedy’s challenge to land mankind on the moon. Instructional design as its taught and practiced today just doesn’t do that for me. I don’t want to discuss criterion-referenced testing anymore. I don’t want to talk about cognitive load theory. I don’t want to discuss the merits (or lack thereof) of ADDIE.