Introduction
My name is Lori Wright and I am a graduate student at Walden University studying instructional design and technology. I am embarking on a new journey into corporate training, design, and instruction with a background in elementary education and speech and language therapy. I chose three professional blogs to explore and reflect upon to broaden my understanding of the instructional design field.
https://www.scissortailcs.com/blog
This is a unique blog developed by an experienced instructional designer of fifteen years named, Kayleen Holt, who later in life became disabled. She has a unique perspective and discusses the true meaning of accessibility and inclusive design from her personal account. It is important to consider that disabilities such as dyslexia are not always seen. Simple access to material is not necessarily inclusive. True inclusivity must include the understanding, perception, and vision of people with disabilities in the design process. There is still a great deal to be learned in this area. With my background in teaching special education students, I am interested in learning more by following this blog and contributing to the thinking about the way people learn, especially people with special needs.
https://elearningfeeds.com/blog/devlin-peck
https://www.shiftelearning.com/blog
Aura Interactiva is the developer of the Shift company. Since 1996, they have been offering solutions to meet the training needs of all types of companies, small and large. They have a mission to "revolutionize online training one screen at a time". They do it all, including planning, set-up, development, and implementation. I chose to follow their blog to gain insight from a large corporation that has been in the field for twenty-five years. They are innovative and relevant with such blog posts about solutions for the top three mobile learning challenges. Their research found that 64% of workers said that training on their phones is a must. With advances in technology, the instructional design field changes rapidly and this company seems prepared. I'd like to continue to follow their blog to continue to keep up with the pace of technological changes that affect the field.
Conclusion
The three blogs I have chosen to follow will offer me a diverse professional community of learning. It will include the varying scope from an independent freelancer to a large corporation. It will offer learning theory discussions as well as practical skill set development ideas. A unique and not yet well-researched area on the forefront will be the idea of true accessibility and inclusivity beyond compliance. Gaining a wide variety of awareness in this new field is a great starting point.
Thank you for the blogs you recommended. In the shift learning blog, I located the article The #1 Reason Your Employees Are Complaining About Your eLearning Courses (And How To Fix It) by Admin. They offer some great suggestions on how to make the eLearning courses more impactful and desirable to employees. The main solution is to offer courses the employees need and want to improve their skills and are relevant to their job (Shift, 2021). As an employee, I would love to have courses that are more relevant to the position and would help me excel at it. However, I realize that not all courses can fit that criteria and some are required due to federal or safety regulations. For those situations, one perspective that I would like to add, is it could be helpful to communicate the vision of the company and the need for the courses to attain that vision. Beach (2006) states, “the vision infuses the plan with energy because it gives it direction and defines long-term objectives” (p.51). If it is communicated properly, the employees will understand the necessity of the courses that are time consuming and potentially tedious. Employees want their organization to succeed and they will be more likely to participate willingly in the parts that are less than favorable if they understand the need for it (Bolman & Deal, 2008). Communication is the key to creating the buy in needed for the necessary but difficult courses. McAllaster (2004) states “informed is better than uninformed and misinformed” (p.323). When the courses are offered to help improve employee performance the key is making it relevant to their position but when the courses are something needed to achieve the vision of the company, communication is the solution in that case.
ReplyDeleteBeach, L. R. (2006). Leadership and the art of change: A practical guide to organizational transformation. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, Inc.
Bolman, L. G., & Deal, T. E. (2008). Reframing organizations: Artistry, choice, and leadership. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass
McAllaster, C. M. (2004). The 5 P’s of change: Leading change by effectively utilizing leverage points within an organization. Organizational Dynamics. 33(3), 318– 328.
The #1 Reason Your Employees Are Complaining About Your eLearning Courses (And How To Fix It), Shift Disruptive Learning (2010). Retrieved by https://www.shiftelearning.com/blog/why-employees-are-complaining-about-your-training
By Jennifer Tyche
DeleteFollowing the Scissortails blog has piqued my interest! When reading the blog for the first time, I could feel the passion for creating accessible content and it is contagious. I am a new master's student pursuing instructional design and technology. I have a background in early childhood education and speech and language therapy. Sometimes general education teachers lack training in addressing learning for students with special needs. Sadly, true inclusion becomes an afterthought and it seems like compassion is missing.
ReplyDeleteI love the statements that it shouldn’t be hard to have empathy! After all, that’s what makes our human brains different from computers. Learning is humanistic with emotional factors intertwined (Laureate Education, n.d.). I am excited to use my empathy for this special community of learners to learn instructional design techniques that are accessible right from the start of my new journey, rather than as an afterthought. This is a great guide with straightforward and practical tips. Sometimes people who have not experienced inadvertently being excluded, have never really thought about what is the right thing to do. I love that too! I am always telling my students that we are doing something because it is the right thing to do and it doesn’t matter if someone is watching you or not because you feel the joy in your heart when you know you are doing the right thing.
I’d like to add what I discovered on the following webpage: https://www.edsurge.com/news/2018-05-09-how-can-we-improve-accessibility-through-instructional-design-dlnchat. There is a great graphic that depicts people with accessibility needs and it is more inclusive than one may initially think! The #DLNchat community discussed improving accessibility through instructional design. After exploring the discussion, I found what Phyllis Brodsky said was exactly my initial thought. She said, “The commitment to accessibility should be authentic, not rote, and upfront, not an afterthought” (Sano, 2018).
Initially in the design process, considering the LMS that works well for accessibility is important. Canvas and Blackboard Ally were mentioned as good choices. Would you agree? Are there other ones that work equally well?
#DLNchat-ters agreed that developing an “institutional culture committed to access through collaboration” is important (Sano, 2018). I am reminded that although organizational cultural change can be very difficult, it doesn’t have to arise only from gifted leaders. Each person in a company can take ownership in developing its culture and vision (Beach, 2006). Trish Briere, one of the #DLNchat-ters stated, “One of the key components is to move beyond providing retroactive access for student with disabilities and toward proactive access designed for all learners” (Sano, 2018). I agree with her vision and I am glad to be entering the field at this time to contribute to furthering this type of vision and culture. I look forward to learning more.
References
Beach, L. R. (2006). Follow-Through: Institutionalizing Change. In Leadership and the art of change: A practical guide to organizational transformation (pp. 113–130). Sage Publications, Inc.
Information processing and the brain [Video]. (n.d.). Laureate Education. class.waldenu.edu
Sano, M. (2018, May 9). Digital learning in higher ed. EdSurge. Retrieved May 20, 2021, from https://www.edsurge.com/news/2018-05-09-how-can-we-improve-accessibility-through-instructional-design-dlnchat
What a wonderful layout to the beginning of your blog. You picked two strong blogs for you to follow to help you(and all of us in Walden University)on your journey to earn your master's degree. I am very curious as to your thoughts on following just one person who is obviously selling his services(https://elearningfeeds.com/blog/devlin-peck>
ReplyDeleteAs a former professor and current Instructional Designer, I have always maintained the idea that a designer should not create in a "vacuum". What I mean by this is that when it comes to creation, one set of thoughts and eyes on a project is never enough. Yes, you could stay up on the trends with that gentleman's blog but how do you know that the audience that he is trying to reach is the same that you want to with your project? I read a strong study on this recently by Jusslin & Ostern(2020), the study looked at a 5th grade class and not only had educators attempt to create the lesson they added a dance teacher and researcher to the creative mix. The study identified many different strong ways to teach the kids the reading and writing lesson.
I. myself, taught for years the same way to the classes that I designed. Now as an Instructional Designer, I am having to figure out different ways to "reach" my learners. Wouldn't following an individual, who is selling their skills, perhaps limit your and your amazing creative thoughts? Just wondering.
Suzanne Newsham
Jusslin, S., & Østern, T. P. (2020). Entanglements of Teachers, Artists, and Researchers in Pedagogical Environments: A New Materialist and Arts-Based Approach to an Educational Design Research Team. International Journal of Education & the Arts, 21(26).