eLearning Design: Methodology & Tools

I have always believed that the design process is a highly collaborative one that should integrate all team members and subject matter experts. When teams of talented people come together the outcomes are almost always stronger. I am of the philosophy that instructional designers should work very hard at being very good designers — instead of the traditional view that designers do everything. I think it is critical to place all sorts of diverse talent together and let them focus on what they do best. In this way, all team members contribute to the piece of the puzzle that they are strongest at.

When I came to the Solutions Institute I had experience designing both eLearning and commercial training applications … coming from the small company I was with in the corporate world taught me the value of methodologies to support huge project loads on tight timelines and budgets. I have also worked in higher education settings where the process followed is the “no process” model. In this sense, you are left on your own to create a course without the support of a team, a process, or a standard toolset. That doesn’t scale and it often leads to failure. Out of these experiences I have made it a priority to put process, tools, and teams first when designing instruction. This is the real reason why I have worked so hard at putting these methods and tools together.

The Methodology

In the systematic design of instruction it is critical to utilize a solid methodology. To this end, when I was brought in to start the Solutions Institute, I laid the foundation for the four-tier methodology. This customized method relies heavily on traditional ID processes, but simplifes the approach. It also takes advantage of a very collaborative tier — the Instructional Media Plot to bring all members of the team together in a series of active brainstorming sessions to collaborativly design courses. It is in this tier that I really wanted to differintiate our approach from traditional methologies.

This process relies on four phases, or tiers, and is built on a revision foundation. The tiers of this process consist of:

By tying project management strategies to our methodology, I can ensure that the project will be completed on time, within scope, and on budget. Furthermore this makes it very simple to gain huge efficiencies by overlapping teams and individuals on multiple projects.

Tools and Methods Work Together

The foundations of this methodology are built on my custom design and development toolset, the D3 System. This is a distinguishing characteristic of the process; the tools support the methodology and vice versa. That is a critical piece to the overall puzzle of designing, growing, and maintaining a scalable eLearning initiative. I have always believed that typical CMS tools lack the critical pieces that make an eLearning toolset viable — content management, instructional strategy guidance, team communication, and project management. These are the components that have made D3 such a successful toolset for creating and maintaing large bodies of eLearning content.

The tools and the methodologies were implemented in tandem so they support one another throughout the courseware creation process. The tools, when separated from the methodologies are not nearly as powerful. This is not to say that the D3 toolset is not a powerful authoring environment, but rather it is the core technology that supports a team as they move through the methodology. D3 handles tasks, scheduling, and course publishing to enable a very streamlined design, development, and revision cycle.

Delivery Options

I have always been a firm believer of keeping content separate from presentation … this isn’t a new thought, it is the underlying principle behind D3. This led me to build an authoring system that let’s you manage your content that isn’t bound by any one delivery toolset. In this way, people aren’t tied to ANGEL, WebCT, BlackBoard, or any other integrated LMS. Course materials are published as stand alone objects and are integrated (or linked) into the LMS. This isn’t rocket science, but eight years ago, lots of people scratched their heads when I’d discuss it with them.

I feel as though it is just as true today — although I am really starting to wonder how it would work inside a multi-user blogging system to support collaboration. At the moment I push using the Edison Services tools we created at the Institute as the delivery toolset that binds a course together. I know I’ve posted about the concept of the syllabus as the hub to the eClassroom … it has worked well for me, but I could just as easily drop my D3 generated content into an LMS and go.

As we move towards stronger standards in the object space I think we’ll see smaller pieces more loosely joined to create classroom experiences. Things like text (html, pdf, etc) coupled with podcasts, audio books, interactive exercises, and other objects loosely pulled together by an application like Edison. At any rate the idea that you can generate your content — no matter what form its in — separate from your delivery toolset is going to be ever-increasingly important.

I’m sure at some point I’ll revisit some of this, but I just thought it was time to write down some of the ancient history of myself … more as a sign-post to let me know where I’ve been and to remind myself why I think the way I do. Let me know what you think.

More and More Podcasting Stuff

Everytime I visit apple.com these days it seems like they are doing more and more with podcasting … how about this page that provides all sorts of Automator Actions to support podcasting. I mean the actions themselves aren’t earth shattering, but the mere fact that they have embraced it on so many fronts makes me happy. At any rate, enjoy!

Podcasts are Everywhere

While I was at NECC, Apple had a group of Apple Distinguished Educators there doing podcasts with people who are into/shaping/impacting teaching and learning with technology … not saying I am one of those people, but they did take me out to breakfast to talk about all sorts of things that get me excited. We decided not to do our little talk back at the hotel and walked down the street to a little coffee place to have some lunch and talk. I imagine it was a funny sight to see us sitting in the corner with the audio guys hanging boom mics at us … I love the background noises — the coffee grinders, people talking, and the music make it so much more authentic.At any rate, here is the link to the podcast … It was a lot of fun talking with Barnaby Wasson about all sorts of stuff that we both seemed to enjoy. It is sort of funny as I had attended his podcasting session the night before and I did a quick iPod podcast with him. For some reason, it just seemed like the right thing to do — podcast from a podcasting session. If you are interested, take a listen.

With the new iTunes 4.9, this whole podcasting stuff finally seems as though it is being demystified. The new iTunes makes getting podcasts so much easier … and the new QuickTime makes making them easier … now all we need is a good way to serve them up. I bet it isn’t too far off! Hey, it was also kind of cool seeing my name in the new podcast directory in iTunes!

Easy Podcasting …

I just saw this page over at Apple discussing how easy it is to create a podcast with QuickTime Pro 7 … sure has gotten a heck of a lot easier in the last few months than when I started getting into this stuff.

First Student Podcast … Actually Really Well Done

I know I’ve been talking about the Blogs@PGSIT space for some time now … well the program is a week old and the space is a hit. What is even cooler is that the first videos and podcasts are making it to the site. The first podcast is really well done. The scholars talk about the role (pros v cons) of computer mediated communication … what sort of blows my mind is that I didn’t assign that at all! Furthermore, I didn’t tell them how to do this stuff — either from a technical side or a style side. They just showed up in our new podcast studio and laid down a great podcast. It might be worth subscribing to the site’s feed (via iTunes 4.9 of course) and listen to them as they come through.

NECC Podcast Interview

While I was at NECC, Apple had a group there doing podcasts with Apple Distinguished Educators … kinda cool seeing my name in the new podcast directory in iTunes! At any rate, here is the link directly to the entry. It was a lot of fun talking with Barnaby Wasson the other day about all sorts of stuff. We decided not to do our little talk back at the hotel and walked down the street to a little spot to have some lunch and talk. I imagine it was a funny sight to see us sitting in the corner with the audio guys (great guys by the way … Kevin and Ross were tops) hanging boom mics at us … I love the background noises — the coffee grinders, people talking, and the music make it so much more authentic. At any rate, if you’re interested take a listen. The pictures below let you in on a little secret … there was actually a crew there.

iTunes Fix … Sorta

The other day before I left for NECC, I upgraded my main machine’s iTunes to 4.9 to take advantage of the podcasting features … if you recall, my library got crushed. I got back last night and reimported all my music — minus the playlists, ratings, and play counts. That is a little bothersome, but you do what you do. It is actually giving me a cahnce to sort of “reset” my musical life. I just did my podcast subscriptions and resynced my iPod — yeah that got crushed too. At any rate, other than my little issue, the new iTunes with podcasting is great!

Podcasting Event at NECC

I went to the podcasting event at NECC last night. I was blown away by the number of people that showed up — they had to do a second session to get most of them in. Really sort of makes you think there is somthing big to this podcasting thing … at any rate, I had a chance to talk with the speaker, Barnaby Wasson afterwards and I captured it as, you guessed it, a podcast. Barnaby talked about what podcasting is and some interesting and novel uses for it. I am still just blown away by how packed the room was. Apple demonstrated, in a very complete way, how podcasting works in iTunes 4.9 … what was even more impressive was how it works with the iPod — in a word, wow! The bookmarks, with the ability to change and annotate images is just amazing. I downloaded the tool that lets you do that (still in beta), but it a terminal app at the moment. All in all, well done Apple! My little iTunes problems aside, this is an amazing point upgrade.

The other thing that really impresses me about the whole iPod/iTunes space is the team that Apple has pushing it. They really believe they have a device that can change what we do in and out of the classroom. Its always great to see smart people with passion talking about what they are doing. Nice job! Also, Barnaby is a great speaker and I can see why he is an Apple Distinguished Educator. At any rate, listen to the Podcast … sorry its a little big … I’m in a hurry to get it out there.