ETEC 561: Learning with Technology

Section V in our readings for the week addresses trends and issues in instructional design technology in various fields. I will compare the business industries, military, and healthcare education. I will then compare the three to the education field, which is my current career field. Business and Industry The business and industry sector is one of the primary fields for ID as there has been a growing need to improve human performance. There was a time when I was determined to join the human performance improvement arena. Even now I still receive notifications from the Association for Talent Development. The business industry focuses on increasing effectiveness and efficacy of training, international growth and expansion of corporations and design cycle reduction time. As I read through the chapter, an issue in the field that peaked my interests was the need for cross cultural training. As the world continues to diversify both in the United States and abroad, ID must evol...

Have you ever planned a lesson without thinking about how you would evaluate the effectiveness of the instruction or of the learning? I must admit that I’ve been guilty of this from time to time. When I transitioned from a teacher to a librarian, my bad habit got a lot worse. I would think to myself “I can figure it out later”, or I would slap down an evaluation method on a lesson plan to satisfy my boss without putting any thought into it. It has only been through the course of my studies and this week’s readings that I have realized the importance of evaluation, even in the library. I will never be able to determine if students are grasping the concepts and learn the skills that I’m trying to teach without some form of evaluation. Brinkerhoff’s Success Case Model The Brinkerhoff Success Case Model examines instances where an intervention or training worked and seeks to find out what made them successful. The Success Case Model has five steps: 1.    ...

I must admit that the readings for this week were a challenge for me. I feel that the content this week was a bit more complex than the week before, and I often found myself reading words without fully understanding their meaning. Hopefully, my week two reflections make some sort of sense. I’m looking forward to feedback to help me reflect on anything that I may not have fully understood. I’m also looking forward to reading the blogs of my fellow classmates for insights and observations that I may have overlooked. What are the differences between theories, methods or models of learning and epistemologies or underlying beliefs about ways of knowing? Distinguishing the difference between epistemology and models of learning escaped me at first. However, I soon began to realize that the difference between the two relates to knowledge and how we apply that knowledge in an instructional setting. Epistemology is the study of knowledge, and models of learning build upon epistemology in or...

Week 1 Blog Post: Defining the Field             Instructional technology and design is a term that I originally defined as the use of technology to facilitate the learning of an objective. After reading the first three chapters in Trends and Issues in Instructional Design and Technology by Robert A. Reiser and John V. Dempsey, I feel that my original definition inadequately defines the field.             My definition of instructional technology and design has been predominantly shaped by the professional development that I’ve received at my job. Often during training sessions, the presenter would demonstrate a particular instructional media and place emphasis on how it would help our students learn.             However, all the trainings that I have attended focus on the instructional media itself and not the instru...