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Well, I have a long thread. Probably should be an article, but oh well ...
Online learning is too often the world of algorithms and big data and automated grading and proctoring … and soul sucking. But it doesn’t have to be. The operative idea here is *design*.
Online learning is too often the world of algorithms and big data and automated grading and proctoring … and soul sucking. But it doesn’t have to be. The operative idea here is *design*.
We design these environments. They don’t design us, they don’t determine us, they don’t drive us – we design, determine, and drive them. That may be through the design process or that may be through systemic structures like policies, resources, investments and divestments,
setting one set of priorities and objectives over and above another set. Ultimately it’s about our vision and how we realize that vision. The technology is just a means to an end – and there are wildly different options for what end(s) you’re optimizing online towards.
If an individual’s or institution’s vision of online is a cash cow, then the system you build is going to be optimized for that. If your vision is that it’s good for only a few select uses that require quick-and-dirty solutions, that’s the system you’re going to build.
(Literally right at this point Twitter's update to data sharing pops up - talk about visions for technology and tool / system design decisions! @jack, I want to talk.)
If your vision is about using technology to bridge social or learning needs and gaps (e.g. increase access to education), that’s a different system design. If your vision is to create a learning community *as* you bridge those gaps, that’s still yet another system design.
And like any vision, what you’re setting out to accomplish is precisely what will trickle down into the details and fibers and essence of everything you do. Design is a process for articulating and realizing a vision.
It’s a practical approach to mapping out what is, what should be, and how we get from one to the other. Instructional design as a design process is no different, although too often we have reduced it to checklists and job aids.
Those may be helpful, but here I want to evoke your inner muses. You can design online courses where you post content, post a question, have a quiz that gets automatically graded, proctor an exam, or whatever. Or you can design something different.
Think of this as meal prep. You can buy frozen, or you can buy something already prepared, or you can stick to basics, or you can choose differently. Yes, chicken is an option – but so is salmon or shrimp or tofu or chickpeas. Yes, salt and pepper are good basics –
but then there’s the wonderful world of cumin, red pepper, garam masala, fennel, ginger, mustard, cardamom (I’m rummaging through my dhaba masala) or rosemary, tarragon, oregano, parsley, dill, chives … I could go on.
Much like reclaiming the joy of cooking, we need to recapture the joy of instructional design – the creative act of viewing a medium as our canvas that is waiting for us to infuse it with creative possibilities. Not just post stuff, but invent.
As you consider the coming summer and fall where now you may have to actually prepare a three-course online menu for learners rather than grab a lunch pack and go, evoke your inner artist even as you work with IDs to help ensure you’re also grounded in research-based strategies.
I want to wax a bit about online learning versus emergency remote teaching (ERT). We wrote an article on that in Educause that is getting some good attention, so I won’t rewrite what we wrote there. Here, I want to just touch on how – again – design framing is helpful.
One part of the design process is specifications and constraints. These will vary depending on the design problem you have before you, so every design set of solutions is different – they necessarily vary. Emergency situations introduce significant constraints into this process.
Would it be better to have a 1,000 person boat and get everyone out of the oncoming flood? Sure. But if you don’t already have one on hand, then you’re not going to build the ideal in time. You’re going to amass a bunch of fishing boats, rafts, canoes, and other floating options-
and you’re going go hope someone calls in resources for other ways to evacuate. Does that mean that 1,000-person boats are bad and should never be built? No, of course not. Should you compare your fishing boat to the 1,000-person boat?
Or would you give people on a normal cruise and people in an emergency evacuation a cognitive test and then compare their results and declare fishing boats useless? Of course not - so let's not be irrational about present circumstances, either. Proposals to do so are inchoate.
Focus on getting yourself and your students out of harm's way first. Well-being and health are our prime directives. Once we're on dry land, then we can build - and imagine. I just don't want, once we get there, for people to think fishing boats are their only design option.
(notice: this thread contains all the metaphors, thrown into a blender and pureed)
