Digital Photography Composition Tips

Digital Photography Composition Tips

Disquiet about role

Several of the ideas Rodger offered in his previous post echo what we've been hearing from other instructional designers as we've been working on our reserach. Issues of identity and perceived value within organizations is a large concern, and one that directly influences the ability of designers to influence insititutional and social change. Here is a conference paper handout that summarizes some of the things we've heard from other instructional designers about identity and change agency. The research is still underway, and these are only preliminary findings from a pilot study, but they sound pretty familiar, don't they?

Your concern about keeping up with advances in technology is also commonly felt, I think. I only wish that advances in our understanding of effective instructional design, learning and learners was moving at the same pace. I've been thinking about this a bit lately too, and I wonder if the solution goes beyond better time management (a typical response by management to these kinds of issues seems to be to throw a PD day on time management). It seems like role definition within the organization is one possible path--not an easy one, but necessary. Getting organizations to understand what instructional designers do, and maybe more importantly what we don't do, is an important part of avoiding the natural evolution of job creep.

CAUCE 2004 blog launch

Katy Campbell and I (and Rick Kenny by remote control) are going to be in Niagra-on-the-Lake this week for CAUCE 2004. During one of our sessions, we plan to announce this blog, and invite the instructional designers in attendance to join the id-cop.

Wish us luck.