Flash For Learning

I’ve been absent from this site for a while, even after I promised I would be more active. My apologies. My professional life got a bit bizarre right around the same time I joined Edumatic. Basically, I started having insane workloads that compelled me to put in well over 80 hours a week for about 12 weeks in a row, so much suffered. One of the results of such a workload is that I’m now in a new job (a manufacturing and tool supply company) as their E-Learning Strategist. Increased responsibilities, but a bit more time to work on things. I’m optomisitic that my quantity and quality of writing on this site will improve.

Since I’ve been so deep in the technical development of E-Learning content for the past six years, I’ve really neglected the Instructional Design considerations. And while there are a lot of us who are building content without the benefit of dedicated ISDs (or even without any formal background in Education, Job Performance or Training), I think most developers would agree that when someone with vision and real knowledge takes the time to think and plan learning content before building it, everyone involved ends up the better for it. So, there’s my shout out to the ISD crowd, and thus I’ll begin my discussion on strategy.

I’ve been reading a few books on ISD to get my gut instincts more attuned to the instructional direction we as a community of practice is heading:

• Bonk and Graham’s Handbook of Blended Learning: Global Perspectives, Local Designs
• Aldrich’s Learning by Doing: A Comprehensive Guide to Simulations, Computer Games and Pedagogy in E-Learning and other Educational Experiences
• Quinn’s Engaging Learning
• Rosenberg’s Beyond E-Learning

I’m on board with the “blended learning” approach (I guess that’s what we’re calling it). I’ve always been. I’m sure it would come as a shock to some that as tech-nerdy as I am, I’m pretty anti-computer when it comes to education and training because so much (especially SCORM) has been focused on individualized job performance training that it’s taken all the upper levels of Bloom’s taxonomy out of the picture. For the past four years, the bulk of what I’ve developed has been at Level 1 or 0 on a scale for 5 for interactivity (and I tie levels of interactivity to the rubric Bloom uses).

So basing my thoughts here roughly on Bloom and on Engaging Learning, here’s what I’m thinking:

• Level 0 Activities
• I call them Presentation activities.
• I would tie them in Bloom’s world to Knowledge.
• Level 1 Activities
• I call them Exploration activities.
• I would tie them in Bloom’s world to Comprehension.
• Level 2 Activities
• I call them Decision activities.
• I would tie them in Bloom’s world to Application.
• Level 3 Activities
• I call them Condition activities (I need to come up with a better word).
• I would tie them in Bloom’s world to Analysis.
• Level 4 Activities
• I call them Integration activities.
• I would tie them in Bloom’s world to Synthesis.
• Level 5 Activities (this extends the model in Quinn’s Engaging Learning)
• I call them Contribution activities.
• I would tie them to Bloom’s Evaluation.

If anyone’s interested, I’ll post more and expand on how I’m envisioning this model for interactivity.