Posts tagged instructionaldesign
The quality instructional design issue, summarized . . .
Jul 18th
I was about to begin the task of trying to summarize some of the issues I’ve been raising to this point regarding quality instruction in Second Life and the relationship of that issue to the need for instructional design resources.
I do believe this article, which a colleague pointed out to me, touches on the broad strokes of my more specific ideas:
Oblinger, D.G. & Hawkins, B.L. (2006). The myth about online course development: A faculty member can individually develop and deliver an effective online course. Electronic version. EDUCAUSE review 41(1): 14-15. Retrieved on July 18, 2007 from: http://www.educause.edu/apps/er/erm06/erm0617.asp.
Free Instructional Design Services in Second Life?
Jul 13th
Reflecting on the last couple of posts, I have become aware of an assumption I’ve implicitly made regarding faculty teaching and working in Second Life. I have assumed that faculty working in Second Life have an instructional design or educational technology background, but that’s apparently not the case. Why did I assume that, and more importantly, what are the implications of that realization?
I believe I assumed all educators in Second Life had some instructional technology background for three reasons. First, I have that background, so I blindly thought others did – really just didn’t give it a thought. Second, while our backgrounds are different, to this point, most of us are speaking the same language focused on early teaching experiences in Second Life. Third, the teaching and learning experiences developed by early adopters in many instances is truly phenomenal from an instructional design and technology perspective, so it appeared that the majority had some sort of a background in the field or were working with an instructional designer. At the very least, most of the education I’ve seen taking place in Second Life hasn’t exhibited quality gaps that are attributed to instructional design – hype perhaps, but not instructional design. Ultimately, I realized that Second Life early adopters may be incredibly talented, experienced and innovative teachers, but that does not mean however they have an instructional design, educational technology or educational psychology background that specializes in the use of technology to facilitate learning.
This realization has two implications, for me.
Initially, there’s two levels of conversations to engage regarding the use of Second Life for educational purposes; the latter of the two, I believe, is important to the continued development of education in Second Life. The broader conversation is the one I’ve been engaged in to this point: a focus on more general descriptions of teaching projects and the use of Second Life as a tool to develop digital assets. The more granular discussion is the one I’ve started to engage over the last couple of weeks, and that’s discussing more specific elements related to teaching in Second Life: assessment, learner motivation, social presence, learner engagement etc.
Finally, I understand that many educational institutions do not employ an instructional designer or educational technologist with formal training in that field. In that situation, I am willing to offer, as much as I possibly can, pro bono assistance with instructional design needs and ideas for Second Life projects; simply contact me at topher at muveforward dot com. I’ll do what I can to help and make arrangements for a voice conversation (20-30 minutes) or two via Skype or the first look viewer in world.
Assessing Learner Performance in Second Life
Jul 12th
Describing skills necessary to design effective learning experiences in yesterday’s entry, I omitted one that may perhaps prove to be one of the more significant challenges for faculty teaching in Second Life: assessment.
Following yesterday’s post, I happened to meet up with an individual (will add more specific information, with her permission ;-) to discuss a few ideas. The conversation turned to a project slated at her institution for the Fall in which business entrepreneurship students will engage an experiential, authentic learning activity in Second Life: start a small business in Second Life while addressing principles of entrepreneurship. Of course, the institution wants to evaluate the effectiveness and net gain of using Second Life in comparison to more traditional modes of content delivery; to accomplish that, they’re planning to have a group using Second Life and a group not using Second Life each complete an end of course exam. Throughout the course, they’re also planning for the Second Life group to produce written work focused on entrepreneurial principles.
My question and point was and is this. In classroom environments, we use objective exams and written work to estimate how well a learner understands content because the classroom environment limits our opportunities to evaluate actual performance utilizing the content that’s been taught. Traditional meatspace or web-based classrooms for teaching entrepreneurship have a variety of constraints that prohibit learners from actually starting a business. In lieu of that actual performance, learners can read about starting a business; they can watch videos; they can listen to faculty or guest speakers talk about it; they can discuss it in small groups; or, they may be able to play serious games simulating it. But, they typically do not have a realistic opportunity actually to start a business using principles of entrepreneurship. So, we can only approximate how well they might actually “do it in the real world,” and we approximate by assessments that hopefully do a good job of measuring the ability to perform in the real world.
So, if we have the opportunity to measure actual, “real world” performance, should we not do that rather than approximating? Certainly. Will observing a learner’s actual efforts to start a business not always be a more accurate way of determining if they’ve learned the concepts of entrepreneurship? Absolutely. So, if we can design learning activities in Second Life that afford learners the opportunity to actually start a business, shouldn’t we evaluate the artifacts and performance produced by that experience? Most likely.
I’m not suggesting we have to entirely abandon approximations of performance like objective exams or written work; in many instances, local, state or national policies require those more objective, more easily standardized assessments for accountability purposes. However, there’s something terribly incongruous if learners authentically performing learned skills in Second Life are only evaluated and assessed based upon approximations of their ability to perform. Faculty teaching in Second Life should assess actual performance.
Thus, the capability to design “alternate forms of assessment” (a term used in the educational psychology literature to describe performance rubrics, portfolios, etc) will prove, I believe, to be a critical skill for successful and quality use of Second Life in educational environments.
The issue is that that type of assessment is not easy for or familiar to most faculty teaching the content. If my description of details related to entrepreneurship seem scant, there’s a reason for that; I have NO experience with or background in that field. I chose to be an instructional designer and educational technologist, not an entrepreneur (although I could easily tell you which would have been the bigger financial payoff ;-). Likewise, the individual I met has NO experience or background in educational assessment. My graduate work is in instructional design and technology; hers is in computer science and business. So, to repeat a question, slightly modified, from yesterday’s post, “How many institutions offering Second Life learning will expect faculty trained in specific disciplines (Computer Science or Business) to master a skill set which instructional designers have spent a doctoral graduate career learning?”

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