Section 7: New Direction in Instructional Design and Technology

 

This section of the textbook addresses new directions and emerging technologies for IDT. For your final post, reflect on how you might apply each of the following in your current or future position in the IDT field:

• distributed or e-learning environments
• reusable design or learning objects
• rich media
•  emerging instructional technologies, such as artificial intelligence, cybernetics, Web 2.0, virtual worlds, electronic games, etc.

E-learning has been a major shift in how we approach learning in the 21^st century. The advances that we have made in technology and delivery have impacted the educational field in a very positive way.  E-learning is much more prevalent to our students and learners today.  E-learning uses a wide variety of technological tools such as internet, cell phones, ipads etc. Providing these instructional experiences with media rich instruction, we are able to reach our learners in new ways that we couldn’t before. In my current job today, we are continually promoting e-learning and all of the technological tools that it entails. We use edmodo as a web based form of instruction.  We also have ipads for the students to use with well-developed tasks or lessons that stimulate higher level thinking.

“In a very general sense, a learning object is anything that can be used for educational purposes (Reiser 290).” Learning objects have the ability to meet different learning styles. Many types of learners whether kinesthetic, visual or audio can benefit from learning objects. Learning objects can range from math manipulative to technology tools. All teachers at some point have utilized learning objects. When using learning objects it’s important to keep in mind the audience and the goals or expectations you want them to achieve.  The future of learning objects looks promising. With innovations in the technological world we can better prepare students by using smartphones, ipads, google maps and web based polling quizzes. Using learning objects steers away from traditional types of learning and offers opportunities for a richer means of learning and knowledge acquisition.

Rich media consists of a variety of web 2.0 tools used for instructional purposes. I personally enjoy using web 2.0 applications in order to encourage group work and collaboration. I’ve used many web 2.0 tools for my students such as jing, tagxedo, powerpoint, active inspire and wordle. Using these technological tools provides students the opportunity to explore creativity and expand on higher level thinking tasks. It’s imperative to integrate rich media into our lesson plans every day in order to achieve and develop understanding in a new way. Students need to be exposed to rich media and web 2.0 tools in order to be successful in our society today.