Visual Principles in Online Instructional Design

The authors of Visual Principles in their book, Instructional Media and Technologies for Learning, offer insights into the role of visuals in instruction, visual literacy, the goals of visual design, visual planning tools, and digital images. One of the key points for me as an instructional designer concerned the role of visuals in instruction. They provide three core reasons for using visuals: 1) to provide a concrete referent for ideas, 2) to simplify complex information, and 3) to provide visual comprehension in association with text.

Most of the instructional design I work with concerns online classes. I routinely use Web-based visual design elements for various purposes related to teaching and learning online. These are 1) in teaching materials, 2) in online presentations, 3) in learning activities, 4) for Internet excursions and field trips, 5) as part of lesson plans, and 6) in case studies.

In a presentation on the subject of Visual Design to my Foundations of Instructional Design and Educational Technologies class at the University of Utah I illustrated each of these uses for visual design with media-rich Web pages. As a guide to get instructors and instructional designers started using the visually rich multimedia resources of the Internet in their own instructional design I recommended three Web sites to help them get started. These were:

MERLOT – Multimedia Educational Resource for Learning & Online Teaching
http://www.merlot.org/merlot/index.htm

The Global Campus – Learning and Teaching Resources
http://csulb.edu/~gcampus/

Image-Multimedia Database Resources
http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/Imaging/Databases/#strawberry

I invite the instructors and instructional designers who blog on my site to try them out and to contribute some Web sites they’ve found to have visual impact and may be useful in online education.

Reference:
Heinich, R., Molenda, M., Russell, J.D., & Smaldino, S.E. (2002). Visual Principles in Instructional Media and Technologies for Learning (pp. 111-138). Columbus, OH: Merrill Prentice Hall.

P.S. Happy Halloween All!

Instructional Design Team

Fitting the components of an instructional design project together can be a bit more challenging than may appear at first glance. It may look like everything's going to fit nicely, as in the sketch above, but look more closely and you'll notice the pieces, although designed to fit together, will not just slide into place easily. It will take some adjustments and teamwork to get a cohesive whole in the instructional design. Stay at it though, the end product will be worth the effort.

Dick and Carey Design Model

I think the problem with Dick & Carey's The Systematic Design of Instruction may not be so much the paradigm they present as bad technical editing. Quite a number of the foundational terms are interchangable in the text with no warning or reason given to the reader. Even following an Index reference is confusing. Follow Task Analysis from the Index and it takes you to Job Analysis. Are they really interchangable terms?

The book also seems to be written from the point of view of those who really know their material, as I'm sure Dick & Carey do. Unfortunately, the book should be written for end-users who do not know the material. There's a pretty wide gap in presumption about how knowledgable their end-users are throughout their writing.

I also think that while Dick & Carey may present a usable paradigm for instructional designers it is largely impractical for the use of teachers who do not have the time to digest 367 pages of detailed instruction and then put it into use for designing their instruction. I think as a teacher I'd give up the complexity of their structure for a simple user profile and needs analysis.

Levity in Design

It occurs to me that a bit of levity in design can help engage the learner. It may help unlock the doors to the reception of information and when the doors are unlocked there's a better chance for them to open up, maybe even swing wide open.

eLearning Technology: Instructional Design

Posts around instructional design topics, especially those related to instructional design around custom eLearning:What Clients Really WantThe basis for many of the instructional design decisions.Top Ten Suggested New Year's Resolutions for eLearning ProfessionalsSeveral instructional design patterns are discussed.Significant Work Needed to Help Instructional DesignersChanges required in ISD, ADDIE and HPT in order to adapt to the current instructional design environment.eLearning 1.0, 1.3 and 2.0The move of instructional design towards SME and user-generated content.Course and Courseware are Fading - The Future of eLearningHow we must adapt to the fact that our instructional designs cannot rely on larger chunks of learning - especially in Corporate eLearning.Future of ISD, ADDIE and HPTBig impact on how we adapt instructional design and particularly the design of eLearning going forward.Learning Design Different Now? and Future of Instructional Design in a World of Read/Write WebHow is Instructional Design different when we are using different learning techniques, especially bottom-up techniques based on.Learning Design in a Nut ShellMy simple attempt at what instructional design and eLearning design is all about.Reference HybridA particular pattern for designing eLearning.

Retrieved from http://elearningtech.blogspot.com/2007/05/instructional-design.html

Instructional Design for Flow in Online Teaching

Instructional Design for Flow in Online Teaching: The Art of Instructional Design
New tutorial from eLearn Magazine
Instructional Design for Flow in Online Teaching: The Art of Instructional DesignBy Sandra C. Ceraulo, Ph.D.

This tutorial explains how the process of designing instruction can be a creative and enjoyable artistic experience for the online teacher and for the instructional designer. Since many online teachers create their own course materials, the online teacher and the instructional designer are often the same person. An enjoyable creative activity in which the task to be accomplished is seen as a challenge has been termed a “flow” process by well-known creativity researcher, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. This tutorial gives objectives that instructional designers can use to answer the question: How can instructional design become an exhilarating, creative, and fulfilling job rather than mundane work filled with tedium and anonymity?
The full article is available at http://www.elearnmag.org/subpage/sub_page.cfm?section=4&list_item=14&page=1

Retrieved from http://researchblog.ecornell.com/2004/05/instructional_d.html