Got back from IIL08 (Innovations in Learning 08) the annual conference given by the Brandon Hall folks. I gave my presentation on instructional design for the semantic web and got fairly positive feedback. However, I do know of one improvement I would like to make to the presentation is to include more examples.
Based on everything I heard at the conference, the movement to structured content is well on its way regardless of whether people understand it or not. The thing that really gets me, is that instructional designers have yet to take ownership of our failed practice and understand that if they want to practice instructional design they need to rethink how they are going to do this. An instructional designer that is developing courses, at the end of the day is a multimedia/courseware developer....which is fine. There's nothing wrong with having those skills and doing that work. But lets face it, thats not where an instructional designer is providing the most value. As content moves into the networked economy, building taxonomies, creating learning meta-languages, looking at standards is where the instructional designer will find a home. We need only look at SCORM as a standard and understand that it was created by programmers and IT folk with less input from instructional designers to figure out that any new version of SCORM needs more of the instructional design input.
I also had some great discussions with Tom Crawford from VizThink about the semantic web and where its going, what role is it going to play and will it be the next 'BIG' thing. We both agreed its coming one way or another. Its impact I think is where we disagree, however as an instructional designer it will be critical for me to research and learn all I can about it.
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Instructional Design for the Semantic Web
Well, its been a while.
Here's whats really turning me on these days....the possibilities of applying the principles of the semantic web to learning. I've been inspired once again by a Kevin Kelly video talking about the next 5000 days of the web. What I really liked is his analogy of the web as a single system. His vision, and one that I believe we're already seeing is an all encompassing web with peripheral devices acting as windows to that web. More an more, computers and other peripherals are used less as single processing units and more as windows to and through the web.
What this means for learning, is the ability to create the necessary semantics around learning so that learning content is appropriately marked up for our devices to find, retrieve and deliver in a consistent and useful manner. The creation of a meta-language for learning is no easy task, nor is it conceivable that there would be a single language created (at least not right now). But the importance of feeding the web, exposing content to the web is critical for learning.
When my wife was pregnant the quickest wa to learn what needed to be done was research the web. This is the reality of our times, that learning happens real time. Enabling learning comntent to be pulled at real time is consistent with tech trends and also consistent with good instructional design practice. As an instructional designer I am excited about the opportunity to contribute to the advancement of our field through its application to THE new learning environment web 3.0. For anybody who isn't getting what I'm saying, I will be speaking at Brandon Hall's Innovation in Learning conference on this very topic.
I am also in the process of working on a book that underlies the process for applying instructional design to the creation of 'semantics'. Hopefully one day it will actually get done.
Later,
RT
Here's whats really turning me on these days....the possibilities of applying the principles of the semantic web to learning. I've been inspired once again by a Kevin Kelly video talking about the next 5000 days of the web. What I really liked is his analogy of the web as a single system. His vision, and one that I believe we're already seeing is an all encompassing web with peripheral devices acting as windows to that web. More an more, computers and other peripherals are used less as single processing units and more as windows to and through the web.
What this means for learning, is the ability to create the necessary semantics around learning so that learning content is appropriately marked up for our devices to find, retrieve and deliver in a consistent and useful manner. The creation of a meta-language for learning is no easy task, nor is it conceivable that there would be a single language created (at least not right now). But the importance of feeding the web, exposing content to the web is critical for learning.
When my wife was pregnant the quickest wa to learn what needed to be done was research the web. This is the reality of our times, that learning happens real time. Enabling learning comntent to be pulled at real time is consistent with tech trends and also consistent with good instructional design practice. As an instructional designer I am excited about the opportunity to contribute to the advancement of our field through its application to THE new learning environment web 3.0. For anybody who isn't getting what I'm saying, I will be speaking at Brandon Hall's Innovation in Learning conference on this very topic.
I am also in the process of working on a book that underlies the process for applying instructional design to the creation of 'semantics'. Hopefully one day it will actually get done.
Later,
RT
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