Laura’s dilemma parallels those I’ve seen in corporate settings, where the training department (by whatever name) is all too often a Bookings and Presentations shop. Hence the definition I saw the other day for LMS: Learning Means Sitting.

I had many good projects to work on when I was a corporate guy, along with some others from which the biggest benefit was experience. I don’t know that it’s any easier when like me you’re no longer a corporate employee, because you still need paying clients. The struggle to get satisfactory pay for worthwhile and engaging work isn’t easy.

You don’t find a freaking “job aid” that gives you a 8 step recipe to use twitter in your economics class– you spend some time in the environment, and let the affordances linger with your content area, and then maybe, you develop an idea that makes sense.

I’m putting that on my door.

There is a good, maybe small number of faculty who do manage the mashup. They are artists. I remain convinced there are small things we can use as an entre, not major course revolution approaches, but small meaningful ideas that tap into an educators either subject interest (unique resources unavailable elsewhere, strategies that connect them to colleagues) or something more mundane like a relevant tool or way to use photos.

I believe in Curly’s law (c.f. City Slickers)

Curly: Do you know what the secret of life is?

Curly: [smiles] That’s what you have to find out.

(heck there is one for Algebra)- there is ONE THING to find that is important or meaningfu, and it may be smalll, and that is usually my goal, and that they are different for each person. But that ONE THING becomes the opening to becoming more of a fisher than a nugget muncher.

Okay, I am rinigng your dinner bell. If you come quickly, I’ll make sure you get a bone ;-)

Like you and many of the others who commented here, I’ve spent the majority of my career working with or teaching teachers, first as a media producer, and then as an instructional designer (ID)/technologist, blah blah blah. But I would have thought that after working all that time with the IDs at Maricopa someone would have told you that it’s the instructional method that counts. And when you ask teachers to take a risk trying different methods like problem based learning, etc., and then combine technologies that are unfamiliar, it’s little like running along the cliff line for them. So, then we try “teaching teams or partnerships” with teachers and technologists all swimming in the same pool and discussing what worked and didn’t work. But the talk isn’t about the technology, it’s more about the pedagogy and wrapped in a technology context. It takes a lot of time, experience, wisdom, and trust to get there.

Well, I’ll keep my nose to this noble profession but wise to the notion that I’ll never be able to create a human mashup of teacher and technologist. I’ll also continue to keep an eye on your Maricopa magic here at the Cogdogblog or at the NMC. Just ring the dinner bell to let me know that it’s time to come up for air!

Job aids matter (especially in the world of work) because there are only two places to store info: inside your head, or outside. Inside is expensive.

Regarding instructional design (and designers), my mentor Joe Harless used to say that there was one question you never wanted to ask your training clients: “What do you want people to know?”

You don’t ask that, because they’ll tell you. And what they’ll tell you is stuff like “appreciation of widgets, great moments in widget-making, uses for widgets, prominent widget makers…”

To get out of the training (or instructional) box, the right question is: “What do you want people to do?”

Which gets you pretty quickly into fishing, rather than nugget dispensing.

I am a (fairly) young Instructional Designer/Educational Technologist myself, and I totally feel the same way. Thanks for putting your thoughts into words. And Thanks Donna for sharing your story.

It’s not easy to be listened to when you’re a staff member. It takes a lot of time to build the visibility you need to be considered an expert in a world made of experts.

I’m definitely using the baby step approach with my professors. One by one, trying to get them to learn how to fish without making them miss their deadline for that article…

isnt that clear?