Wednesday, November 08, 2006

The future of learning design models

Over at LCB, the Big Question for November is about the future of learning design models (such as Addie, ISD and HPT).

Hmm.

My background has chiefly been in corporate learning and my interest is largely learning in the workplace. In this realm, these models have been very popular and, in some situations, such as technical skills, very useful.

A while back, there was a conversation about whether ADDIE had in fact become DI, and I have worked in organisations where that has been the case: talk about grindingly frustrating! At all costs, we need to avoid that, since the learner's needs are completely ignored. Whether or not we use models, my view is that the learner's needs and the learner experience should be at the heart of what we do.

As I said in a conversation some time back, I suspect we are going to become more and more like the designers of cars: we will provide all the features - it will be the learner who takes the driver's seat and decides where to go, when to go there, how often, how fast and by what route. However, some method still needs to be applied to decide what features to provide and the look and feel of the vehicle -if we are completely without strategy, we are likely to wind up with a resource like Homer's car that includes every feature imaginable, but is hideous to look at, impossible to use and completely outside of everyone's price range.

2 comments:

Dave Lee said...

Hi Karyn:
I'm in agreement with you that there has to be some sort of model, else chaos will ensue. To add to the strength of your model, despite the auto manufactures not being prescriptive about the use of the various components of the car the design process of conceptualizing, prototyping, testing is very complex and detailed in its modelling.

Anonymous said...

Good point, Dave. And so often, on learning resources, the testing is squeezed in to the 11th hour, almost as an afterthought. Not good, because by then it's to late to redesign something that is found not to work from the learner perspective.