A few things going on

So, I’ve had a crazy spring so far — between a brutal travel schedule and some unexpected health stuff (all resolved now), there’s barely been time to draw breath. There have been lots of good things, including some interesting projects in the works.  A particular good thing recently was a really nice review of the … Read more

Love these: Mental Notes

So, still need a gift for the design geek on your holiday shopping list?* I’ve mentioned Stephen Anderson before (I’m a big ol’ fan), but I particularly love his Mental Notes cards, which cover dozens of psychology principles that impact how we design. Need to jump start your design process?  Pull a few cards out … Read more

Is learner motivation your responsibility?

Just had this quick interchange with Patti Shank on twitter: This is a totally fair comment on Patti’s part — you can’t force someone to be motivated (and undoubtedly some of our disagreement stems from semantics – not that THAT ever happens on twitter).  A lot of the conversation around gamification (for a heated throw … Read more

Why “Clear and Easy to Understand” can be bad

So, as an instructional designer, part of my job is to make things clear and easy to understand, right? Well, it turns out that’s not necessarily the best option. Cathy Moore just put up a blog post that has her checklist for evaluating your own e-Learning design.  You rate where your learning falls on a … Read more

Where do you get new ideas?

Design inspiration can sometimes be in short supply in Instructional Design, so it can be really helpful to get inspiration from other fields (lots more to say about the shortage of design in ID, but that’s a rant for another day). I’ve already waxed rhapsodic about being inspired by game design with sites like gamasutra … Read more