Let’s talk shop

Instructional designers use a number of different tools to get the job done. At the University of Alaska, Sitka Instructional Design Center the team helps faculty create interesting course elements for distance, hybrid and face-to-face courses by selecting appropriate effective technologies.

Some of the tools that the group relies on when creating learning objects for faculty and other content specialists include:

• Adobe Presenter (formerly Breeze) for PPT presentations with audio and notes. This tool is put into the hands of our content experts and they create their own audio lectures
• Lectora for creating interactive learning content and modules. This tool is used by the instructional designers to create the entire course as html pages, or to create mini-modules, learning activities, interactive self-checks etc.
• Adobe CS3 (Fireworks, Photoshop) for image manipulation. these tools are used to crop and manipulate photograph and in general to create images to accompany text in courses.
• Softchalk for creating interactive games and activities. Like Lectora, Softchalk can create interactive content for the web. Many faculty use the tool to create their own fun interactive activities.
• Blackboard, UAS Online and Moodle as course management systems, the container for our courses. Currently, Sitka campus uses Blackboard and UAS Online for most credit courses, and Moodle for most non-credit courses.

So what kinds of things do instructional designers actually do? If you would like to see some examples of actual learning objects and the documents they came from, feel free to browse our gallery. The gallery keeps growing, so bookmark this page and come back as often as you like!

Gallery of Learning Objects- a few examples of what content experts collaborating with instructional designers produce. Thanks to the content experts, faculty and instructional designers who shared these examples.

Life after weddings?

the BIG event

Has it really been 3 weeks since my daughter got married? All that planning and commotion, anxiety and sleepless nights, confusion and happieness, and it’s over?? I’ve been joking that a wedding is like a colonoscopy, the prep is far worse than the actual event and after it’s over, you have a glow, but remember very little. It’s all a blur. But, life does go on!

Today I start my first post for Instructional Design, Sitka, (Palmer branch). It strikes me that just as my life is marked by actions “before” and “after” The Wedding, so too is my life changed by this new job– miles and miles away from the home office. For years I’ve preached my philosophy “teach from the beach” joking that as an instructor for students at a distance, I could live in Hawaii and teach students here in Alaska.  Now I’m working hundreds of miles from the UAS Sitka campus with people who understand that distances can be overcome by the use of technology and that people really do work in home offices. Hooray!!

I read an article, before gas prices doubled, that employers need to prepare for catastrophes (natural or manmade) where/when employees will not be able to make it to the office to work. The article stressed that our lives will be paralyzed if we don’t figure out how to communicate and work together at distances. Today, with the price of gas making it nearly impossible for some people to afford to commute to work, this becomes more than just a futuristic notion and more just plain common sense. At any rate, the UAS Instructional Design Team is giving it our best shot, working with each other and our clients both in person and using distance technologies. It’s a grand adventure and we’re off and running!

That said, at this blog you will find work related information, personal dribblings, fun stuff, and in general, hopefully, something of interest.