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“Please and Thank You, Computer”: What Star Trek Taught Me About AI and Intentional Design
When I was a child, I watched a brief exchange from an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation that has stuck with me. In “Q Who?”, a junior officer named Sonya Gomez approaches the replicator and says, “Hot chocolate, please.” Her superior, Geordi La Forge, teases her: “We don’t ordinarily say please to food dispensers…
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What We Don’t See: Designing for Learners in Real Life
There was a time when a traumatic event shook my family’s foundation. Unexpectedly, I had to work two jobs to support myself and my two young children. Homework time, in theory, should’ve been a chance for me to help them learn, but in reality, it just wasn’t possible. They were too young to work independently, and I was…
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Learning at Home, Learning at Work: How Parenthood Shaped Me as an Educator
As a parent in the education field, I thought I knew learning, but trying to teach my baby to eat with a spoon taught me that I didn't know as much about teaching and learning as I thought. Parenting brought a new awareness of what it feels like to learn: the frustration, the joy, the non-linear messiness. I like to think…
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Rewriting the Lesson Plan: Making the Leap from SME to Instructional Design
I started out as a classroom teacher back in the mid-2000s, long before online education became the norm. My lessons lived on whiteboards, in binders, and on printed handouts carefully photocopied each morning. I loved seeing the spark in students' eyes when a concept clicked. But as digital learning tools grew more…
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Giving Voice to AI: Lessons from Writing Scripts for Avatars
When I began adapting content from online learning materials into scripts for AI avatars, I expected the process to feel familiar, like writing narration for a video or voiceover. I quickly realized that scripting for synthesized speech is a different kind of challenge. What looks good on paper can sound robotic out loud,…
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Accessibility Quick Tip—WEBVTT for Captioning Audio and Video Content
Audio and Video with Audio instructional assets are incredibly popular and valuable ways to present content in your courses. I don’t think I need to say much more than that—audio and video content exists in the courses you design and build. However, audio and video content are not inherently accessible. In seeking to meet…
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Welcome to the Brightspace Community: Your Learning Adventure Begins!
Now Streaming! Step into a world of learning and connection with the Brightspace Community, where every educator, administrator, and learner is a star in their own right. Imagine it as a hit series — a mix of Abbott Elementary meets The Mandalorian — but for edtech enthusiasts. Here’s your exclusive behind-the-scenes tour.…
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Foreign Language Class
Hello Everyone, We have an online Arabic class that is using quizzes. Some of the questions are multiple choice others require the students to answer in Arabic. I am currently at a loss as to how the students will write in Arabic to answer the questions. Any thoughts about how student can use the HTML editor to write in…
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End-of-Year Reflections: Making Space for Celebration, Gratitude, and Growth
A Season for Reflection For me, as an educator, the end of the school year smells like bumblebees visiting spring blooms—bursting with the excitement of summer, yet tinged with nostalgia. It’s a time to look back on the progress and accomplishments of the past months, to celebrate the hard work of both myself and my…
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Taming AI Hallucinations: A Guide for Instructional Designers
“It sounded so confident… but it was totally wrong.” If you’ve used ChatGPT or another AI chatbot, you’ve likely seen it confidently provide incorrect information. That’s an AI hallucination—when the model invents facts or distorts details. As instructional designers, we’re increasingly using large language models (LLMs)…
