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Glorious Button States in Articulate Storyline
Have you ever used a really satisfying keyboard? Stay with me here; I'm serious! I'm talking about a keyboard that has this perfect click and spring to it when you press each key. People who have used keyboards from the 80s and 90s might remember the IBM Model M. I remember it because it was and still is my favorite…
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Leading With Empathy: Bringing Design Thinking Best Practices into Instructional Design
Lately, I've been reflecting on how Design Thinking practices can be used to support Instructional Design. Design Thinking is an iterative process for solving complex problems. One foundational component of Design Thinking is that it is human-centric at its core. Design Thinking facilitates human-centered design, meaning…
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Connectivism
What Is Connectivism? Connectivism is a learning theory that emphasizes the role of technology and social networks in the process of acquiring knowledge. According to Connectivism, learning is a process of creating connections between nodes or pieces of information. The nodes can be people, resources, or technology. The…
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Brightspace Tools that Support Collaboration and Peer-to-Peer Engagement
Photo: by Thought Catalog on Unsplash In this article I outline a list of tools that Brightspace offers that promote some of the principles that govern the theory of connectivism (mentioned in my previous article, What is Connectivism), such as opportunities for learners to interact with others and share knowledge and…
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Chat GPT and GPT-4 for Instructional Design
You’ve no doubt heard of Chat GPT, a natural language processing tool that provides human-like conversations to prompts you provide. GPT-4 is Open AI’s latest large multimodal model available to those paying for Chat GPT Plus, which provides their best results yet. This is the result of Chat GPT’s ability to learn from the…
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“But that’s the fork I know”
Photo by Gabriella Clare Marino on Unsplash One of my most memorable lessons in how learning happens came from Pretty Woman. Julia Roberts gets a tutorial from Hector Elizondo about silverware for fine dining before she goes out to a restaurant with Richard Gere. When confronted with her meal, Julia Roberts isn’t sure…
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Top Trends from L&D Conferences - Spring 2023
I had the opportunity to attend Learning Solutions and Advancing Learning conferences in the last month and heard from a number of L&D professionals and educators. Here are three key themes that learning/content designers should keep top of mind in our work in the foreseeable future. AI, of course There are a number of…
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Universal Design for Learning in Course Design
What is UDL and Why Is It Important? According to the Center for Applied Special Technology (CAST), Universal Design for Learning (UDL) is a framework to improve and optimize teaching and learning for all people. More specifically, this means incorporating multiple means of engagement, representation, and action and…
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Chat GPT in Higher Ed: Let's Start the Conversation
Over the coming months, you’ll encounter posts about Chat GPT here, since it is a hot topic. Unesco recently published Chat GPT and Artificial Intelligence in higher education: Quick start guide in April. It's a good way to start our conversation and get up to speed on the basics (especially if you don't even know where to…
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Additive Grading
Conventional grading methods can make students feel like their worth as a learner is reduced to a single numerical grade. What if there was a grading system that equally prioritized progress and effort alongside final scores? Read on to learn more about additive grading and how it can increase learner motivation. I…
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Learn more about D2L Adventure
D2L Adventure features Canadian and US content with an Ontario Content Library and a US Content Library. The D2L Adventure products include 53 curriculum-aligned digital resources for Grades 1–9 (8 US resources and 45 Ontario resources), more than 1,800 lessons in science, social studies, language, French, and math, at…
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Getting to the Root of a Problem Using the 5 Whys Technique
As Instructional Designers, we’re presented with many problems that need tackling. Perhaps a client comes to us with an issue they want to use training to solve, and as Instructional Designers, we have to determine the right approach. A Subject Matter Expert may struggle to keep up with deadlines, impacting the project…
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Celebrating learners’ accomplishments in online learning
Photo: Pineapple Supply Co. on Unsplash My son turned seven this week, which got me thinking about celebrations. When I was a student, and I saw a sticker or a big, bright ‘A’ at the top of my work, it felt like a celebration too. While seeing a good grade is always satisfying, a high mark in a moderate font in a small…
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Writing Effective Rubrics
Rubrics are ubiquitous grading tools in many classrooms and lecture halls. When used well, they can help to make grading fair and consistent by ensuring all learners are being assessed with the same criteria in the same way. However, not all rubrics are equal. A poorly designed rubric can muddy learners’ understanding of a…
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Designing Graphics for Online Learning
They say a picture is worth a thousand words, which is an important consideration to remember when designing online courses. You can use visual elements to bring learning to life, improve retention, and aid in creating a consistent and professional learning experience. Let’s explore some sites that you can use to source…
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🔦Customer Spotlight Event
⭐ ConvosWithCommunity: Video Note With Joe Sisco (UWindsor - Customer Spotlight) ⭐ We are excited to invite you to our upcoming webinar, where we will be highlighting our amazing Brightspace Video Note Tool in a special Customer Spotlight event! Join us on March 30th, 2023 at 12PM ET for a 30-minute presentation showcasing…
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Interleaving
You’ve no doubt seen the shocking amount of information we forget after training thanks to Ebbinghaus’s Curve of Forgetting. To combat the forgetting curve, a technique that I used to use as a prof and have recently come back to as an instructional designer is interleaving. What is it? Interleaving: basically weaving…
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Using Backwards Design in Brightspace
What is Backwards Design? Image by 愚木混株 Cdd20 from Pixabay Backwards design is a method for creating online courses that begins with the end goal in mind and works backwards to create a logical and effective curriculum. The method is based on the idea that, by defining the desired outcomes of a course and aligning the…
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Taking Breaks in Online Learning
With in-person learning, breaks are necessary every hour or two. Learners have a chance to stretch, use the washroom, have a drink or snack and reset their brain for the next learning chunk. With self-paced online learning, learners can take breaks whenever they’d like, but it’s still a good practice for content creators…
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A.I. use in discussions?
Is anyone use A.I. in their online discussions (e.g., rewriting/improving discussion prompts and replies to student posts) or in other ways in their courses?
