For Instructional Designers by an Instructional Designer

No, am not writing about the company. But the word "Praxis" which means translation of an idea into an action or the difference between theory and action . The thing is, I stumbled upon some thoughts ( gems really ) that totally made sense but I don't think we can practice them on day-to-day basis [ maybe that's why I read them and not observed them in action ] I shared them with a friend saying that I would like to add them to my blog but don't have a reason. And was told that I should share them coz these thoughts are worth a repeat all by themselves. So, here we go (and I'm quoting Hugh Prather): (In people) If I actually look for differences and accept each one I see, I notice that my basic bond with a person is not threatened or even touched by our differences. Looked at it this way, other people’s differences become interesting and entertaining. They add to, rather than subtract from, the richness of the relationship. The notion that negati

This is a very old (June'08) post that I im ported from my other blog (I did make a few changes to it but still the thoughts are old). Paragliding Experience Last Friday I announced to the world that this weekend I am gonna jump off a cliff. Comments poured in - they ranged from, 'write me in your will' to 'plz don't coz we don't get holiday for self-inflicted injuries'. Much has been changed by that one experience. The peace that was there in the air, the contentment, the solitude, the quite, the magnificence! I simply didn't feel like returning to earth. But return I did, and within seconds everyone around me started asking questions. Somehow I didn't get the time to take it all in. Some things just can't be explained, and when you try to explain them immediately after experiencing them, their value is somehow reduced. The magic loses its potency. Later, I felt that a little 'pause/quite/me time' might have added

So far, my posts have always been written as if I'm an ID - a resource who creates SBs. But as I have been reminded ( a few times ) over the last couple of weeks, I'm a lead and need to understand that role, if not better than at the least, as well as I know my role as an ID. If you are one of those interested in being a reviewer/lead read on... Being a review/lead is no reason to cheer. And once promoted there is no need for song and dance. Coz the euphoria, if you really feel it, hides many pitfalls. These pitfalls are not mentioned anywhere in the job profile/description. We are not told of these when we take on the job. As I have said before, not all reviewers/leads are trained to do their job. They are generally given the additional responsibility of reviewing other people's work/leading the project because they do their own tasks well. The management thinks that as you know your job well, you will be able to raise the level of others performance to your le

In life, daily I make many mistakes. This is how I learn, this is how I grow. I'm sure this is how everyone learns and grows. But here is the difference, I'm lucky. Coz I have people in my life to point me ( sometimes again and again and again and again... ) in the right direction. And while guiding, they tell me not just what I need to pay more attention to but also things I'm good at and why I'm good at those things. This is very rare ( or so I feel ) and I'm grateful to them all for their timely guidance. As an ID, this is even more rare because people generally are busy forwarding their own agenda and are rarely interested in getting people up where they could reach. And I realized that while most of us go to great lengths ensuring that the work we did was to the best of our ability, we never really care or pay attention to what others might think about our leading ability. But today I was shown what it means to be a good supervisor. While the wor

Often while designing course strategy, we expect that with right knowledge in their arsenals the learners can change their behavior. However, as a learning profession we know that this doesn't always happen. Had knowledge really changed behavior, we would all be going through some kind of online course to know how to do our own tasks better and reaped benefits in terms of increments during each appraisal. Had it been that simple, clients, delivery heads, leads and reviewers would not eat our brains every chance they get. And expanding this idea beyond e-learning industry, we would not have heard/read stories about the crazy shrinks, obese doctors/physical trainers/dietitians and divorced marriage counselors! If we really wish to bring about behavioral change through our courses, we need to ask "What, exactly, needs to be done differently?" For this we need to look beyond the obvious failures. We need to look beyond the knowing-doing gap, beyond the persona

Often, we are asked to add a game to the course because its the in-thing . Or because the client had used it successfully in some other course and received great feedback from the learner regarding the games. Unfortunately, there are leads and managers out there who won't fight such demands. They take the path of least resistance and accept whatever the client asks them to do. But seriously aren't games played with a goal in mind? Isn't that the whole point of the game - to reach some goal. So how can games be added to random content just because it worked in some other course? I'm personally not against using games in a course. But I do feel that as an ID, we should add value to the content. Do what the content demands and do it in a way that is best for the learner to use that content for maximum benefit. Say no to path of least resistance.

Show to the GDs and learners – don’t just tell! Today, I came across some content that was difficult to visualize onstage and remembered the article "Show Don’t Tell" by Shirley Jump. Why Show? Well, showing involves the learner; it allows them to participate and ensures that you have them where you want them to be – right beside you. So when you are creating a role play where say a character named Dan is to be shown angry how will you visualize him? Will you tell your GD, show an angry frown and expect that the GD and the leaner will know it’s an angry face or would rather show Dan in his office, at his desk, standing up with the report in his hand, slamming it shut with a frown on his face and throwing it on his desk? Think about it. Option one is easy for IDs, but option 2 is will have flavor to it. If you give rich details in your visual descriptions, those rich characters will give the learner an experience that will be much more memorable. So show and don’

Are you in a rut? Do you think the job is great but the people you work with aren't all that great? Do you feel you know how others should do their job? If you answer any of the above as 'yes', it says you don't have that old fashioned feeling about your work. No, I'm not talking about joy. And I'm not talking about fun either. The thing that differentiates a good storyboard creator and an okay one is the sentiment called pride. It shows through your work when you believe in it. It is when you don't try to do your best but you do your best. I hope you are one of those who take pride in their work. If not, start looking for things that will make you feel proud of yourself. Because trust me... if you don't care about what you do. It shows. Your work speaks for itself. It tells others when you are interested in what you do and when you are just doing a job. No course can teach you how to take pride in your work. It is not a thin

Sometimes, it is really difficult to explain what exactly it is that we do. People love to teach - I mean isn't that obvious from the number of unsolicited advice we get each day? And then, people love to pass comments - don't we all say, its a free country and if we don't like something we have a right to say 'I don't like it' Weave these two steps into a logic and mix it with the fact that IDs in India are not certified IDs. [ I'm definitely not a certified ID - experienced yes, certified no. ] So, I can't really complain when people jump in to define what it is we do. How can I? I only know what I have done and what I am doing. But ID is a huge field and there are many IDs out there doing many different things... And yet when people try to tell me that ID is just commonsense and anyone can do it - my hackles are raised. Everyone can give advice: But how many have actually followed that very same advice before doling it out? S

The first emotion we feel when a SB is scrapped is that that of being rejected . It is personal. Or at least it feels personal at that moment. But, as I have said before, the reviewer has not come to office decided to hurt your feelings that day. The reviewer is just doing the job. So, once the flood ( of feelings ) subside go back to the SB. Often, SBs are rejected not because you have not done it well but because the expected point-of-view is not coming through. For example, if during the initial discussion it was discussed that a particular topic (say 'A') can be dealt with in a humours way. The client and the reviewer would be looking forward to a SB which is written in that vein. However, when they find that the humour is not coming through, they ask for the SB to be reworked. At this stage, if as an ID, you are thinking 'but i don't think so...' guess what, you have 2 choices to help you move forward. 1. Convince the reviewer/client your wa

Today's post is going to be short and to the point. First, never copy-paste content: We don't want the learners to say that our content is copy-pasted from some other source - the way we say 'Hindi movies are a remake of Tamil and English movies.' Second, when writing script ensure that the transition between the screens is smooth. Content source documents, books and webpages tend to give everything in grammatically correct language. However, it means that sometimes the text becomes boring and its inherent character is lost. There is no drama, no cause-effect relationship, no narration. For example, each sentence in my current content document starts like this: Ionic bond this, Ionic bond that. However, our (e-learning) mode of teaching consists of animations. So along with the visual elements, the script too needs to smoothly transition from one step/screen to another . Thus, we cannot write 'Ionic bond this, ionic bond that' and expect

In the fast changing world of communication tools, wars between iPhone and Google nexus, Twitter versus Facebook versus LinkedIn, communication tools have lost their old world charm. Gone are the days when we picked up a pen to leave post-it notes. Today we twit and SMS the note directly in the person's hand and we share our moods via messenger status and Facebook one liners. However, in our struggle to lead a normal life, to complete work 18 hours work in 12 hours and rush back to family and friends - we get caught up with the communication tools and forget to pay attention to our communication itself – often we don’t even realize when we are communicating. Nor do we realize with whom and how we are communicating. Today, we take pride in saying that we storyboard using MS PowerPoint, MS Word, MS Excel or Captivate and so on and so forth. But in all this wheeling and dealings, how many of us remember that our SB is also a communication tool. The bows and whistles of the tool used t

In my last post, I sent you to Brett Bixler's list. It was huge but did YOU find it interesting? After going through it [ click here if you want to view it ] did you feel enthu about being an ID or were you exhausted? And do you have fun when you are working? When you get up do you feel I can't wait to work on my SB or is it more like I can't wait to complete this thing and do something more interesting ? It is important that we enjoy what we do, to be able to do it well. It is important that we laugh [ yes, even in office. ] Even when there is fire on project [ specially when there is fire on project .] The way I see us adding value is by being curious about what we do [ because we are really interested in what we do, not just cause I say so ]. That means wanting to know why we are creating the course. Knowing whether the course actually helps someone with their task or would it be just one more hoop for them to jump through? And if you create enough cou

I know this is not an original question. And I know that with all of us being professional IDs we do know what it is we do. But know what... early in 2007 I came across this blog entry and it made me realise that there a lot more to our profession than just our daily tasks. It will be an exhaustive effort for me to jot down everything. And to be quite honest, there some tasks which even I have not had a chance to work on. So I'll just send you to Brett Bixler's blog entry which he claims took him only 5 minutes to write down. Click here to read What is Instructional Design? by Brett Bixler.

A reviewer does not wake up thinking, 'today, I'm going to make that ID's life miserable.' Trust me they have enough problems of their own and don't really care much about your life and day. When we send our SB for review, we are basically asking the reviewer to judge it. And sometimes the line is smudged. The judgment is made not only about our work but by extension about us [ the person ]. This is very human thing to do. Often, as far as the seniors are concerned we are as good as our last SB . This is life. Accept it. Know that it is difficult process to go through for both writers and reviewers. Now, there are multiple variables that affect this experience. Part played by each role in the life cycle of a project: IDs: They know the content best. However, they might not always understand the business need the content has to fulfill (mostly due to lack of experience). If the ID is someone just out of college or someone with absolutely no knowledge of

First and foremost, know that you cannot work in isolation. Group work is the fundamental requirement of our industry. We, at least in India, are not taught team work in schools or colleges. Very few of us have ever played team sports. And so we are all ill equipped to handle failure without blaming others. Know that your team includes other writers, graphic designers and their lead, programmers and their lead, subject matter experts, editors, recording artists, delivery head, ID lead and last but not least – your reviewer . I’m stressing your relation with the SB reviewer here as it is one of the most difficult to manage. How to develop and maintain it will be the post for tomorrow. Today, repeat after me: ID is team effort. ID is team effort. ID is team effort. ID is team effort. ID is team effort.