Hi There,
Sorry if my post is redundant, but I'm just scanning the thread. Did you mention a web site/ Google Doc, or other place I can find your doctoral thesis on Cooperative Learning? Best,
Bill Thimmesch
Bill Thimmesch
Posts made by Bill Thimmesch
Bev,
I think that day may already be here.
The attached article--written in 1990--captures my original thinking on automating some part of ISD in the corporate training context. The tools are there. The question is: are we ready?
I've enjoyed the intellectual debate...my best,
Bill
Thank you to everyone for the wonderful posts, teaching resources, and critical thinking about the learning process for adults (whether in educational or training contexts). Here's my question for our final week of discussion:
If you could automate any instructional tool, method, or assessment process for adult learning, what would you want to automate?
Example 1: automated assistant for communications skills training:
http://www.simmersion.com/what_we_do.htm
Example 2: automating the tracking of learners throughout a curriculum (Learning Management Systems):
http://www.astd.org/NR/rdonlyres/12ECDB99-3B91-403E-9B15-7E597444645D/23395/LMS_fieldguide_20091.pdf
----------- If you want to continue the discussion on automating instructional design past our June 24 seminar close...please follow the discussion here:
These are very thoughtful questions, so I'll be happy to respond to most of them:).
I have learned something from this seminar. I have learned that the instructional process is more complicated, and that the worlds of education and formal training (instruction) have merged with the help of social media tools (wikis, blogs, sites like this). I think my main takeaway is that an automated tool needs to be tried out in a much narrower universe: skill-based training. When your training objectives can be precisely stated I think you can work backwards and ask the training design questions that will get you to the right training tools and instructional strategies. But even then you have to take the learner into account (do visual learners need different instructional techniques in order to learn how to fly an airplane, put out a fire, or cross-examine a witness)? Anyway...I'm thinking smaller these days--but still am determined to find a way to automate the simple process that trainers go through every day--asking questions about the purpose of training to define if training is even needed, what training tools would be optimal, and what would the best ways be to evaluate skill transfer. After all, There are a million books, articles, and research papers out there already prescribing the same training analysis process (ASTD.ORG)--If the steps are so redudant and predictable, then why not automate this part of the thinking process so the trainer can ge to the core of what is needed to improve employee performance?
My thoughts on "running" this seminar (I'd say facilitating from afar) are that you never know where you'll end up when you'r e talking to instructional designers and experts from around the world. One day I'll get a doctoral degree and put that all into a dissertation...but not now, when I'm broke and still paying college tuition for my own children...
Automating this process? No. Not as a facilitated result. Perhaps just indexing the discussion threads so that future users would not have to read all the posts--but could search by the tags to get to an area or URL of interest.
This has been a great experience. Honored to have been a small part of it.
Bill (ROBOT)
I found this tool from Professor Dawn Wright (who owns and gets all the credit). dawn@dusk.geo.orst.edu
Please compelte this form by June 24th and post. Best,
Bill Thimmesch