MSIDT 505: Foundations of Instructional Design and Web Authoring Environments

Hello!
The first semester of my CSUF MSIDT program (Fall 2014) included MSIDT 505, Foundations of Instructional Design and Web Authoring Environments. The course objectives were (from the university website): “The ability to describe and manipulate the basic levels of an authoring environment. The use hardware and software to apply basic animation, sound, and other multimedia properties to an authoring environment. The analysis and assessment of basic media and authoring programming elements as they apply to hardware/networking environments.”
I feel that the course met these objectives. Students in Cohort 13 were expected to produce two original multimedia learning objects using Captivate 8, complete weekly assignments on the web forum (including peer reviews of others’ learning objects), and write a final research paper. There were also a few quizzes thrown in for good measure.
There is no mention of instructional design theory in the main course objectives, but there were readings and assignments on the subject, and there was enough information provided to give an overview of the instructional design process. There was also good information provided on the design process as it relates to human behavioral characteristics. The instructor for the course was a working instructional design professional, and he gave good insight and feedback throughout the course.
Supporting the course were three main texts (reviews of these will be provided at a later date):
-- Instructional Design: A Primer, by Bruce Ledford and Phillip Sleeman
-- Designing Interfaces, by Jennifer Tidwell
-- Adobe Captivate 8 The Essentials “Skills and Drills" Learning, by Kevin Siegel
The coursework was not terribly onerous, but it was hard to readjust to the world of academia, which I probably did not do right the first time around. Learning Moodle, the learning management system, took a few weeks but soon became second nature. And publishing Captivate projects was exceedingly exasperating at times, and the Cohort could have benefitted from some instruction and guidance in this area.
If I had this course to do over again, I would have only changed one thing in the way that I approached it. I already had my final project for the program picked out at the time, and now I wish that I had tailored my learning objects and final paper to be work that I could integrate into that project, so there will be a little les research and work to be done at the end.
Thanks for checking out the blog, and next we will take a look at the texts we used for this course.
Mahalo!

Fall Semester, 2014

Sorry it has been so long since I posted, things have been crazy around here!

My first semester in the MSIDT program was Fall of 2014, and like the other four semesters, it lasted for 16 weeks. Six units are taken at a time, so there were two courses: IDT 505: Foundations of Instructional Design and Web Authoring Environments and IDT 510, Research Practices in Instructional Design and Technology.

As I have said before, it has been a long time since I had been an undergraduate, so there were a lot of things to get used to. I figured out early on that the syllabus is the bible for each course (I never looked at them in college the first time), and I was constantly going back to look at the schedules and the descriptions of the assignments. I made it a point to cross-reference it with the assignments the instructors gave us each week, so that nothing slipped through the cracks. I kept a separate planner (an old-school paper one) just for school assignments, which was (and still is) a big help.

I had forgotten how to read in a scholarly way, so it took quite awhile to get up to speed on streamlining the amount of time I was spending reading, and trying to make notes only on what was really important. I will be providing overviews of the books in future blog posts.

I enjoyed the web forums, and made sure that I posted on a daily basis, paying attention to threads that had few or no posts, so that everybody had a chance to get feedback on the work they presented. I was thankful that I decided to get a new computer (a Macbook Pro), as it was more robust than my old PC, and was able to run authoring software with no problems.

How did it all turn out? Pretty darned well! I put in a lot of hours (almost 30 per week), but I learned a lot and got grades I was happy with.

Stay tuned to the blog –- I will be writing about both of the classes as well as the texts we used in them.

Mahalo!

Rex