Category: Technology

Instructional Technologies for Presentation and Organization: A Technical and Pedagogical Perspective

This blog post is written in collaboration with Kyle, Instructional Media Support.

In this post, we’re excited to introduce and discuss four instructional technologies useful in eLearning environments: Descript, OBS, Coda, and H5P! Originally, we began exploring these technologies from a purely technological perspective. Tara asked Kyle to review the tools to understand them from a technical point of view: how do these technologies work? What are their practical uses and limitations? 

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The AI Revolution is Here! What this means for Educators, Students, and the Learning Environment

If you’ve followed our blog for a while, you’ll recall several of our posts have explored the future and possibilities of artificial intelligence (AI) in education, eLearning, and instructional design. The release of Generative AI (Nvidia) and OpenAI programs (ChatGPT and GPT-4) in the past year has accelerated the AI Revolution in all aspects of life, including education.

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Digital Content Curation Tools for Education

Digital content curation tools allow us to easily create, collaborate, share, and evaluate educational resources and collections. With “[…] advances in technology, enhanced tools allow researchers to preserve their work in new venues and formats to reach new audiences. (Deschaine & Sharma, 2015, p. 20). In Curating an Instructional Content Collection for Teaching and Learning, I shared how to use content curation in course design to provide accurate, relevant learning resources and model 21st century information literacy skills. In this post, I’ll discuss digital tools for curating educational content.

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Creating Accessible Learning Materials – Microsoft PowerPoint

Welcome back! In Creating Accessible Learning Materials – Microsoft Word, I outlined some ways you can format your Microsoft Word documents to be more accessible. By maintaining the alt text, color contrast, and using the accessibility checker, your document should be accessible to anyone who needs it.

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Creating Accessible Learning Materials – Microsoft Word

Our team has been infusing accessibility into our process for a while. In the blog series, “Formatting eLearning Documents,” former team member Wendy detailed how to effectively format documents in Microsoft Word and take full advantage of its features. I intend to add to that resource with my own article series, with a specific focus on accessibility. 

In “Creating Accessible Learning Materials,” I’ll explore a few ways accessibility practices can be implemented when creating content in Microsoft Office. Today, I’ll focus on Word and briefly cover some useful tips to improve the documents you share. 

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Looking Through a Learning Tool

There is a spectrum of opinion about online learning, inclusive of two polar opposite sides in the discussion: it’s either new and exciting and every course should be online, or it is a scary new technology that destroys the personal communication essential for a “good class.” As I consider this debate, something that both groups should realize is that it’s easy to fall into the trap of defining instruction through the use of a tool, rather than realizing there is an inherent separation between the instruction and the tool. Today I’ll explore the differences and how this separation impacts our design. 

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Engage Learners with Instructional GIFs

You can’t really go anywhere on the internet without running into the ubiquitous animated GIF (graphical interchange format). Originating in 1987, GIFs shaped—and grew—with the internet in the following 30+ years (for those who missed the 90s or want to reminisce, the Internet Archive created a search for early GIFs).

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What Makes a Good Informational Video?

As instructional designers, we try to use the best tool for the task when communicating with a learner. Video is a great format for conveying information, but how do you know if it’s done well?

This week, we’ll hear from our summer student worker, Kyle Winchell. Kyle is a Digital Media Broadcasting major and editor of Spring Arbor University’s weekly chapel video, Almost Chapel. After graduation he plans to fill various roles for local film productions, specifically in the roles of director of photography and production assistant.

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Managing your Digital Toolbox

In the past I’ve talked about how it’s important to not let efficiency get in the way of trying to master a new skill or tool. Today, I want to expand on that a little bit and argue that sometimes, leaning too much into monetary efficiency is bad.

Yeah. Sometimes you just gotta spend money.

I’m not saying be frivolous. But rather try not to get locked into design patters solely by financial concerns. Let me explain.

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Why Deep Learning Will Change Instructional Design

If you’re like me, you may not have noticed the quantum leaps in technology over the past four years. Technology is so omnipresent in our lives we’re often not aware of some of the profound changes going on around us—until something draws our attention to it.

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