As i we continue in our journey to define ID

I am not an instructional designer, even though I have been participating in designing online courses at the college and university levels for the last couple of years.

From what I have read from literatures and from participants (FET5601) in the course, there is no consensus on what an instructional designer in academia should know or do. Is he Technology specialist or futurist that predict what technology to use? Is he an expert in pedagogy or a Learning Management System assistance? Does he need to be able to build stuff or work as a consultant?

Frankly, the job of an ID in academia is not an easy one at all. As the subject matter expert (SME) and the facilitator are the same person. And in my college where I work the ID is the one who does everything from writing the contents, selecting the technology, make assumption about learners characteristics and learning environment.

It is definitely not an easy job and by all means a one which is not going to be perfect.

Wimba Session

Today, we had our first online session with Shirley. The participants were not as many as I expect it to be. Maybe that due to the timing of the day and to Easter holiday in many part of the world. But overall, I had a chance to hear from Shirley and from those who where there.

I was impressed with the quality of audio and video using Wimba. We were able to hear each other very clearly. A brief discussion on different LMS platforms and how they compare to each other in terms of user friendliness and others features. I look forward for the next session; hoping that the timing will be a little bit later in the day.

My View on Instructional Design

It is very interesting to read participants postings on their definitions of Instructional Design (ID). Actually, opinions vary a lot depending on experience and type of work people have been involved in. For me the first time I heard about the concept of Instructional Design is when I was attending in-house WebCT training session at my college. At that stage I was designing a WebCT comp 100 course for the purpose of the training and to be used in my classes. I ended uploading the contents and using the tools and that was about it. I achieved the objective of the training session but I could not use the course with my students. They found it to be extremely boring and they bluntly told me that they hate it. If I am to design the same course again, I will wait till the end of this course and then do it. I know for sure the reason students hated the WebCT comp 100 course was because I did not take into consideration any Instructional design issues.
My current understanding of Instructional Design is one that takes into account the whole teaching and learning environment: Participants and their past experience; learning styles and language levels; the amount of visuals and audio; flexibility and accessibility; summative and formative assessment; and participation and instructor presence. Therefore, the challenge with the instructional design is that you need to have expertise and experience in more than one area if the course to be designed by one person which is the case at many colleges. The best instructional design course will take place when you have a group of people with specific expertise to work on it.

what do others think? what is your definition of instructional design?