Week 1 Reflections

EDIT 451
Week 1 Reflections

Textbook
I appreciate the history, overview, and issues related to instructional design presented the beginning chapters of the textbook.  I have experienced many of these approaches and 'products' as a student (I remember watching filmstrips) and more recently as a participant in instructional design projects for my work.  These concepts are also familiar from my undergraduate study of 'environmental psychology' and 'human-environment' relationships for design. 

The timeline assignment is helpful for identifying the relationship between society, technology and the instructional design field.

My 2cents about the video we saw in class. http://youtu.be/dGCJ46vyR9o 

I have seen this Michael Wesch video a few times and always have mixed reactions.  It is somewhat disappointing that higher ed still relies on mega lectures for many required lower division courses, but the attitude of the students is also disappointing and doesn't acknowledge the point of why they are in college.  Of course learning a new subject is less fun and more challenging than facebooking!  Reading a textbook is generally not as engaging as surfing the Web, but that doesn't mean all textbooks should become glossy webpages. 


Today's collaborative media tools and the much easier-to-use web authoring tools that are now available to teachers and students are being applied to improve the situation depicted in the video and common on college campuses.  
Michael Wesch demonstrates use of these tools in another video

The Machine is Us/ing Us (Final Version)

Hopefully these more engaging tools will encourage a change of stuent's attitudes.  Listening, learning and applying and challenging yourself in college is as important preparation for the working world as the other activities the students promote in the video. Also, colleges and teachers (at all levels) could do a better job of encouraging students to shift from passive learning in high schools to become more active self-directed learners.