1. Select at least 3 of these 5 contexts and compare/contrast the IDT trends and issues.
Business and Industry:
Trends-
"Business and industry continues to expand globally as the demand for employee training increases."
With in the business world there has been a shift from just having a knowledgeable work force, to actually improving employee on-the-job performance. Business are looking closer at human performance results, and designing programs to fix the root causes of the problems that come up.
Since corporations have expanded globally instructional designers are having to keep in mind that their training will be interpreted across many different cultures. The instructional designer needs to make sure to not step on any bodies toes by unknowingly offending some one, by what they say or do.
The goal for most business's and various industries today is to be cost effective. They do this by cutting back on resources and people.
Issues-
A major issue that is run across by business's is their time and resources. These companies can quickly discover that they lack the proper money or time to perform the instructional design activity to the magnitude that they want to. Due to the lack of funds and time the designer might have to start making adjustments to the original plan to stay on budget.
Military Education:
Trends-
Like in the business and industry world the military has become a globally wide force. Many different countries use and rely upon the same training mediums. For example many of our allies use training resources developed for and by the U.S.A military.
Since many different cultures could be using our training materials, the instructional designer again needs to be aware of how they are coming across to cultures other than our own.
Another trend faced in the military training field is the constant update of technology. New advancements are made daily in the field of technology. These advancements cross over into other fields. For example: GPS, the internet E.T.C.
Issues-
Like in business the military runs into problems with funding. The military has to think on how to best use the money that they have available. The instructional designer needs to be able to know how to effectively balance the use of both low and high tech training methods staying within budget.
An instructional designer has to take into account that training takes place in several different locations, not always being a stable classroom. Their training needs to be mobile and on the go for the various service men and women receiving the training.
The last issue that stood out to me that I want to call attention to is long range-planning. When planes or ships are designed, prototyped and ordered the technology has already changed from the original plans.
Due to this the instructional designer needs to be able to take into account that the technology will be changing and needs to be able to evolve and grow to meet the new technological needs.
Health Care:
Trends-
A continuing trend that had been present in the other two examples given has been advancements in technology. My mother is in the nursing field and has expressed that the medical field is converting everything over to become electronic verses paper based.
Data basses and libraries have also become online or electronic as opposed to the old fashioned hard book libraries.
Cost effectiveness has led to the medical industry moving towards doing more with less people. This has been done by giving one person more than one title or job responsibility. They have also cut jobs and staff.
Issues-
Due to the high cost of health care our current system may not be sustainable in the future. The health care industry is the most costly of all the examples given.
Regulations, standards, and license effect education and training in the medical field, because they dictate what has to be learned. The medical field is highly regulated. Employees have to stay up to date on current practices used in their area of expertise. They also have to keep up their licences and certifications up to date.
"The subject matter taught, the skills learned, and the techniques and technologies employed can have life-threatening consequences."
In the medical educational training filed you really can not make errors. Since learning is a life or death matter evaluation and research are a constant part of the medical educational training programs. The medical schools and hospitals are constantly being watched and evaluated on what they are doing.
Then explain how they are similar or different from the IDT trends and issues in the context in which you work.
As with the other contexts discussed, budget is always an issue in a school system. There are only so many resources and many needs that have to be met. Which can translate to less teachers, materials, or less technology. At my campus we have very outdated equipment when it comes to technology. We are also always running low on our textbooks and consumables. We have little to no supplies when it comes to our classrooms. I have dipped into my own pocket too many times to count to supplement my classroom supplies.
2. Chapters in
Section VI discuss global trends and issues in IDT. As the world’s population grows
exponentially, we face unprecedented challenges that have implications for learning. How and can we prepare our youth to address
the problems of living in a world with 9 billion people when the earth’s
resources cannot sustain that many? Does
our current education system, curriculum, and instructional practices help
learners foster the complex problem-solving skills necessary to tackle these
issues? Are there methods and practices
used in European and Asian countries that we should use here in the US? Why or
why not?
The world has
gotten smaller. We have to participate
and survive in a global economy. There is more competition for jobs and the
jobs available require more complex skills. Reading about the boy in the Congo
who had very limited access to the internet made me think about how unlevel the
playing field is. I think about my
students “in the hood” who come to school at age five already behind, not
knowing some of the most basic things. There are so many things they have not
been and will not be exposed to because of the impoverished and often unstable
homes they come from. Increased IDT
could change the lives of some of these children by being used to reinforce
lessons taught in the classroom. More
importantly, their horizon can be broadened by the internet by having access to
knowledge they might otherwise not receive.
Skills needed for
the 21st century include:
Core subjects
Twenty lst century content:
global awareness, financial, economic & business skills
Learning & thinking skills- critical thinking, problem solving,
communication skills
Information & Communication technology literacy
Life skills: such as
leadership, accountability, personal responsibility
My knowledge base is pre-k through lst grade; but, I can see
where our curriculum does touch on all of these categories. I think our curriculum can be enhanced by
incorporating more technology.
The author cited
the social & economic problem of Europe: aging population, decline in birth
rate, education, training & employment.
I seems to be the same problems we face here. We also have some of the same issues with
multi cultures and language barriers.
A good IDT program
can help prepare our next generation for the future. The UK has embraced “connectivism”, which is
networking people, information and
machines through the world wide web.
Teachers connect with learners and fellow teachers. The whole system connects with information
and learning stimuli that reside in the learning institution or
organization. The author cited a problem
that it might cause some to think learning is always a social and collaborative
event. I think connectivism can be
useful in the US. It is good to have the
various interactions between teacher/teacher, teacher/student.
Korea has set
national e-learning policies and provided adequate budget to implement
them. Teachers and principals are
expected to continually receive training in ICT skills, e-learning development,
and online collaboration, IDT,& knowledge community building. Although we receive sporadic training here,
it could only make us better teachers to also improve and develop our ICT, IDT
skill as they do in Korea.
I did not think the
Japanese use of IT in school had as much that we could draw from. There are no set standards for keeping up
training or demands of how much IT should be utilized in a class. So, teachers in Japan who like IT may become
skilled and use it. Teachers who don’t
like it may not use it.
I work in a school
where we share sizzors and crayons because the parents don’t send school
supplies to school. I would imagine very
few of these students have a computer in their home. And yet, our world is run on computers
now. It’s how we communicate and how we
pay our bills. IT should be incorporated
into our curriculum as much as possible.
Can our education system provide the skills to solve our complex
problems? Personally, I think life as
most of us know it is unsustainable in the future and maybe that all the king’s
horses and all the king’s men cannot put it back together again.
I agree with you that in business and industry global expansion is creating a demand for employee training. Not only is there a demand for training, but specialized multicultural instructional design is going to be needed. Cultures are different around the world and efforts are going to have to be made to incorporate their differences into the instructional design process. Cost does seem to be one of the major problems for the IDT industry. Instructional designers are now wearing different hats because of the latest economic downturn. Instructional designers are doubling as project managers. Outsourcing for ID seems to also be a trend as well. In the military field, I see that you talked about globalization as well. I agree that American military training materials need to be multicultural. Technology is developing so fast that IDT is having a hard time keeping up with new advancements. The military definitely has cost issues. I guess all fields do. I found it eye-opening that when ships and other large-scale projects are planned that by the time they build the object, the technology has changed. ID will have to be an ongoing process in these projects. I agree with the inside perspective from your mother that everything is becoming electronic versus paper-based. I think this is in every industry. My online banking account wants me to get rid of paper citing recycling and waste of paper but I know that this is a cost cutting move. It sounds like the health care field is going to have to go through massive changes to deal with the rising costs and sprawling nature of the health care industry. I noticed in the reading that convergence is a big plus for the industry where multiple technologies are converging and creating databases that are linked to other areas in the health care industry. I believe this convergence will continue to go on as companies try to link everything together into one website. I was fascinated by how other countries view teachers at the top of the food chain instead of near the bottom. That students wanted the interaction in a classroom versus internet classes. I know the book cited that Japan and Korea are not really embracing IDT but those countries are new to the IDT landscape. I believe that they will see the benefit and gradually move toward ID evaluation to improve their products.
ReplyDeleteMulticulturalism is the way of the now and the future. As you clearly stated in business as well as in the military, IDT must take into consideration that it will not be only one demographic they are serving, but a multitude of them. I believe that the IDT field should consider, if it has not already, establishing a unit that immerses itself in finding the commonalities between groups in order to better serve learners as well as cut down on time and money spent. I also believe that globally, tolerance must be at the forefront of everything we do. When reading about IDT in the military I found it fascinating that an IDT developer must understand the ranking system in order to properly address military officers. I believe that in a global community we would have to learn many of the customs in order to not cause offense or create a hostile learning environment, yet it also takes tolerance on the part of the learner, to understand that learning is at the heart of IDT and any unintentional mistakes are not meant to disrespect learners. This is a situation that I experienced when I moved to Texas from Puerto Rico to be a bilingual elementary school teacher. My student population is mostly Mexican and there are terms and ways that are considered offensive to this culture that are perfectly acceptable in Puerto Rico. Had I not explained to my learners and their parents that if I said something upsetting to them I needed to know immediately because although we are all Hispanic our cultures differ, I might have had situations that would upset the learning environment because of our multicultural backgrounds.
ReplyDeleteI am sorry to hear that your campus does not have a technology initiative that tries to keep up with the changing times and puts technology in the hands of young learners. I do believe that it is a priority as you say, especially when a school is in a mostly free and reduced lunch population, to expose children to as much technology and its practical application in life, as possible. This year I was given ONE iPad at my school because I am part of a Leadership Team and administration felt it necessary to give each team member a tablet. I specifically told my principal "If you give me this iPad you must acknowledge that you are clear that I will only put it in the hands of students, I don't need it but they do." My principal agreed although she might not have understood the extent to which the students would have access to the iPad. This year I had 27 students in my 4th grade classroom, the iPad never went missing, they developed a system to share it equally and by turns, it was understood that no one could "hog" it for long periods of time. The iPad was set on a shelf and students would ask if they could use it, and then it was all on them, the correct usage, showing self-control in understanding that as much as they loved the iPad, others wanted a turn to. Students took the device to lunch and since we take bathroom breaks as a group, to the bathroom as well. They took it on field trips in order to take pictures, they used the dictionary capabilities as well as read books on it. The experience with the iPad led many of them to ask their parents for one for their birthdays or Christmas. Although I know many parents could not afford one, I was satisfied that they had learned to use this technology for research and learning rather than just as a toy. I hope that your campus soon finds the money to enrich the student body with technology making them well rounded individuals that can be ready for the future.
The cost vs benefit like you mentioned does carry over to the educational field. As teachers we don’t really know how much money the school district gets from the State, the Federal government, county or city. Then, how are those monetary resources spent? I recently heard in the radio that a certain restaurant chain throws away lots of food. The issue came up that all that waste could have been used in other areas (salaries). So budgeting and being smart in using the funds is quite important. I guess this could be a research project in itself. But yes, classroom teachers are quite underpaid with regards to their profession. One of the reasons is that education does not have a profit. The only profit is the students’ ability to perform at a set standard. I hear complaints in the media regarding education and low outcome performance. But I believe that, when you raise the benefits of the profession, you will have better performance because there will be more competition for that job. But, this too would need to be researched and studied. But anyway, I guess we just need to do the best what we can with what we get. And hope for better times!!
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