On-line Journal/Article Reviews

This week's assignment was to review two websites or on-line journals that discussed the topics this week - the brain and learning, information processing theory, and problem-solving methods during learning process.

The first on-line article I read was about the brain and learning. It came from "The Educational Forum" journal and is titled "What Brain Research Suggests for Teaching Reading Strategies" by Judy Willis. This journal article was very interesting in describing the brain and how it learns to read. It goes into detail of neurons and how the brain responds to the presentation of sensory stimuli in the complex processes of reading. At the end, it discusses how it is difficult for teachers to be able to pin-point the best way to teach their students effective reading strategies so that they can truly learn the material. As a Trainer, I think this article is beneficial to corporate Trainers as well since we do a lot of our facilitating through audio tools - either having the learners read items or performing a lecturette. This allows any kind of facilitator to have a better idea of the brain and understand that it is difficult to reach all types of learners because all of our brains function differently, but not to give up on trying because science isn't giving up on their research. In the future, we may have a better understanding of how we can successfully reach all types of learners.

The second on-line article is from Scholastic Parent and Child magazine. It discusses the brain and learning in terms of babies. It's a short article, but offers a lot of good information that agrees with Aristotle's theory that mental capabilities are developed through experience with the environment (Gredler, Ormrod, & Schunk 2009). It emphasizes how parents play an important role in their child's learning capabilities. This article provides simple steps the parents can take to keep their child's brain constantly learning. Now, I don't work with children, but I think that a lot of this can be used for adults as well. For example, the article discusses positive emotional learning and that is still crucial in adults, just not done the same way as with children. Adults need to know they are doing a great job - either with a promotion, raise, or simply a company gift. This makes us feel good that we are doing something right and appreciated by our actions being noticed by someone else. While reading this article, it dawned on me that a lot of the points made there are relevant to adults, just presented to them in a different way.

Instructional Design Website Reviews

Hello Everyone,

This is my first blog and I am writing it for a class at Walden University where I'm attaining a Masters in Instructional Design. Our assignment was to review blogs or on-line newsletters and write about our opinions of each one, so here are my reviews:

The first one is Instructional Design Open Studio located at: http://id.ome.ksu.edu/blog/

This blogs home page is very simplistic and easy to follow, which is what drew me to reading more about it. It opens with different blog entries discussing instructional design and points on learning. The posts just describe different types of learning like e-learning, "gray or fugitive" literature, and some posts discuss effective design techniques. The posts come from instructors and designers giving their opinions on learning, discussing research they've conducted, or their own first-hand experiences. This site also has something called "ROUNDTABLES" where there are presentations done by various people and comments are made on those. This site is one I see myself continuously referring to during my career to read some great ideas on how to more effectively design my material.

The second blog is Williams Instructional Design, LLC at: http://williamsinstructionaldesign.blogspot.com/

This blog is conducted by Mary Williams who is an Instructional Designer and Training professional. She has her own company called Williams Instructional Design and she's started a blog to get some more ideas flowing for everyone in this industry and to share her own experiences. The posts in this blog all refer to instructional design and different tools on it. People are posting different graphs explaining where designers should aim their material for and different tools designers can use to better their material either on-line or on paper. Another neat feature is it has an area for blog archives that breaks down by months so if you've been a user of this site for awhile and want to refer to a post, you can just go to it based on the month instead of searching through hundreds of posts at once. This is another site I plan on using often to advance my knowledge in instructional design and just learn more tips and tools on this topic.

The third website I thought was useful is not a blog, but an on-line newsletter called Train-Ease, Inc. located at: http://www.train-ease.com/news.html

This on-line newsletter is about learning and performance solutions. It has articles on different types of learning (on-line, webinar, mobile, etc.) and discusses different tools and tips people in the Training and Instructional Design field can use. It also has articles that discuss the company and their plans for now and the future. The company is based in Columbus, OH, which for me is local and I like to support local businesses. The newsletter has some interesting articles that I have read and used in the past. I've referred this newsletter quite often as my main field is Training, but I am the creator of our training material. This site helps me with the design aspect of my job, but also gives me some tips on how to create the material for the Trainers who are facilitating it.

Those are the three blogs and newsletters I have found while searching for material on instructional design. I hope these will be helpful to you as well as you continue, or start, in the Instructional Design field. They have certainly provided me with some great ideas that I can use at the office.