Week 13 - Module #15 - More Career and PD Discussion, Personal Explorations, and Final Projects
Educational Technology, Educational Design, Instructional Design, Learning Experience Design, and Instructional Systems Design are five disciplines that cause confusion and overlap when describing the career possibilities available for professionals in these fields. According to Basdogan et. al (2020), those disciplines "are mostly needed for recommending, selecting, and utilizing technological tools and processes" (p. 2060). At the same time, "they focus on increasing the efficiency and effectiveness of the tools to carry the message accurately to the learner" (Basdogan et al., 2020, pp. 2060-2061). Having professions that have almost the same names and similar required skills, makes it a little confusing for students and job seekers to describe them accurately. There should be a better understanding of what are the skills that they share and what are the most important differences between them.
When Kim (2018a) presented a quick search for career opportunities in the instructional design field, there was a list of various professional opportunities in 2018. After the pandemic, there is a need for more instructional designers to help educational institutions continue creating and supporting blended or online courses. However, Kim (2018b) mentioned something important about how some professionals are doing the job of instructional designers without the proper preparation. "It is time that we recognize the unique levels of expertise of those with advanced degrees in instructional design, and direct our hiring for these positions to those who possess that hard-earned credential" (Kim, 2018b, p. 1).
It is more than clear that professionals in the instructional technology field will be more needed in the next few years. They are professionals that will continue expanding their professional activities to a variety of professional levels and disciplines. It will be complex to imagine that there will be a scenario where instructional designers have one general professional profile description to list all the different skills and knowledge behind their professional preparation.
Basdogan, M., Ozdogan, Z., & Bonk, C. J. (2020). Understanding the diverse field of “educational technology” as revealed in Twitter job postings: Encoding/decoding approach. The Qualitative Report, 25(8), 2044-2066. Available: https://nsuworks.nova.edu/tqr/vol25/iss8/3
Kim, Joshua (2018a, June 6). A traditional Ph.D. does not an instructional designer make,
Inside Higher Ed, https://www.insidehighered.com/digital-learning/blogs/technology-and-learning/traditional-phd-does-not-instructional-designer-make
Kim, Joshua, (2018b, March 8). Career Opportunities at the Intersection of Learning and Technology: A talent shortage?, Joshua Kim, Inside Higher Ed, https://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/technology-and-learning/career-opportunities-intersection-learning-and-technology
The naming conventions of IST are a point of amusement and minor annoyance. As has been said during this semester, we are taking a class in instructional systems technology while one of the main professional associations for the field uses education and communications technology (with the use of two adjectives being a compromise solution). This can also be seen in the existence of both instructional and educational psychology departments. Sometimes the word 'systems' is used to connote the full array of management for planning, development and evaluation and the combination of pedagogy/andragogy and technology among other things. To be more confusing, the lesser used term 'academic technology' is prevalent at some institutions including mine. Florida State brings in 'learning', 'performance' and 'professional' as additional adjectives. It really feels like we need a constitutional convention to discuss this again.
ReplyDelete"What can I do after my graduation?" I keep considering it before and during my study in IST. As a beginner in this field, the first decision to make is the research areas while exploring multiple ones interesting to me. Another important question is what I should do if I want to explore some interdisciplinary topics. Should I consider "Cask Effect" or play to my strengths and avoid weaknesses? My choice is the latter. By making important decisions one by one, people select a track towards possible job types in the future.
ReplyDeleteHi Claudio.
ReplyDeleteThe different disciplines cause so much confusion for me personally. Working in instructional design and attending formal education related to instructional design has caused conflicting thoughts when discussing and sharing information related to instructional design to others in my workplace. I found that it is easier to discuss instructional design with those who either have certificates or formal education in instructional design in my workplace versus those who are brand-new to the field. I agree on how it is important to recognize those who have earned some form of education in the instructional design field. However, I believe it is wise to keep an open-minded approach when bringing people into the field since their backgrounds can potentially bring good outside perspectives.