Instructional design models

The e-learning I have produced up till now has all been made without any planned framework so in order to make my webinar and podcast as successful as possible I decided to take a look at the major instructional design models to see what I could learn from them. My first discovery was that there are seemingly hundreds of different models, some of them applying to learning in general, others specifically relating to online learning. Chaudry & Rahman (2010) published a very interesting critical analysis of such models in the Turkish Online Journal of Distance Education which thankfully also helps me to reduce the number of models I should consider.

The ADDIE model seems to be the one which is presently most used in preparing online education materials. The five parts of ADDIE are:

A - Analysis
D - Design
D - Development
I - Implementation
E - Evaluation



The analysis stage is a needs analysis in which it should be found out, just what do our participants need to learn, what do they already know and what are the objectives for this piece of training. In the case of my APBOT webinar this question is irrelevant, one could however say the need is to be informed about the theory and practice of mobile learning.

In the design stage decisions have to be made about the format the training will be provided in, what content will be used, and a protoype has to be created.

The development stage is concerned with implemented the requirements listed in the design stage. In the case of e-learning this is also the stage where courses or software should be tested and debugged/corrected. This is the stage my webinar is at, at the moment.

The next stage is the implementation stage which is when everything is set up to deliver the training. Once I have completed my presentation this will be the stage where I upload it to Elluminate and ensure everything is working correctly before I begin the webinar.

Finally, in the evaluation phase presents the opportunity for the creator to evaluate the training themselves as well as giving the participants to provide their own feedback. At the moment I am working on an evaluation form to give everyone at the end of my webinar. This will be produced using the forms function of google docs.

Another very interesting model I discovered is the OAR model which is special in that it was specifically designed for distance learning in higher education.



In this case the name is an abbreviation for objectives, activities and resources. This model is appealing as it seems very simple and straightforward. However, unlike the ADDIE model it does not include any specific area for gaining feedback and evaluating the training.

I found these and the other models I looked at to be fascinated and I am sure there is no one ideal model which fits all circumstances. For my webinar, podcast and future e-learning projects I will therefore take a look at several more models and use the components which seem to meet my needs best. There is here, as always, a lot more reading to be done!

Neil

Sources:

Chaudry, M.A. & Rahman, F.U. (2010) A critical review of instructional design process of distance learning system, Turkish online journal of distance education, Vol. 11, Number. 3.
https://tojde.anadolu.edu.tr/tojde39/articles/article_11.htm [accessed 12.3.2012]

Instructional design models and theories, http://www.instructionaldesigncentral.com/htm/IDC_instructionaldesignmodels.htm [accessed 12.03.2012]

ADDIE instructional design model, http://www.intulogy.com/addie/ [accessed 12.03.2012]

OAR model, http://www.enotes.com/topic/OAR_model [accessed 12.03.2012]