This week’s reading about the educational technology at a bachelor’s level was interesting. Maybe this is needed to fill the gap in many organizations who only have educational technologists or instructional design professionals in HR. Other business departments could use instructional designers to shape the workforce with the required information to be consistent on product knowledge and to develop employee skills that are needed to maximize productivity. It is strange to have to thinking about how to use instructional design for an instructional design major. I think before the architecture is designed; the researcher needs to know what the expected job outcome would be. Also, job sector needs to considered for general requirements if it is not in junior or senior years. The students will need to know if their interest is in business or educational field. One of the biggest elements for success will be internships that will allow students to apply learning into an authentic environment. (Ritzhaupt & Kang, 2017)
Our readings also took us to articles that discussed what an instructional designer should be doing especially in the educational field. The authors (Kumar & Ritzhaupt, 2017) believed a review of instructional designer job field was required to see how the skills match with the most up-to-date requirements. It was highlighted that the focus of an instructional designer was different as it related to education and business. The first concentrated on planning projects while the other dealt with client’s interest. Surveys were given to ID professionals who responded with what they were doing in their organizations. In the education field (higher education), many ID professionals were responsible for course development and support to students, teachers, and faculty. (Kumar & Ritzhaupt, 2017)
Kumar, S. & Ritzhaupt, A. D. (2017). What do instructional designers in higher education really do? International Journal of E-Learning, 16(4), 371-393.
Ritzhaupt, A. D. & Kang, Y. (2015). Are we ready for bachelor’s degrees in educational technology: Perceptions from the field and a proposal? Educational Technology, 55(3), 14-22.
Ed's Reflections for IU courses 
3 replies on “Week #12B Blog – Career & Professional Development”
Ed, I think you provided a very interesting proposition in this blog post. As you stated in your post: “Maybe this is needed to fill the gap in many organizations who only have educational technologists or instructional design professionals in HR. Other business departments could use instructional designers to shape the workforce with the required information to be consistent on product knowledge and to develop employee skills that are needed to maximize productivity.” I think this idea would be very helpful for fields like HPT. In practice, I have seen HPT being performed by those in Human Resources who do not always have the instructional design background. I believe deliberate educational efforts in educational best practices would be so helpful to those practicing HPT. It would be so helpful to so many fields that conduct training or presentations to be educated in the field of instructional design.
-Shanna Sanders
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Hi Ed,
I think this week was one that really cemented in me the idea of authentic learning – like you mentioned. I think this is one of the harder fields to “pick up” after university training as a business is SOOO different from a room full of peers. Making an instructional design for a professor has little in common with making one for a real business.
Where would one go for this? I would hope that there would be many internship possibilities available for recent graduates in the ID sphere, but, as I also agree with you that ID experts are not utilized in as many places as they should be, those opportunities might not be available.
I will watch with interest the way the field goes. I myself am in the Adult Education Masters program, but I would assume I will be working closely with Instructional designers in my career – so I’ll keep my eye out…
-Kevin
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Ed,
I also found the article Are we ready for bachelor’s degrees in educational technology? interesting. I had never put much thought into why we do not already have bachelor’s degrees in educational technology. I agree, with your thoughts and believe there could be a need for this type of education as various departments in organizations could benefit from instructional designers. This article was written in 2015 and I was interested to learn if programs like this exist now. Upon a Google search, I found that there are very few bachelor’s programs in educational technology today. Northern Illinois University offers a B.S. in Applied Management – Instructional Technology, Training, and Evaluation, The University of Michigan offers a Bachelor of Art in Instructional Technology, and Walden University offers a B.S. in Instructional Design and Technology. As an administrator in higher education (online) I am now interested to learn more about these program and if one day a program like this may be worth exploring for the university where I work.
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