Feel Instructional Design

My Dear Followers of The Zen of Learning,

I invite you to go beyond knowing and using instructional design. I welcome you to Instructional Design Junction, a place where the concepts of instructional design, training, elearning, gamification, and cognitive psychology will not only be discussed from an academic viewpoint, but experienced holistically. I invite you to be the first visitors (and hopefully, inhabitants) of an exotic just-discovered planet.

Visit the Instructional Design Junction to feel instructional design and be ready to welcome the future of learning.

Check it out, and if you like it, please click the Follow button there. If you have wordpress.com blog, you’ll be able to read the new posts in your Reader.

Thank you!

• Shafali

 

Creative Agni’s Free Cartooning for Trainers Primer Workshop on Aug 08, Sunday.

Dear Visitors,

I’ll be conducting a 3-hour Free Cartooning for Trainers Primer (CTP) online workshop on August 08, Sunday. The workshop timings are 2 PM to 5 PM (Indian Time, which is GMT+5:30.) If you live outside India and want to register for it then I’d request you to review whether the timings of the workshop would suit you.

If the workshop interests you, then please visit the workshop page here to read the details and register for it.

Here’s a quick visual synopsis for you.

I’ll look forward to meeting you 🙂

Have a wonderful day!

Shafali

 

Free 3-hour Online Workshop on Instructional Design – July 11th, 2021 (Sunday.)

Folks,

If you are interested in finding out what Instructional Design is, what it tastes, feels, smells like, and how it helps you content content that truly fits your learner’s learning requirements, I recommend that you register for Creative Agni’s Free 3-hour Instructional Design Primer Workshop. Registrations are on until noon tomorrow (Friday, July 9th, Indian Standard Time.) I’ll be conducting this workshop on Zoom.

Register for the Free IDP Online Workshop by Creative Agni.

Have a Great Day!

 

The Philanthropist’s Curse (Ravi’s Story)

Dear Readers,

I have a feeling that like me, you too sometimes think about the philanthropists of the world, and wonder about what makes them tick.

The cognitive psychology fueled storyteller in me finds it hard to believe that on one fine random morning, a billionaire wakes up feeling all gooey and mushy for humanity in general, and writes an altruistic check with enough zeroes to make my eyes pop.

Maslow probably thought the same and came up with his five-level (later revised to seven-level) hierarchy of needs…but you already know all about Maslow’s hierarchy of needs…or you did once and it’s now a bit dusty and rusty.

This is why I invite you to listen to Ravi’s story 🙂

Thank you!

 

Kolb’s Cycle – The Experiential Learning Model (ELM) – The Learning Lights Podcast

I know that you aren’t really in a mood for a learning podcast…but hey, it’s only 12 minutes long, which means that it:

• introduces and explains the 4-Stage Experiential Learning Model given by David Kolb,
• illustrates it through two examples – one historical, the other contemporary, and then
• provides tips that you can use for ensuring that you take your audience through each of the four stages…

All in 12-minutes!

So if you get a chance, do check out this episode of the Learning Lights Podcast – “The Kolb’s Cycle or The Experiential Learning Model.”

And to pique your curiosity…here’s the gentleman from the historical example 🙂

Merry Chrismas to all my readers and listeners. Thank you for being with me through these years. You have been my strength.

 

Sia’s Story or The Job of an Instructional Designer

Remember?

That first Instructional Design assignment…

Waiting for the ID Reviewer’s comments…

Then clicking open the document with your heart pounding against your ribs…

And then seeing… RED!

Was this what you HAD signed up for?

Or

what is it that you ARE signing up for?

Meet Siya…and Rajeev.

If you want to become an instructional designer and find yourself wondering what it would be like to work as an ID, you’ll find your answers at https://anchor.fm/learninglights/episodes/Siyas-Story-An-Instructional-Designers-Job-ens9lk

A heads-up…

This is a podcast – and so you’d need to keep the audio on.

In this episode, meet Siya, a mint-fresh instructional designer who is discovering what it means to be an instructional designer.

This episode is an introduction to what an Instructional Designer’s Job comprises, takes you through the fears and apprehensions of a new ID, and then puts them to rest through the knowledge of an experienced instructional designer.

With this episode, we are through with laying the basic groundwork. In the coming episodes, I intend to discuss a few concepts of instructional design and cognitive psychology within the context of their application in eLearning and/or training.

If you’d like to join me on this fun ride, do subscribe or follow Learning Lights on a podcasting app of your choice. It is available on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, and Spotify too.

 

Free Online Workshop on Instructional Design – Sunday, September 06, 2020.

Hello Friends,

Hope you are doing well and staying safe.

Creative Agni has just announced my free online workshop on Instructional Design. It shall be a 3-hour program that will start at 10 AM (Indian Time.) The program will be conducted through Zoom.

If you are interested in attending, please visit the IDP workshop webpage, read the details, and register for the workshop. The invites with the Zoom meeting link shall be going out on Friday, September 4th.

The next session of the IDCD session shall be conducted online, and you are welcome to explore it at the IDCD Course web-page.

Thank you,

Shafali

 

Cognitive Dissonance and its impact on Learning.

“Let us say you ordered a watch online. The picture of the watch looked good (it looked like it had a curved glass and the dial had a silvery sheen) and it was available at a very affordable price. A few days later, the watch was delivered, and you opened the box with great expectations. You were hoping to find a watch that looked as classy as the one you had seen in the pictures. But when you unwrapped the box and opened it, you realized that the real watch didn’t look as good as its pictures. The dial was off-white and glass was plain. You realize that the pictures must have been touched up as the watch was the same model that you had ordered. Fortunately despite its not-as-good-as-expected looks, it still was a deal at the price you bought it.

So you tell yourself, that the watch is from a good brand, and that you anyway wanted a robust watch and not a flimsy wrist-candy.

When you engage in this behavior, you are trying to curb the cognitive dissonance that has arisen out of two conflicting ideas in your mind.”

Understanding cognitive dissonance and its impact on learning can prepare us to handle it in our classrooms and online courses. The following links will take you to a series of three posts:

1. Understanding Cognitive Dissonance – Explanation and Illustration
2. Cognitive Dissonance in Classrooms and Other Learning Environments
3. Cognitive Dissonance and Other Instructional Design Principles

BTW, this Easter, Froth bought a pair of Easter Bunny ears for Coffeebeans…

 

 

Returning…

Dear Readers,

It has been a while that I posted anything here. A medley of reasons kept me away – the most important being some critical health issues. Yet, every dark cloud that hovers over your head filling your view of the world with darkness and gloom, either explodes into a storm of rain and drenches you cold, or sails away in time. This cloud is sailing away, and though I can still see its tail on the horizon, I am confident that the wind won’t reverse its course to bring it back. At least I hope that it won’t.

So, in all probability I am back.

I intend to dust away the cobwebs and scrub this blog to make it sparkle again. I also want to thank the latest follower of this blog who inspired me to return. (If you followed this blog yesterday, you are the one I am talking about.)

As I couldn’t move about a lot, I spent the last whole year experimenting with some new learning mediums. I worked extensively on the mobile platform (specifically iOS) and this year I intend to work on development of Android apps. I intend to share my learnings on content development for the mobile learning or m-learning medium here along with my thoughts on e-learning. I am also experimenting with Kindle. Recently I have once again started accepting corporate training assignments in Instructional Design and eLearning. I also plan to share my experiences from those programs here.

This blog primarily focuses on the psychological principles that relate to learning (directly and indirectly) so expect to see the regular stuff on cognitive psychology too 🙂

I leave you with a link to my latest article on the Creative Agni Website.

• The Trainer & The eLearning Adventure
• And if you haven’t been there yet, check out the Creative Agni eZine.

 

About my Whereabouts…

Dear Readers of this Dear Blog-o-mine,

In the recent times, you haven’t seen many new posts on this blog (fine…I stand corrected. You haven’t seen ANY new post in a while!) I am sorry for my inordinately long absence. However, I’d like to present my excuse for your assessment. I’ve been kept busy by Creative Agni – the eZine for Instructional Design and eLearning and Creative Agni’s two Instructional Design Courses.

I invite you to click the following links to see what I’ve been busy with.

• The Instructional Design for Content Development (IDCD) Certificate Course
• The Instructional Design for Senior-Professionals and Trainers (IDST) Certificate Course

You can visit the Creative Agni Home page here.

I am organizing a Free Instructional Design Workshop on January 29, 2012. Click the following link to read about the workshop.

• the Instructional Design Primer for Senior-professionals and Trainers (IDP-ST)

I will write more regularly now because if I don’t, my mind will explode with all the Cognitive Psychology stuff I’ve been reading. The only way to save my sanity would be to share what I learn, and so I’d be back soon:)

Best Wishes,

Shafali