But you are correct that most of the people who have commented on this post don’t have training. Most people who find this post find it with a search for something like “what is instructional design” or “what is an instructional designer.” I wouldn’t expect most people with a grad degree in ID to search for those phrases; would you?

The IBSTPI guidelines are a great resource for people in the field or perhaps HR professionals looking to hire IDs. I don’t find them particularly helpful for explaining ID to people outside the field though. This post really came about because of questions I received from people in a networking group. These were people from a wide range of backgrounds for whom the level of detail from IBSTPI would be overwhelming. As an instructional designer, I do try to write with my audience in mind. Don’t you agree that understanding the audience is an important part of what we do?

As for your comments about the view of ID in the UK, I’m not sure what relation that has to my post. I’ve lived my whole life in the US and have only worked for US companies and schools. No one has ever accused me of being “anti-US” before; that’s a new one for me. But I know a number of instructional designers in the UK, and I don’t see that kind of limiting view from them. But perhaps the UK IDs who write blogs (which is really the only ones I interact with) have a different attitude from whoever you’re accustomed to.

Thanks for the insight!

@Angela, I think the processes end up evolving over time. If you’re doing it right, it probably isn’t a single, static process. That said, I feel like I need to pull most things into one or two different places. Diigo ends up being the place I collect most stuff if I want to save it, so I know that’s the first place to look for resources later.

@Randy, glad to help out.

@Allison, one thing I’ve figured out with live blogging is that if I don’t post it right away, it probably won’t get posted at all. I don’t get back to polish and edit; it just doesn’t happen most of the time. So I have notes in Word documents that sit on my hard drive and aren’t easily searchable and no one but me sees them–not a great system. People are pretty forgiving with live blogging and understand the lack of polish. It’s better just to do it and get it out there.

If I do have time, it’s nice to do some sort of summary or highlights from a webinar. I’ve done that a few times, and I think it’s effective both for myself and for others. I struggle to make that happen during a conference though, when I attend multiple sessions. It’s OK for a one-off webinar, but not something over several days like this. Maybe at the end of the conference I can do something pulling out a few choice bits from all the presentations I attended.

First, I think the net gen idea is generally overblown. There are some generational trends, of course, but I don’t think that people over the age of 50 really enjoy boring page turner e-learning. We should create engaging, interactive learning because it’s more effective for everyone, not just the younger generation.

Second, the “satanic rituals” argument is a logical fallacy known as the “slippery slope.” There are all sorts of rational, logical arguments you could make to debunk the net gen idea; you don’t need to resort to this kind of silliness.