Instructional Designers' Tools

There's been a good conversation going on over at Christy Tucker's Experiencing E-Learning blog about instructional design.

Christy has been writing about how to get started in instructional design and what technology tools you might need.

I think I'm somewhat of an anomaly in the field. I don't do any programming. I don't build courses. I don't do any graphic design. I use Word, PowerPoint, Visio. I can now also say that I use blogger and wikis.

If you want to know what I do on a daily basis, read my job description. Maybe I'm not an instructional designer at all.

I think my dinosaur status as an instructional designer stems from the fact that I've always worked for e-Learning vendors where the programming, graphics, and ID are distinct, separate job roles. I have my expertise, you have your's.

If you're an instructional designer within a corporate training group, it seems -- most likely -- that you'll be asked to both design and build courses. Christy uses HTML, Dreamweaver, and sess Flash in her future.

Rapid e-Learning tools, like Articulate, change the amount of actual technical skill an ID would need within such a group. My company creates customized course development templates for organizations. Course developers (who may or may not be instructional designers) use Flash to create courses, but they don't need to know how to use Flash at all.

Rapid e-Learning tools make building courses almost as easy as writing documents in Word. Easy breezy. So instructional designers won't need to be technical at all. That's what I like.