Instructional Design

According to the Instructional Design website, Instructional Design is described as;

"The use of technology and multimedia to improve instructions, by examining the needs and systematic development of learning materials."

(http://www.instructionaldesign.org/)

After examining the learning needs and systematic development material, an instructional designer will decide on the best instructional method to enable for easy understanding and achievable outcome. These learning methods are modified to the needs of the learner while still considering if the instructions will be interesting and cost - effective. Most of the time instructional designers will develop multimedia interactive projects to address these objectives, which in this case they will work with multimedia designers.

According to Instructional Design Australia, examples of interactive designs created by instructional designers are;

• Learning Courses Online

Online courses invlove a community of people needing to gain access to a lesson or program over the internet. It provides knowledge and at home reference to the lesson for better understanding.

http://www.uws.edu.au/elearningws.edu.au/elearning: Can be viewed on UWS website where students are able to log into their course, through the VUWS (e-learning) and read through course content and tutorial instructions, in order to get a deeper understanding and education of the course.

The site lists all of the courses that a student is enrolled in over a semester. When the student clicks on a course name it takes them to all of the course content that has been uploaded, such as; reading, homework activities, lecture notes, assessment outlines and the unit outline. This site is an instruction design as it assists in learning and education and addresses the students learning and systematic development needs, making the student have a better undertanding of the course and having the ability to access the course information from home.

• Tutorials, Workshops and Computer - Based Training Programs

These three elements of instructonal design are similar in purpose, they all explain to a learner how to do something at their own speed and pace. They all give the learner the theory side of the lesson and allow the learner to put it into action with examples and practical work.

http://w3schools.com/: An example of online tutorials can be viewed on the w3schools website. It is here that a learner can preform interactive tutorials while on the net, learning how to write; HTML code, XHTML, CCS and many other multimedia based applications in real time.

For example the tutorial for HTML coding shows two screens, one with the html coding within it and a second screen that reveals what the coding protrays on a hypothetical website. So the learner types in HTML coding into the first window and by clicking on the edit button to reveal what the hypothetical website wiould look like with the use of HTML coding.

http://www.reworks.com/tutorial/: This is an example of computer - based training program. It goes through step by step how to use the program Refworks with speak bubbles and narrator which highlights what each stage, from setting up an account on Refworks to setting the program into action, encompasses. It makes the program easier to understand and work with for new users.

Work Cited;

Instructional Design. Online. http://www.instructionaldesign.org/ . Accessed 6th March 2009

Instructional Design Australia. Online. http://instructionaldesign.com.au/. 7th March 2009

Reworks. Online. http://www.reworks.com/tutorial/. Accessed 14th March 2009

UWS Home Page. Online. http://www.uws.edu.au/. Accessed 13th March 2009

W3 Schools. Online. "Full web Building Tutorials." http://www.w3schools.com/. Accessed 13th March 2009