(Stephen Downes) So, Hello, everyone.
I'd like to state for the record:
I love the blue dots.
(LAUGHTER)
I've been sitting here watching the blue dots.
So, I've been cast in the role of
the person who finds the problems
with the topic that we're all praising.
I do like agile design, I like it a lot.
And I like the concept of
agile learning design,
I like it a lot.
But, you know, I've been in the field
of programming for many years.
I've been in the field of learning design
for many years.
I've worked on small projects,
I've worked on big projects,
I've been the peon
at the bottom of the pile
and currently I'm the program leader
responsible for producing outcomes (check).
So I've seen it from different angles.
And there's so many ways it can go wrong,
especially when we move from the
fairly static domain of software design
to the far less static domain
of learning design.
That's (check) learning design, it's
the least agile thing you'll ever see.
That's actually a graphic from IMS
which produced the learning design
specification.
That's supposed to be
pretty open and flexible,
It's like a play with a director and roles
and all of that.
But, you know, once you're into the thing,
there isn't a whole lot of flexibility
happening
and it leads to questioning just
what is it that we're up to
when we are talking about
agile learning design?
Are we talking about
agile 'learning design'
or are we talking about
the design of agile learning?
Two different things,
and it seems to me that
it doesn't make sense
to give the instructional designers
all that freedom and flexibility
if they're going to march students
lockstep through
a predefined kind of process.
Here's what agile learning design
ought to look like.
There's a flow.
This is agile design generally, right?
and it's an iterative thing,
and then people don't talk
about that so much
but it's an iterative thing:
each iteration is like designing a full
and complete product,
and then you might spin off
some side things, some prototype things
as you need to, but, you know,
version 1, version 2,
you're doing the same thing over again.
No course in the world
-- well, maybe not no course, but --
few courses in the world
are designed that way.
Courses progress from Lesson 1,
Lesson 2, Lesson 3, Lesson 4.
They don't cover all of geometry
and then all of geometry in more detail
and all of geometry in more detail.
It's a different way of thinking
about the process.
So, what are the major concepts
in agile learning design?
In agile design generally, it's the Scrum.
The Scrum is basically a self-organizing
development team.
It is originally drawn from the idea that
programmers are the smartest people
in the world and do not need management.
No, I'm just kidding. (3:36)