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(Stephen Downes) So, hello everyone.

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I'd like to state and for the record,[br]

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I love the blue dots.

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(LAUGHTER)

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I've been sitting there[br]watching the blue dots.

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So, I've been cast in the role of [br]the person who finds the problems

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with the topic that we're all praising.

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I do like agile design, I like it a lot.

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And I like the concept of [br]agile <i>learning</i> design,

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I like it a lot.

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But, you know, I've been in the field [br]of programming for many years.

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I've been in the field of learning design [br]for many years.

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I've worked on small projects,[br]I've worked on big projects,

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I've been the peon [br]at the bottom of the pile

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and currently I'm the program leader[br]responsible for producing outcomes.

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So I've seen it from different angles.

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And there's so many ways it can go wrong,

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especially when we move from the [br]fairly static domain of software design

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to the far less static domain[br]of learning design.

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That's learning design.[br]

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It's the least agile thing [br]you'll ever see.

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That's actually a graphic from IMS

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which produced the learning design [br]specification.

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That's supposed to be [br]pretty open and flexible,

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It's like a play with a director and roles[br]and all of that.

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But, you know, once you're into the thing,

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there isn't a whole lot of flexibility [br]happening

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and it leads to questioning just [br]what is it that we're up to

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when we are talking about [br]agile learning design?

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Are we talking about [br]agile 'learning design'

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or are we talking about [br]the design of agile learning?

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Two different things,

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and it seems to me that [br]it doesn't make sense

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to give the instructional designers[br]all that freedom and flexibility

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if we're going to march students[br]lockstep through

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a predefined kind of process.

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Here's what agile learning design[br]ought to look like.

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There's a flow.

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This is agile design generally, right?[br]

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And it's an iterative thing,

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and yet people don't talk [br]about that so much

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but it's an iterative thing.

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Each iteration is like designing a full[br]and complete product,

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and then you might spin off [br]some side things, some prototype things

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as you need to, but, you know, [br]version 1, version 2,

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you're doing the same thing over again.

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No course in the world,[br]well, maybe not no course,

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but few courses in the world [br]are designed that way.

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Courses progress from Lesson 1, [br]Lesson 2, Lesson 3, Lesson 4.

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They don't cover all of geometry [br]and then all of geometry in more detail

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and all of geometry in more detail.

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It's a different way of thinking[br]about the process.

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So, one of the major concepts[br]in agile learning design,

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in agile design generally, it's the Scrum.

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The Scrum is basically a self-organizing[br]development team.

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It is originally drawn from the idea that

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programmers are the smartest people [br]in the world and do not need management.

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No, I'm just kidding, but there is [br]the idea here that

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the programmers know how to program, and[br]they know how to produce the outcomes,

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if they're left to do the job for [br]themselves, to organize for themselves.

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And indeed, in the Scrum meeting,[br]as you are mapping out the task,

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each of the tasks, in the Scrum itself,[br]selected by the programmer.

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So, they're volunteering to jump in,[br]to do these things.

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They're taking commitments on themselves,[br]they're specifying how much time,

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how much effort will be required [br]to produce the commitment.

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So, OK: that's good[br]but this doesn't happen by magic.

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It takes time, and