Instructional Design and Online Education: Beyond Digitizing Content

Not long ago education technology just meant computer labs and pixelated word processing programs. Then, something of a technology renaissance occurred across all verticals, including education, and suddenly markets were saturated with different learning tools and programs claiming all sorts of miraculous results. But not all learning tools were created equal. Many programs suffered from flawed designs, and to the chagrin of educators and students everywhere, none of them could perform miracles.

Even so, since its inception, technology-enabled learning has made clear advances in the ways in which information is both presented and assimilated. But there’s more to implementing learning technology than plugging traditional classroom practices into a digital platform; that would merely be digitizing content.