Partnering Technology and Design for Today's Learner
"Successful technologies are those that are in harmony with end-users' needs."
—Ben Shneiderman (2002)
Presenters: Chris Wilton & Suzanne Robert
Today, the organization of learning is changing; new technologies offer the opportunity to communicate and interact with multi-medial learning resources and simulated environments, offering the possibility to scaffold learners through an extended process of capturing and organizing situated activities. Technology is a level playing field for the most part. Many learning experts are using proven processes, have the same delivery modalities at their disposal, and operate with similar best practices. Standards are in place and technology has proven its worth in taking learning to the masses – faster and cheaper than ever before. However, to use information technology to improve learning processes, the pedagogical assumptions underlying the design of information technology for educational purposes must be understood. Technology’s next great impact in learning is how designers use it as a means to effectively engage learners in relevant experiences. By partnering technology and design – utility with significance – we can reach today’s learner on a level that they demand.
Suzanne Robert is a leader and senior e-Learning Specialist with IBM’s Learning Content group in Canada.
Ms. Robert has nine years of experience advocating for learners and applying her creative design and writing skills to take advantage of continuously emerging learning technologies. Ms. Robert has designed and developed learning programs using synchronous and asynchronous instructional methods for a broad mix of IBM clients globally. As a senior instructional designer on the IBM eLearning development team, Ms. Robert is responsible for participating in the analysis, strategy, design, and development phases of all types of learning projects.
Ms. Robert is also the author of the whitepaper “On demand learning: blended learning for today’s evolving workforce and various industry articles”.
Christina Wilton is currently a Doctoral Student at the University of Calgary. Her research interests are Workplace Learning, Organizational Change and Learning and Gender Learning and E-learning. Her current research interest is the study of women in an on-line doctoral degree.
She is employed as a Senior Learning and Development Consultant with IBM’s Global Business Service. With her years of experience and education, she is always looking for new and innovative ways of learning and applying her education and writing skills to take advantage of continuously emerging learning technologies.