My Desire

My desire to become an instructional designer is to design training to help those who learn differently overcome learning challenges and to show compassion that you would not have otherwise. With technology in the course name, one should assume that technical proficiency would be necessary to succeed in the program. My desire to help overshadowed “design and technology.” I was surprised that we were required to build a website. It was an unexpected requirement. However, in the digital world, we live where individuals showcase the intimate details of their lives in online media, we should showcase our talents and abilities to potential employers.

My Self-esteem

Thomas Szasz said,  “Every act of conscious learning requires the willingness to suffer an injury to one’s self-esteem.” Even with the help of AI, the challenges of building a website, creating a blog, and attempting to create a portfolio made me question my ability to succeed in the program. If I couldn’t complete the task in this foundational course, how could I be successful? I’m patting myself on the back because I have a website with a blog post. Months before taking this course, I desired to build a website; now I have one. This win has encouraged me to seek web design courses and individuals I can reach out to help me overcome design opportunities.

My Growth

Learning using online Open Educational Resources is a challenge. Can you be a student without a book? Yes, absolutely! My opinion of OER has changed. We live in a digital world; therefore, online resources should be expected. Online resources make learning affordable and thus accessible to more individuals; we should embrace them.

My Recommendations

The focus should continue to be student development and making us great instructional designers. If students do not take advantage of office hours, consider using that time for a recorded Zoom meeting to discuss upcoming assignments and make it available to students who could not attend the meeting.

As any master’ s-level course should, this program will have challenges. However, this course has given me confidence in my ability to overcome those challenges and be successful.