Responding to the Learner: Instructional Design of Custom-Built E-Learning
- Neil Carrick
I'm not sure our group can actually do a needs analysis - especially as the technology we are researching is not mainstream, or even well-know, yet. I feel very much like Steve Jobs when he said that "people don't know what they want until you show it to them." Now, that, of course, seems quite arrogant. However, before anyone showed anyone a laptop, they didn't know they "needed" one. I would argue the a laptop is needed, according modern classroom standards.
Needs, the term "needs," seems to be a serious presumption, to me. And I'm genuinely not just trying to be argumentative, here. On page twelve, Carrick says, "[c]ustom-built learning is instruction with specific learners and a specific learning environment in mind." Well, if we all kept believing that, we'd never have moved beyond slates and church-house classrooms. This idea that we, as designers, must stay within the box is really counter-intuitive to innovation.
There is no specific environment. When Socrates was having his discussions & "designing" the way to instruct his students, they were not in a classroom.
Ah, I rant.
My point is that designers must be innovators. They must think beyond needs. Needs - in Maslow's terms simply means sustenance, shelter, and clothing - needs. We are not building to "needs." We are building to enhance information exchange.
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