Reviewing Instructional Design Blogs

1. Experiencing E-Learning; http://christytucker.wordpress.com/
A. Design:
The blog is visually appealing with a main window and side bar panel. The content is well-organized, clearly labeled, and easy to navigate.

B. Content:
Main Window:
· Current thread:“Revisiting Learning Styles”

· Weekly Bookmarks: (if you click “the rest of my favorite links HERE,” it takes you to Tucker’s
public Diigo library, which is filled with a stockpile of 1,500 articles.

· Book Review:Design for How People Learn by Julie Dirksen

Side Bar:
· Biography; Portfolio data- she invests significant effort detailing her credentials,journey into Instructional Design, and current endeavors in her own ID company.

·Categories:ISD; Careers; Blogging; Tools

·Careers in ISD: skills, responsibilities, opportunities

·Recent posts and monthly archives search

· Blogroll: blogs she’s following

C. Usefulness:
Tucker’s blog offers a tremendous number of resources probing education, e-learning, learning, instructional design, research, higher education, tools, and web design. What makes it even better is the ease of navigating through each category of information. Considering the depth and
breadth of resources offered, readers really do not need to shop around to other blogs to find additional information.


2.
Multimedia Learning; http://multimedialearning.com/

A. Design:
This blog really pops with visuals, videos, and eye-catching details in the main frame. The side bar has recent posts as well as comments for readers to peruse.

B. Content:
· Tutorials: I was amazed at all of the videos demonstrating how to use multimedia tools in software such as Articulate, Captivate, Lectora, Powerpoint, and others.

·Archives Tab: This is the real gem of the blog, because it features 26 different categories, many of them different authoring software that Instructional Designers need to know. The archive also features the last 100 posts by topic.

C. Usefulness:
Although this site is not even close to offering the amount of resources as Christy Tucker features on her blog above, Multimedia learning can help fledgling Instructional Design see snappy examples of authoring software as well as learn how to built these tools into training.


3.
Julian Stodd’s Learning Blog; http://julianstodd.wordpress.com/

A. Design:
This blog is very simple in nature with the current thread in the main window and learning cloud, recent posts, blogroll, archives, Twitter Updates, and Tagcloud in the side bar. It is not as well organized as the other blogs. When the reader clicks on the “Learning” cloud, the site pulls up 116topics in the main window. Readers have to scroll down through roughly ten topics
before going to the next page. There is no way to see all 116 topics down into phrases, so readers can quickly pick and choose what they’re looking for. Similar structural flaws are evident in the Tagcloud; readers have to scroll through the hits ten per page which is time consuming.


B. Content:
oCommunication
oE-Learning
oInstructional Design
oLearning
oSocial Media
oTechnology
oWriting


C. Usefulness:
This blog is more reflective than informative when compared with the other two blogs reviewed. Stodd’s posts force readers to examine issues, practices, and tools. Unlike Tucker’s content rich resources that inform and educate readers about timely topics and issues, this blog probes into them and challenges the audience to view the topic through a different lens. For example, Stodd discusses an upcoming presentation he will deliver on formal and informal communication and stresses the value of engaging an audience in all of those channels. Stodd’s blog will certainly have readers asking more questions about themselves and their craft rather than providing
answers!