How can you as publishers help instructors give students what
they want? How can we at iD8-TripleSSS help you achieve this goal? We will explore these
questions in this post.
Broken into their simplest pieces the relevant product stages
here are Product Visioning, Creation, Market Testing, and Product Support. What
do each of these stages mean for technology integration?
Product Visioning:
At this first stage you and your authors are grappling with what course your product
will support, what market needs it will answer, what the competition is doing
and not doing – and it is easy to push Technology aside to deal with it later.
But you can’t – not if you want to create seamless integration for your
instructors and their students.
You should also be thinking about technology now. In the past
technology has been an afterthought, an additional feature added on, and
authored by someone brought on at the last moment. This doesn’t lead to
integration, this leads to a bolt-on effect, and students will recognize that
the media is not integrated with the rest of the material.
To avoid the bolt-on effect you should be asking yourself at
the outset questions like the following:
●
What role will technology play in this product?
●
Will we use technology to deliver content, to assess
learning, or both?
●
How dependent on technology will this product be?
●
What market needs will the technology answer? (You
don’t want to just create something flashy without strong pedagogical value.)
●
iD8-TripleSSS has experience grappling with these type of issues,
and we can help you think about the market-value and pedagogical-value of the
technology solutions you might make part of your product.
Content Creation &
Market Testing
Creation
●
While core body content is being written, the
authors/SMEs need to know what you’re planning for the media. The plans,
storyboards, and concepts for the media should be built out in as much detail
as possible along side the core content.
●
iD8-TripleSSS has experience developing media products, and
coordinating their creation. We can help you create solid media content in
parallel with the “core” content.
Testing
●
Reviewers need to understand how the media and written
content fit together. They should validate your plans. They should evaluate both
together – just as the student and instructor will experience them.
●
You should be asking them if the media plays a sound
pedagogical role? Is it accessible and easy to use? Is it worth an additional
cost if there is one? Does it address specific needs?
●
If it the media will not be ready until down the road,
then what can reviewers examine to understand what the media will be? Can they
see storyboards, descriptions, etc.?
●
iD8-TripleSSS of course has years of experience coordinating
authors, SMEs and reviewers
Support Tools
●
Support Tools are critical to a product’s and an
instructor’s success.
●
Instructors and students need to know how the media
will be accessed; and when and how it is to be used. The more comfortable your
instructors feel with the technology, the more they will use it in class and
assign it to students beyond the classroom. For those reasons, support tools
are critical. We can help with this as well.
Media and technology are exciting new ways to deliver content.
There are as many pitfalls as there are opportunities. Let iD8-TripleSSS help you avoid
those pitfalls, and create an engaging, seamless experience for teachers and
students!
Guest Blogger: David Ploskonka
David has had a lifelong passion for education. He earned a Masters in English, and worked in publishing for over five years before becoming a freelance editor. In his free time, he and his wife enjoy camping and traveling.
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