Reflection Paper of Unit 1 I have enjoyed reading Unit 1 about the basic concept and history of our field, Instructional Design and Technology. This reading was really helpful for me to understand the history and basic knowledge of IDT. In addition, I became more confident that I could complete my Master Degree in Educational Technology successfully. In the reading, there were several interesting points that drew my attention to and a number of ideas I agreed with. Among them, I would first like to mention two interesting issues. The first thing that I found interesting through the reading of Unit 1 is the history of IDT. During almost all of the 20th century, instructional technology has been evolving and developing via educational theories and technologies. Professionals in IDT had focused on educational media itself for the first half of the century. Therefore, most educators viewed instructional media as a supplementary means of presenting instructions. At that period, educational media were materials like films, slides, and photographs etc, related to the visual and the audiovisual aspects of learning for various educational purposes. Throughout the second half of the century, on the other hand, professionals in IDT had expanded its scope to the systematic instructional procedures that had hardly been considered as a part of the field in educational technology in the first half of the century. Now, both instructional media and systematic educational processes are equally considered as the key elements of IDT. Secondly, I found another interesting point in Chapter 3 about IDT in the relationship between educational technology and World War II. Ironically, unlike other wars that normally destroy or eradicate things, World War II had boosted the development of instructional technology without having any negative effects on educational technology. This development was because many instructional professionals used their knowledge to evaluate and test the skills of trainees in military training programs. As a result, a lot of educational media had been produced and used during World War II. For example, 400 training films had been developed and shown about 4 million times during the war. In light of the uses and impacts of instructional media on World War II, many educational technologists could continue to work on solving instructional problems after the war. I also agree with the notion in Chapter 1 that the crucial elements of instructional design and technology are both educational media and instructional design procedures that are mutually complementary. Because unlike the early 20th century in which instructional technology is only considered as media, there are many educational variables people should think of in the 21st century, such as instructional sources, systematic educational processes, and other human-related factors like behaviorism, constructivism, human performance technology etc. Thus, we have to contemplate both features from technological resources and procedures, regarding learning and instruction. Finally, with this reading, I am more eager to study and research about the convergence between instructional media, design processes, and new technology. These include Augmented Reality and Web 3.0 that are expected to be popular with web-based contents in mobile learning within a decade or so.

Reflection Paper of Unit 2 Poring over Unit 2, I am more familiar with various concepts and terminologies of Instructional Design and Technology, which have been used or are still in use with some modifications and combinations with other concepts. It is quite interesting in Chapter 4 and 5 that the concept of Instructional Design (ID) was originated from psychological foundations. ID started from the aspect of behaviorism which means that learning can be understood, explained, and anticipated by the observations of the learner along with one’s environmental consequences. In recent years, it is now more focused on constructivism that is the learning approach to provide guidance for designing learning surroundings that facilitate the acquisition of desired skills, knowledge, and attitudes. Moreover, I found that there is a significant difference between behaviorism and constructivism. Learning in behavioral theories is mainly a matter of knowledge going from outside in, whereas, from constructivists’ views, knowledge in learning is going from inside to outside, which means that learners can control their learning environments. In Chapter 6, I am more clearly comprehended that how constructivism is different from objectivism and what kinds of design frameworks and practices can be used by constructivists from epistemological perspectives. The key features of constructivism are that the learners have the power to control knowledge to learn and environment to be taught in, as well as understanding is relative to each individual. In this regard, knowledge and skills are constructed by the learners, as well as educators can guide the trainees in constructing knowledge and facilitate their learning in constructivism. By perusing articles and analyzing tables shown in the chapter, I am able to grasp an idea that why constructivism has been growing rapidly these days. It is because I suppose there have been being not only so many learning media like computers, Internet, and smart phones, but also sophisticated learning environments with e-learning and mobile learning, so that learners can manage their educational conditions on their own, such as learning surroundings, their goals for learning, activities, and materials etc. As is pointed out in Chapter 8, holistic design approaches as alternating models of instructional design methods are presented and those are the problem solving methods that deal with complexity without losing sight of the relationships among elements. I like this kind of problem-based learning due to more dynamic activities based on real-life experiences. Furthermore, I absolutely agree with the concept that complex cognitive tasks are being of utmost importance with the current movement from atomistic models, conventional instructional design approaches, to holistic models. The reason why I am agreeable to the idea above is that because of the advents of precipitately changing new technologies, routine works must be done by machines, and complex tasks should be carried out by human beings with holistic approaches. I suppose this shift is the reaction to social and technological progresses during the past two decades or so. Regarding the learners’ motivation in Chapter 9, I agree with the author’s view of building digital literacy especially in self-motivation. In this ubiquitous society of Internet and electronic performance support systems, learners should construct their own media literacy that is the ability to rebuild or reproduce their own media or content after taking information and knowledge from various media, such as learning via Internet, TV, traditional lectures, and so forth. In conclusion, in the coming future instructional designers are expected to design educational learning models that are much more progressive and productive for trainees to adopt for their learning using holistic instructional design models. And learners should take the most appropriate instructional methods for them to expand their knowledge further with the concept of digital literacy.

Reflection Paper of Unit 3 Unit 3 consists of eight chapters. The first four chapters primarily show methods to evaluate and implement instructional designs and the rest of Unit 3 mainly explain the origins of Human Performance Improvement/Technology (HPI/HPT) and the definitions of HPT, Electronic Performance Support Systems (EPSS), and Knowledge Management System (KMS). As soon as I started reading through Unit 3, I realized that this is what I would most like to know and learn during my Master program at UNC. It is because Unit 3 mostly deals with instructional designs in business settings. Evaluation, implementation, and human performance matters in corporate surroundings are covered in this reading. I definitely agree with Kirk Patrick’s four-level model of training evaluation in Chapter 10. The four levels go over how to make decisions on trainees’ performances during training programs. I usually took these steps by using tests, surveys, and questionnaires to evaluate employees’ safety consciousness in their workplaces, when I was in an evaluating position at Educational Media Department in 2006. At that time, I did my best to follow these four levels to evaluate workers’ knowledge and awareness of safety in their work environments, but I could not technically follow the exact theory step by step due to lack of the knowledge of this principle. Reading Chapter 11, it is quite interesting to know that adopters’ categories are proportionally divided into five groups from easy adopters to laggards. This chapter also discusses five perceived attributes that refer to how adopters become aware of the innovation. Moreover, I am agreeable to the view that the innovation should not be adopted and diffused but be implemented and institutionalized in real corporate environments for better performances in the future. In order to do that, I suppose empathy and communication on the innovation among all participants throughout the process must be prioritized. In Chapter 14, I am very impressed that the direction of instructions and trainings is getting toward human performance issues, not just stuck in the matters of instructions or materials themselves in regards to poor performances. I suppose that since HPT has a much wider spectrum than just education and media, issues on poor instructions and low human performances in both academic and corporate situations will be easily managed by accessing to the matters from HPT perspectives. With the information about EPSS in Chapter 15, I have been using an EPSS in my company since 2004. My company, KOSHA, had developed its own EPSS in 2004, called Na-Nu-Ri. Subsequently, many EPSS applications for existing employees, that make office works be done efficiently, have been made. There are still some resistances or issues on a couple of innovations developed by my company. I assume, however, the problems on those concerns will be solved in the near future. On top of that, I agree that EPSS will become more extensively used as an electronically integrated information technology and will be a core part of the way people work and live in the future. Finally, it is very true in Chapter 17 that the power and the popularity of informal learning are gradually growing as our society and technology are being highly developed. Because individuals can have more sophisticated learning innovations and environments than ever before and can access to all kinds of information with learning inventions and infrastructures in no time at all whenever and wherever people need it. Hopefully, there will be a critical point of the learning scheme at which both formal and informal learning in school as well as corporate settings complementarily combine together in the future. So students and workers will be able to maximize their learning and training efficiencies.

Reflection Paper of Unit 4 Unit 4 has two different contexts to me. The first part, from Chapter 18 to 23, lets me see what tendencies and issues in the field of instructional design and technology (IDT) are going around in diverse settings ranging from businesses to schools. The latter section of Unit 4, Chapter 24 through 27, allows me to put myself in shoes of an instructional designer, so that I can imagine that I am looking for a job position as an instructional designer or technologist. Examining trends and issues of various settings, such as business, military, and schools, is a pleasurable experience for me, although I only look over a few fashions and matters on IDT of diverse surroundings. In Chapter 19, I can get some glimpses of ID systems and procedures taken in martial settings. In addition to that, authors of this chapter shows that how an instructional designer can collaborate with other professionals in military trainings. It is an interesting point that due to the military’s security issue, ID of military trainings seems to be quite different from ID of other settings. Particularly, delivery environments and design constraints are most likely to be challenging to an instructional designer in military. Chapter 21 demonstrates how P-12 education in US is changing its ecological universal change for the sake of the better education of children in America. I can get a great deal of information about the education system in US, comparing with education in KOREA. I am agreeable to the idea that in regards to redesigning the whole system of education, systemic change should be taken for the massive transformation of education instead of piecemeal change. Moreover, it is good to know about two systemic change processes of the education system: Guidance System for Transforming Education (GSTE) for educators, and Step-Up-To-Excellence (SUTE) for superintendents. There are also many empirical strategies and study results that should be kept in mind as an instructional designer in the future. With precious advices based on pragmatic experiences from five present ID professionals in higher education at Chapter 22, I have become more confident to be an instructional designer, technologist, or higher in US and got more knowledge about what and how I have to prepare for to be successful in the field of instructional design and technology. Five ID experts honestly and sincerely share their opinions about IDT field or instructional designers for their juniors-to-be like me. Dr. Reiser presents 18 empirical lessons for getting an instructional designer position in Chapter 24 derived from his own personal history. It seems to be similar with the advices from ID professionals in Chapter 22, but this time professor Reiser indicates, I suppose, the successful examples in more specific and articulate ways than those in the previous chapter. Among those lessons, I most agree with ‘Lesson 8’; don’t be discouraged if you don’t get the first job you apply for, thinking of an old saying “Rome wasn’t built in a day.” Also I assume that these feasible lessons are worthy of keeping in mind to be successful in IDT career. Chapter 26 indicates that there is a great number of ID professional organizations and publications in US and around the world. It is quite pleasant to search each organization one by one, because each organization has a different mission, vision, and emphasis on education, training, and performance in diverse settings. And I am sure that their publications will show me various theories and experiential tips to examine and have throughout my IDT career by keeping myself up to date with technologies and areas of interest.

Reflection Paper of Unit 5 Unit 5 is quite different from other chapters in the previous units. Unlike other units, it gives me both diverse viewpoints of IDT, distributed learning and reusability of materials, and current issues and futuristic perspectives of IDT. In Chapter 28, Dr. Dempsey examines that what distributed learning is and how instructional designers play important roles in distributed learning of both business and school settings. This chapter gives me a manifest concept of distributed learning. To my shame I had known that distributed learning, online learning, and E-learning are all the same meaning before I read this section. I now know, however, about the differences among them, distributed, online, and E-learning and became as much confident as I can explain other people about the definition of distributed learning. That is, distributed learning is a comprehensive learning paradigm or system that includes online, offline lectures, books, DVDs, video conferences, discussions, and a number of other elements by which learning is completed. Moreover, the reusability of learning objects and design content referred in Chapter 29 is not familiar with me. That is why it is so good to know about the requirement of reusability such as metadata, rights, interoperability, and other essentials. Among them, I suppose metadata, which can be the key information to search certain knowledge or data, is very radical and useful to reuse existing sources by finding them with their meta-information. Metadata is also greatly common and important for Web 2.0 technology that makes data or content connected each other closely regardless of distance and time limitations. Once data or information with their metadata is posted online, people can easily search and access those data via Internet. Chapter 30 is about the definition of rich media and how to improve education via productive media such as videos, audios, and other learning products. Also it is quite useful to know about some basic knowledge of cognitive learning processes that include the memory types of human beings brain and 6 steps for people to learn and get information and use them, called the cognitive processes of learning. At the latter part of this chapter, I found very agreeable statement of Harp and Mayer (1997) that the most efficacious method to have learners impressed by an instruction is to assist them to comprehend it by more actively getting involved in educational surroundings. I assume that helping learners understand knowledge or information is one of the most important roles that educators and trainers should have. Finally, I have realized that the future of educational technology or instructional design and technology is not always bright like other fields’ future. Everything has its pros and cons. Likewise, IDT has its merits with some demerits in its future. Authors refer an overlapping issue in Chapter 32 between educational technology and information and computer sciences by adding another worrying comment that instructional designers or technologists may become managers who teach designers-by-assignment in business settings, not be real instructional designers. In terms of these statements, I partly agree with this argument. However, now that a great number of professionals and students are proactively aware of both these challenges to our field, IDT, and the solutions for these issues or the right direction to pursue to, the future of educational technology field is not likely to be as negative as experts in our profession mention in this book. As a graduate student of educational technology sector, professionals and experts in IDT may be able to manage to do it and I want to be a support for solving these challenges, even small.