Online Media for Artists

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March is going to be a very interesting month this year. The agenda for the month could look overwhelming. Our agenda looks crazy between work, basketball, moving, me turning 40 (just wanted to throw that there), sculpting and painting parties, workshops, presentations, and classes. Not to mention writing for the blog, reviewing the book, and working on my sculptures. Time management is a great thing.

Overwhelming and crazy are two words that could well describe online media for artists specially when it comes to social media platforms. “There are so many!” “It looks so complicated!” “They take so much time!” “I rather be creating than wasting time in front of the computer.” “I don’t want a slave of that.” Those are just a few answers I get when I talk to artists about online media. The fact is that social media is not complicated at all and it only takes time to set up, but after that it only takes as much time as you want it to take if used effectively. On the other hand, many artists don’t know how to use online media even if they wanted to.

I ask a few questions in order to establish an analysis or pre-assessment of the situation (I am an instructional designer and the analysis is one of my favorite areas of practice):

Do you have an email account?

How often do you check your emails?

What kind of phone do you have?

Sounds silly but those questions can provide more information about online aptitudes than you think. I could add some other questions regarding having an online presence but at this time think about those three questions. After the presentation in March I’m going to write a few postings regarding the subject and the experience at the event. I am sure that the discussion is going to be very interesting. I learn a lot from people’s questions. I am not the kind of teacher that tells people what to do and how to do things. I just help people making sense on their own and adapting the information I provide according to their own needs and goals. I don’t consider myself an expert at anything but being me. That I’m doing pretty well so far.

Define Your Destination

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If you don’t know where you are going, any road will get you there.

Lewis Carroll
(Alice in Wonderland)

Instructional system design begins with an analysis and this is a principle we can apply to more than just designing effective learning solutions. You can use these questions to define a plan of action to achieve your goals. It is futile to attempt solving a problem if we don’t know what the problem is. A good prescription comes as a result of a good diagnosis. We can’t suggest a solution without understanding the need first.Defined problems are easier to solve than undefined ones. The analysis phase is like detective work. We ask questions:

  • Where are you now?
  • Where do you want to go?
  • What do you want to accomplish?
  • Why? What is motivating you to go there?
  • How do you get there?

The answers to these questions are going to help draw a roadmap. Imagine that you are using a GPS device. Identify your current situation. Define your destination. In order to determine the best route to take you need those two pieces of information. Certainly with no destination we can arrive anywhere. Leaving a trail of breadcrumbs in case you get lost is not effective. Just ‘ok’ is not enough. There are many more questions we can ask here depending on the situation in order to form a plan of action.

In the analysis we can’t forget about affective factors that are motivating the change. The attitude towards change can define the willingness to change and how much effort would be directed towards reaching the destination. Knowing where you are going is not enough. The affective domain includes values, beliefs, feelings and emotions. This is important to build a bridge between the current and the optimal desired situation because the affective domain gives ‘color’ to behavior by setting the mindset of the process.

The last question would be answer by synthesizing the answers from the previous questions. Once you have a map, the current and the desired destination, and the motivational factors, a plan of action can be designed. Through the process of designing the plan it is important to return to these questions and the answers and determine if necessary alternative routes as time and the plan progresses. Knowing where you want to go is a step to get there. You just have to start walking towards the vision you already have.

What is Instructional Design?

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Instructional design or instructional system design is the systematic decision-making process and design of how instruction is going to be delivered. Instructional design draws knowledge from different sciences like psychology and neurology to develop an understanding of how to effectively use teaching strategies and methods. It is the formal process to design training.

instructional designWhile most people know me as an artist, I am also an instructional designer. In my research I contend that in order to provide effective learning solutions it is necessary to perform a learners analysis beyond the knowledge pre-assessment alone. Yes, understanding what people know before entering a specific learning endeavor is very important, but most important is to know the aptitudes and attitudes towards the new experience.

In many of my posts I talk about self-efficacy beliefs or the self-perceptions of skills to achieve a specific goal. This is a learning psychology concept in social cognitive theory developed by psychologist Albert Bandura. People conceive the likelihood of success based on perception of  their skills and past experiences. These perceptions then determine their motivation to pursue a goal. This information facilitates the instructional design process and helps develop strategies not only for learning but for improvement of self-efficacy.

Instructional design also takes in consideration the objective of the instruction and the conditions in which the learning content is intended for delivery to ensure it is effective. This includes instructional time, delivery methods, teaching tools, materials, et cetera. The instructional designer takes all this elements to design a learning solution for a specific learning need. Instructional design is much more than just providing training or teaching a class.