Week 4: Trends and Issues in IDT

Every field has its trends and issues, many that are common amongst all fields. The three different contexts that I will discuss are business and industry, military, and health care education.

Business and Industry:
The trends in business and industry have shifted especially with the advancement of instructional design and technology. Before businesses were more concerned with teaching their employees the business, more recently, companies are more  focused on training and developing their employees' performance and figuring out  ways to gain better results for bigger profits. Trainers and training programs are now designed to teach employees not only about the business and the daily tasks that it entails, but also the ways to utilize the best practices in order to be both productive and efficient. This new and current trend is more prevalent now, especially because computers and machines are being designed to perform the tasks of the business.

This is similar to the elementary school system because as instructors, it is no longer our duty to only present information and knowledge to our students, but more importantly, we need  to teach our students ways in which they can apply and utilize this knowledge. With the advancement of technology, it does the student no good to just know information especially since information is available all over the internet but to know how to use the information in many different contexts.

Military:
The trends in the military are similar to that in business and industry.  For example, it is very important that military personnel are trained to be proficient in efficiency. IDT in the military  is starting to incorporate technology more and more into their training programs however it is very important for the instructional designers make sure that the technology will be useful. It makes no sense for the military to train their personnel in technology they will never use.

This is similar to the elementary school system because we are also using technology to facilitate teaching and learning. I feel that schools should be more concerned with the relevancy of the technologies that are being used however. In the schools we have more leniency to explore the types of technologies we use in the classroom, however it is still very important to make sure that the technology is relevant to the lessons that we are trying to teach.

Health Care Education:
Health care employees are expected to stay up-to-date with the newest and safest medical practices. Not only that, with the advancement of technology they must now be trained in new ways to protect their patients privacy and confidentiality. Most of this stuff is done through the use of technology in which they must be trained for.

In elementary school education, I can relate the new and safest medical practices to the student learning outcomes that we much ensure that all of our students are learning. We can use technology to facilitate our lessons, but it is ultimately our jobs to make sure the students are mastering certain concepts.

In regards to global trends and  issues related to IDT, I believe that it is our duty to teach our students to be responsible citizens that are respectful and considerate of everyone else in society. We should use more diverse strategies to reach a more diverse group of students. Many times I find that some students do not understand certain things simply because they do not have access to the resources that are available to teach them these things. I am not only speaking about material resources, but situational resources as well. We need our students to understand that the decisions that they make have implications on not only themselves, but may also affect society around them. I feel that the advancement of technology and the use of Web 2.0 tool is helping to facilitate these diverse learning environments. Students are able to learn for others all over the place, giving them a more broad perspective of life. In the U.S. I feel that we are working towards teaching our students accountability, but we have not yet reached  other nations like Asia and Europe. There, the students are held to a way higher standards, and the amount of parent participation and cooperation is exponentially higher. I do have hope however, because as we are starting to implement more technology, we are able to connect with both students and their busy parents giving them a chance to be more involved in the learning process.