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Stay up-to-date on the latest Higher Education, K-12 and Curriculum Design content.
Recent Blogs
4 Reasons Why A Pass is Unique
We are proud to be celebrating our 10th birthday this month! So, what makes us unique? Here are 4 reasons why we are able to offer you high-quality content development services. 1) Nimbleness and Flexibility Nimbleness and flexibility allow us to scale up or down as...
Adding Virtue to 21st Century Learning
'Decency is what your grandmother taught you!' a beleaguered Morgan Freeman appeals to a frenzied courtroom in the film version of "Bonfire of the Vanities." This scene reveals public figures of authority and private citizens alike on the verge of bankrupting what...
Should you integrate new technology in eLearning courses?
With today’s new technology, it is tempting to add sparkle and glitz to an eLearning course. But as the saying goes, not everything that glitters is gold. Deciding if and when to use new technology can be tricky. Here are four factors to consider. Relevance The...
4 High-Impact Approaches for Increasing Student Engagement in Higher Ed
Student engagement and retention improve when universities take action. Campus beautification and student demographics definitely play a part. A rich learning experience, however, is even more important in helping students finish strong. Many institutions are using...
Profile of Instructional Designers in Higher Education Course Design
Like every other aspect of modern life, higher education is rapidly being transformed by technology. Online enrollments continue to grow even as overall enrollments are in decline. There were more than 6 million students taking at least one online course in the Fall...
3 Powerful Project Evaluation Practices for IDs
As an instructional designer (ID), you have carefully designed and developed useful content, engaging learning activities, and challenging assessment items for a project. You feel good about what you have created, but ‘So What?’ ...
How to Make a Content Vendor Partnership Work for You
Partnering with a content vendor offers you several benefits. Whether you need lesson planning, micro-credentialing, item writing, or full course development, you can benefit from outsourcing your project. Some vendors even...
3 Connections Between Learning Standards and Performance-Based Assessments
What are performance-based assessments (PBA)? Here's an example to help you understand PBAs. Let’s think about verbs. Regardless of your level of interest in sentence structure, the word verb most likely brought one thing to mind: action. The physical act of doing...
Online Course Development: Start to Finish
As more learning becomes digital, the mysteries of instructional design unfold. Luckily, the secrets to developing a great online course follow a logical process. But before developing an online course, there are several...
3 Tips for Writing Great Alt-Text Descriptions
Alt-text, or alternative text, is one of the critical components of good content design. For those newer to the topic, alt-text sometimes is referred to as alt-attributes, alt-descriptions, or alt-tags. Great instructional designers, course developers, and content...
Productive Struggle: An Approach that Fosters Critical Thinking
This guest post was written by Kristin Owens, Assistant Director of STEM area. Why is math class not the setting for most made-for-TV movies? Frankly, it is often lacking many of the elements we find most entertaining: suspense,...
Improving the ID/SME Partnership for Effective Online Course Design
Are you facing challenges, such as limited resources and time constraints to create an online course? What about faculty buy-in? Designing an online course involves more than moving textbook content to slides. It also involves understanding how to engage a learner online. Sometimes faculty don’t understand the role and contribution of an instructional designer. IDs work with SMEs to create engaging and interactive online courses. But,…