WELCOME

Welcome to the Integration of Instructional Design and Technology to Support Rapid Change eBook! Our focus in this eBook is on providing practical, evidence-based resources and strategies for educators facing a rapid transition to online and alternative forms of delivering teaching and learning.

The idea for this eBook came about in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The authors of the chapters in this compilation are all participants in EDUC5103: Integration of Instructional Design and Technology, a graduate-level course at Cape Breton University. At the time when many jurisdictions were announcing the closure of schools, colleges, universities, and other workplaces, EDUC5103 participants were deep in the process of researching and writing their final papers for the course. The original focus of those papers was to prepare a miniature literature review on a topic of personal interest related to instructional design for the integration of educational technology in their own contexts. With just two weeks to go before the submission deadline, I put forth a proposal — anyone who was interested could shift their focus to writing a chapter for an eBook focusing on providing practical guidance to their teaching colleagues in this time of rapid transition. The aim would be to still conduct a literature review — but to then follow that up with a discussion of how those theoretical and instructional design concepts could be practically applied by their colleagues, complete with recommendations for technology-based tools that they could use.

Understandably, this was a challenge that not everyone in the course was ready to accept. After all, they had just two weeks to submit, and many of them were juggling transitions in their own classrooms, and figuring out what life was going to look like for themselves, and their families, in the immediate future. But, many EDUC5103 participants did accept the challenge — and this eBook is the result.

Using eBooks like this can be an excellent tool as an alternative form of assessment — especially in higher education contexts. It gives course participants an opportunity to write for a larger audience, to create something meaningful that shares their growing expertise with the world at large, and to gain a publication credit for the CVs. In this instance, the authors of these chapters are giving something to their teaching colleagues that directly relates to the overall focus of EDUC5103 — and the immediate needs of educators and students in their own communities.

We hope you find the resources and strategies presented in this compilation useful!

Rob Power, EdD
Assistant Professor, Educational Technology
Cape Breton University