Introduction
Welcome to the Integration of Instructional Design and Technology: Volume 3! Our focus in this eBook is on providing practical, evidence-based resources and strategies for educators who want to leverage technology to enhance the instructional design of their lessons and instructional units.
This is the third volume of chapters contributed by participants in EDUC5103: Integration of Instructional Design and Technology, a graduate-level course at Cape Breton University. The idea for the first volume came about in March 2020, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Like the first and second volumes, this open-access eBook includes chapters with a focus on providing evidence-informed practical advice for educators on how to use instructional design principles to effectively leverage technology to create engaging teaching and learning environments. Contributors opted to submit one of their major course assignments — a literature review of a current or emerging instructional design and technology issue — in the hopes that their work will provide benefits to their colleagues in the teaching profession. Each chapter includes a review of the current literature on their chosen topic, along 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.
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, Education
Cape Breton University
