How do you select and use appropriate media and technology to support your instructional design model?

When you use ADDIE as your instructional design model, you always start with "A," which stands for "analysis." One of the things you need to look at during this stage is how well the media and technology you'll use or that your client will use will help them learn. The Guerra Scale measures how interactive each type of media and technology is. The Guerra Scale shows to what degree the learning goals can be met. So, these things should go together. You shouldn't try to reach a C5 learning goal if your media or technology only cover Guerra Scale Level 1.

If your objective is to assess how they feel, you may use online polls and sometimes make them anonymous if you want to get to how they truly feel without them risking ridicule.

No one likes change, AND change management is expensive. a) the more frictionless the technology the better b) tech should enhance the workflow, not disrupt it c) use early adoption as a leading indicator "is this working?" and adapt d) so much is available SaaS (on demand), this allows flexibility.

Ensure you avoid the trap of generalizing learner preferences across your organization. For instance, how senior managers in financial services prefer to learn may be quite different than how your recent university hires desire. Context matters -- executives may appreciate a more time-efficient approach or one that doesn't require them being in person, while more junior staff may prioritize social connection, more deep learning experiences, and relationship development (or vice versa -- you can't assume, so ask!). Also, have empathy to consider what different lifestyle configurations of the target populations are and how that might impact when/where/how they prefer to learn.

Additional focus can be on the learning environment: Where will the instruction take place? The media and technology you choose should be appropriate for the learning environment. For example: The learning environment is the physical and social context in which learning takes place. It can include the classroom, the workplace, or even the home. Specifics are a large group needs to choose media and technology that can be easily seen and heard by everyone and if does not have access to technology, you will need to choose media and technology that does not require technology. For example, you might use text, images, or hands-on activities.

The analysis from the ADDIE model still includes this step. You also need to know who your target audience is so that every lesson you make meets their needs. So you can teach them something important. You can do this by doing a small poll or having a group of people talk about it. You need to find out not only what their problems are but also how they learn best. How many hours can they devote to learning on their own? How high-tech are their gadgets? Do they like lecture videos or a place where they can work together and learn from each other? Insights like these will help you craft a lesson plan that really sticks.

As with all learning, it's critical to use real-world scenarios and storytelling as much as possible. Interactivity doesn't equal the learner clicking a button to reveal some text. The interactions should be carefully curated, scenario-driven, meaningful, and spark learner curiosity.

Often in the government and military industries, training and learning development media and technology can be quite limited by layers of IT, cybersecurity, and acquisition regulations. We have to be selective and balance desires for functionality and user experience with that of staying within the boundaries put on government IT systems. Creativity and a thorough understanding of our audience are keys to making the training effective despite those limitation.

Keeping up with the latest trends and innovations can be time consuming and costly. But don't ignore it. It's an investment. Branched videos in storytelling has been around for a long time and is very effective and yet, very few utilise it. So it's not always about new trends, but also with unexplored trends that might be more effective.

It really depends on your target audience. Learners from different age groups have different learning experiences. Don’t generalise a certain learning method for everyone. For age groups that are not tech savvy, have something that is simple to respond to, with less clicks and direct interaction. For the younger generations, you need to keep things interesting and fun. Choose relevant instructional strategies for relevant age groups.