On LinkedIn – by Jeromy Gallant

Although I have followed and enjoyed Guy Wallace’s work and approach to instructional design for some time, this was the first of his books that I have read. I recommend this book for all instructional designers. Especially those that are new to the industry or who are moving from department-level or compliance-related instructional design into larger, multi business unit or enterprise-level projects.

This book walks you step-by-step through Guy’s PACT Model and explicitly defines the information you need to collect at each step in the process. Often, when thinking about instructional design projects we think about analysis happening only at the beginning of a project. This is not what really happens. We collect information along the way and it shapes the decisions we make downstream from when we learn this information.   Jeromy Gallant

Jeromy also reviewed two other books in his post

𝑱𝒆𝒓𝒐𝒎𝒚’𝒔 𝑩𝒐𝒐𝒌 𝑹𝒆𝒑𝒐𝒓𝒕-
In the month of April, I read three books. Here is a brief summary of each:

𝐃𝐞𝐬𝐢𝐠𝐧 𝐅𝐨𝐫 𝐇𝐨𝐰 𝐏𝐞𝐨𝐩𝐥𝐞 𝐋𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐧- Julie Dirksen
This book is a must-read for anyone who designs or develops training, especially e-learning. This book is filled of examples and explanations for why and how a design choice should be made and how these choices contribute to more successful learning outcomes.
Additionally, the visual design of the book contributes to the absorption and retention of the content presented. While it sounds silly to say it, I have read a few visual design books that were poorly designed. This is not one of them.

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐄𝐧𝐝 𝐨𝐟 𝐀𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐠𝐞: 𝐔𝐧𝐥𝐨𝐜𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐩𝐨𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐚𝐥 𝐛𝐲 𝐞𝐦𝐛𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐰𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐦𝐚𝐤𝐞𝐬 𝐮𝐬 𝐝𝐢𝐟𝐟𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐧𝐭- Todd Rose
I really enjoyed this book. As a result of reading this book, I have started to think about where my projects have assumed a “one size fits all” approach and how we can easily adjust our design to allow individualization or customization by the specific end-user.

This book has also caused me to ponder how we communicate the results of analysis inside organizations since any time there are two or more records data must be summarized and combined in some sort of averaging method. This could result in a solution that meets the needs of no one in the target audience group.

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