Josh Haynam shares some data on what distinguishes the top performing social media quizzes and offers 5 simple steps to create effective quizzes. Source: www.socialmediaexplorer.com See on Scoop.it - InformationCommunication (ICT)

…with your child’s computer education? Show your child how to do something rather than allowing him to discover Do for them rather than let them do it Say ‘no’ too often (or the other enthusiasm-… Source: jacquimurray.net See on Scoop.it - FootprintDigital

In 2014 the number of Internet users has reached 2,923 million. That’s nearly 40 percent of all people on Earth. Source: www.socialmediatoday.com See on Scoop.it - InformationCommunication (ICT)

  Drawing in Microsoft Excel from Mr. Kirsch on Vimeo.

Many parents feel lost navigating the changing landscape of digital etiquette. So what can you do to learn the rules, together with your child? Source: raisingdigitalnatives.com See on Scoop.it - FootprintDigital

We’re now in the age of the smartwatch. Motorola launched its version very recently, and… Source: www.ictineducation.org See on Scoop.it - InformationCommunication (ICT)

An example of student created "art" in Word utilizing the tutorials via @GCFLearnFree #edtech #techblog #FF #edchat pic.twitter.com/bSWXkQfwIw — ICTPHMS (@ICTPHMS) September 12, 2014

What is Instructional Design (ID)? I am sure that all of us in the learning business have heard about it…technical writers and instructional designers and content developers, and so on. But what exactly is ID? In simple terms, ID is creating or developing content that suits the learning need of a particular group of people. Now, this content can be text, graphics, or anything in between and this group of people can be sales personnel, students, high tech computer junkies, or any person with a quest to learn something new or old. During the course of this article and the articles that I hope to write in the future, I shall touch upon and explain what ID is and what are the tricks of this trade. It is like any other profession - you need to strive for perfection. Indeed, perfection is never achieved and is overstated but still, we can try.I’ll roadmap the course of this journey with you. First, we will see the various learning theories/models that have been put forward. Then, we will see how these theories actually fit into ID. Why I say this? It is because many articles and papers that I have seen provide an excellent overview of these theories/models but then stop there. How are these learning theories that have been given by people as early as 1800’s important to creating or developing text/graphics to us? The Learning TheoriesHow does Pavlov (1849-1936) and his dog ( ah! Man’s best friend) fit into Instructional Design? What did Pavlov discover that changed the behavior of instructional designers or simply, behavior of people developing some stuff that was used by other people as a means of learning. What did researchers such as Thorndike(1874 - 1949), Watson(1878 - 1958), and Skinner(1904 - 1990) find that changed the perception of learning in humans? All this and more is what will be the focus of this article. To begin with, I will start off by describing Behaviorism, one of the earliest learning theories. Then, I will move on to other learning theories.

Behavior in simple terms is the visible attitude of a person. A good behavior is often rewarded whereas a bad behavior is often punished. It seems that "behavior" of a person, or from an ID perspective - learner, can be modified by providing certain conditions and then waiting for the learners' reaction to that condition. The condition that you provide to a learner is called stimulus and the response you expect from the learner is called response. Therefore, behaviorist theories provide a stimulus to the learner and expect responses based on them. The earliest works on behaviorism was done by Pavlov. He was a Russian physiologist who worked with a dog and a bell (you would expect a bone instead)! He helped establish some basic fundamentals on which behaviorism was founded. Pavlov provided stimulus to the dog and then obtained a response from the dog. The pairing of stimulus applied and responses obtained was called classical conditioning. To begin this stimulus-response journey, Pavlov presented the dog, a.k.a. the learner with food, which was called an unconditioned stimulus. Obviously the dog responded by salivating, which was called an unconditioned response (like my response if a chocolate fudge sundae is placed in front of me). The dog's reaction was natural or unconditioned. Mr. Pavlov decided to make things more interesting. Whenever he placed food in front of the dog, he rang a bell. The association between the food and the bell was called conditioned stimulus, as the dog was being conditioned to provide an adequate response to the food-bell combo (does it remind you of the smell of french fries and remembering McDonald simultaneously..). Yes, ringing of the bell was a conditioned stimulus, which caused the dog to salivate that was an unconditioned response.Now, Pavlov moved a step forward and decided to ring the bell alone without presenting any food to the dog. This conditioned stimulus was part of the food-bell combo that provided the expected response - salivation, which was now called the conditioned response. This was because the dog, a.k.a. the learner had learned to associate the bell with food (conditioned stimulus) and then salivate (conditioned response).There were some other interesting observations that were made by Pavlov. The most obvious was generalization of stimulus. This meant that if the dog was presented with sounds similar to the sound of the bell (conditioned stimulus), the dog would salivate (conditioned response). However, if the dog was presented with different sounds but only some of them were associated with presentation of food, the dog learned to discriminate among the sounds and salivate only when the stimulus included the sound that was presented with the food. Another interesting observation was that of extinction of stimulus and the response the dog gave. When the bell was no longer paired with the food - a modification in the stimulus, the dog's response to this stimulus was also modified and the dog stopped salivating at the sound of the bell. Again, for a period of time, if the bell was paired with food again, the dog would "relearn" to salivate, an observation called spontaneous recovery.This extinction of stimulus meant that if the stimulus changed, the behavior of the learner would also change in terms of the response given. Applied to learning designs, if a learner is presented with a different type of stimulus, the responses will vary. For example, there are Multiple Intelligences (Howard Gardner, 1983) in people. The multiple intelligence concept means that there are various levels of intelligence in learners, such as visual/spatial, verbal/linguistic, logical/mathematical, bodily/kinesthetic, musical/rhythmic, interpersonal, and intrapersonal. Every intelligence level presents the learner with a different "stimulus", therefore the responses for each learner are different that determine the learners' personal intelligence type. For example, some learners respond to a "visual stimulus" and are good with remembering faces more than a "verbal stimulus" or remembering names, and therefore, will have the intelligence type as "visual or spatial". Let's take another example - IQ tests. If you have ever taken an IQ test, (which I am sure most of us have), I might perform well in some questions, such as what comes next in a pictorial sequence while faring badly when it comes to calculating the speed of trains that are traveling in opposite directions simultaneously. It does not mean that I am not intelligent (I tend to see the positive side of things), but means that I give the correct responses when I am presented with a particular type of stimulus, in this case a pictorial one. My behavior is modified, that translates to a good IQ score only if the questions are all made up of pictures. If I am presented with questions that involve mathematics (a different stimulus), I will not be happy with my IQ scores (a different response).Coming back to our faithful dog, Pavlov also determined a condition where if the dog with presented with another unconditioned stimulus, such as flashing on a light along with a conditioned stimulus, such as ringing of the bell and associating this with food, after a period of time the dog would salivate in response to the flashing of the light alone. This was called higher order conditioning. In other words, after a stimulus-response behavior has been established, the stimulus can be paired with external conditions and the same response can be obtained by removing the original stimulus and presenting the external conditions alone. This classical conditioning of the dog by Pavlov established some of the concepts of behaviorism. Applied to learning behaviors among people, if you present a learner with a particular stimulus so as to condition the learner, the outcome will be a response that leads to a change in behavior of the learner.

Edward Lee Thorndike(1874-1949) based all his assumptions and formulated his theories based on creating a connection between two variables - stimulus and response (S-R). He encapsulated this entire concept and called it connectionism. These stimulus and response variables were likely to change and the learner would learn by forging strong or weak bonds, also called connections between these two variables. The strengthening of connections between stimulus and responses were because of positive or satisfying outcomes while weakening of these S-R connections were because of negative or discomforting outcomes.Thorndike formulated three laws based on these assumptions: law of readiness, law of effect, and law of exercise. Lets take an example of a group of kids learning about colors. First of all, the teacher will have to create an enthusiastic atmosphere, so that the kids really wants to learn the concept of colors. The teacher is responsible for making the kids ready to learn the concept of multiple colors. In simple terms, even before a S-R bond is established, the learner needs to be in a ready state of mind. Thorndike postulated a law based on this observation and called it law of readiness. Law of readiness states that if a learner is ready to perform an act, the outcome will be positive and the learner will be satisfied. However, if a learner is not ready to perform the act, the learner will be annoyed and frustrated. This is because the learner faces an impediment towards the goal of being in a "ready to perform" state and therefore, will be frustrated and annoyed.Moving on with our example, after the teacher has created the amicable atmosphere for the group of kids to learn about colors, the kids will need to see a color and associate it with a name, such as red or yellow. In other words, they will receive a stimulus, in this case will be shown a color, and they will have to provide a response, in this case by naming the color. More the kids are able to create an association between stimulus (color) and response (naming it), the teacher is able to strengthen this bond by rewarding them with candies (I wish I had a teacher who gave out candies.. ). However, if the kids are unable to associate the color with a name, the teacher can show the color again and again, till the kids have learned to associate the correct color (stimulus) with the name (response). More a learner associates the S-R connection with a positive outcome or satisfying outcome (candies in this case), the S-R connection will strengthen and the learners are motivated to provide the correct response. In case the response has a discomforting outcome (boredom) associated with the stimulus, the S-R connection will weaken over a period of time. Therefore, strength of the bond between stimulus and response could be manipulated by the learner. This leads us to the second law given by Thorndike - law of effect.Law of effect states that the association between a stimulus and response will strengthen or weaken depending on whether a satisfier or an annoyer follows the response (Gibson, 1980). The higher the degree of satisfaction or annoyance associated after response is given to a provided stimulus, the stronger or weaker the bond will become respectively. Learning will be possible if the S-R connection is established and the S-R bond is strong.The next law, law of exercise, seems to be an outcome of the law of readiness and law of effect. Law of exercise implies that over a period of time, the strength of the bond that is made between a stimulus and a response depends on the frequency and duration for which this S-R bond has been established. In other words, if you keep on repeating a particular response for a particular stimulus, you are more likely to provide this same response whenever this stimulus is presented to you. For example, students are often asked to practice a lot of numerical questions in physics as this will help them solve the numerical questions that come in the exam. In a way, practice makes perfect. So more you practice, more likely you are to succeed in providing a particular response. Therefore, the connection between a stimulus and response is dependent on the number of times this bond is practiced or used. Disuse of this connection will cause weakening of the bond. However, Thorndike realized that these laws were not absolute. There were other external variables or global forces that came into play wherever a S-R bond or connection establishment was concerned. So he postulated some subsidiary laws (Curzon, 1981):Law of Set or Attitude: This law implies that a learner’s prior disposition or behavior affects the outcome of a learning process. If a learner is ready, the outcome will be different than when a learner is forced to learn. Law of Multiple Responses: If the learner has the correct attitude for learning, for any given stimulus, the learner will keep on providing multiple responses until he or she has achieved a satisfaction level that will strengthen this S-R bond. The connection established between a stimulus and response will cause learning to occur.Law of Associative Shifting: A learner is able to "transfer" his or her responses to another stimulus that is presented with the original stimulus (remember Pavlov’s pairing of the presentation of food (original stimulus) and sound of a bell (new stimulus) that led to salivating (desired response)).Law of Response Analogy: When provided with a new stimulus or a faced with a new situation, the learners base their responses on similar past stimulus experiences that resulted in satisfaction or annoyance. The learners try to recreate the responses that will lead to satisfaction thereby strengthening the S-R bond. Its similar to if A + B (situation 1) = C (satisfied response), then B + A (new situation) has to equal C (satisfied response).Law of Selectivity of Response: As a learner progresses with the learning process, they learn to "filter" a stimulus, responding to some aspects of the stimulus while ignoring some aspects. Therefore, a selective response to any given stimulus happens as learning occurs.Law of Spread Effect: If a learner associates a feeling of satisfaction after a S-R connection has been established, not only is the stimulus associated with satisfaction but even any other actions happening simultaneously with the presentation of this stimulus are associated with that satisfactory feeling. For example, listening to a particular song and eating a pastry leads to happiness.. (at least for me). Now, even listening to that song alone will lead to happiness…!