The Key to Success is to Iterate

This is part of a series unpacking each of the Principles of Agile Learning Design. The biggest change in moving from a traditional waterfall approach to an agile one is the concept of iteration. Rather than a linear approach, the secret ingredient to adopting an agile methodology is to iterate. What I find counterintuitive is […]

Ask Big Questions for Little Details

This is part of a series unpacking each of the Principles of Agile Learning Design. In the last post I spoke about purpose — this principle is how do we establish what that is. From the outset ask big questions – like how do you want to change students? What will they remember in 5 […]

Design with Purpose

This is part of a series unpacking each of the Principles of Agile Learning Design. Design with intent and purpose. Know what you want in the course and design it in. Ask and map out the points of Wow and Joy and design for them. We get to define the whole experience, so don’t leave […]

Understand the Constraints

Previously I’ve described design as problem solving within a set of constraints. It’s a definition I believe works across the various media and disciplines we might apply design to – web, graphics and yes learning. In my early career I was a graphic designer. I’ll admit that I was never the flashy kind, my work […]

Containers and Fidelity

So last week I dropped down some principles for Agile Learning Design and I want to unpack each of these a little. However, I figured there’s one there that might need some extra explanation – number 5 – so let’s start there. Content is content until it is something else. We use “content” as a […]

The Principles of Agile Learning Design

So far I’ve given you a bit of an origin story for Agile Learning Design and spoken a little bit about the Design itself. The next thing I thought I’d do was lay out some principles for Agile Learning Design. This post is more manifesto than explanation — some of it definitely needs to be […]

The Design in Learning Design

Before I get into some of the meatier discussion around Agile Learning Design I want to take a quick detour and have a quick chat about learning design. Without a dedicated degree or qualification it seems that learning designers come into the profession via two streams – education or technical. I came to it from […]

Wanting to Write and Not Finding the Words

I’ve been trying to write a blog post for months. I have drafts and half finished ideas scattered across half a dozen apps as both text and voice notes. Plenty of words but not the time or the space to craft them into something more coherent. So instead of trying to work through that pile […]

2020: Are We There Yet?

I write a wrap up of each year because it helps get my head in order to face the new year. This was one hell of a year. There were massive milestones, profound happiness and sadness, incredible isolation and togetherness. The year swung between extremes, sometimes so quickly I was literally left spinning. I saw […]

We design learning.

For the past few months, I’ve spent a bit of time working towards a definition of learning design that works for me. Definitions are really hard to do. They sound easy, but once you start to unpack things it gets quite difficult, very quickly. I don’t know if I’ve got my definition sorted yet, but […]