#19390
Designing for Motivation and Usability in a Museum-Based Multi-User Virtual Environment 
This National Science Foundation (NSF) funded research project is creating and evaluating graphical multi-user virtual environments (MUVEs) that use digitized museum resources to enhance middle school students' motivation and learning about science and its impacts on society. MUVEs enable multiple simultaneous participants to access virtual contexts, to interact with digital artifacts, to represent themselves through “avatars,” to communicate with other participants and with computer-based agents, and to enact collaborative learning activities of various types. Initially, MUVEs were based only on textual descriptions); now, many MUVEs are graphical in nature, or use graphics to enhance textual descriptions. Our project's educational environments are extending current MUVE capabilities in order to study the science learning potential of immersive simulations, interactive virtual museum exhibits, and 'participatory' historical situations (http://www.virtual.gmu.edu/muvees/). To accomplish this, we have built our own MUVE shell based on the Sense8 WorldToolKit (http://www.sense8.com/).
Dede, Chris, Diane Ketelhut and Kevin Ruess. Harvard University (2000). Articles>Education>Instructional Design>Usability
#31267
This site is designed to provide information about instructional design principles and how they relate to teaching and learning. Instructional design, also know as instructional systems design, is the is the analysis of learning needs and systematic development of instruction. Instructional designers often use instructional technology or educational technology as tools for developing instruction
InstructionalDesign.org. Articles>Usability>Instructional Design>Methods
#31266
The idea of rapid prototyping as it applies to instructional design, is to develop learning experiences in a continual design-evaluation cycle that continues throughout the life of the project. This cycle, known as the spiral cycle or layered approach, is considered to be iterative, meaning that products are continually improved as they cycle continues.
InstructionalDesign.org. Articles>Usability>Instructional Design>Methods
#33650
In any field of applied studies such as technical communication, you have to be aware of industry changes. Keeping current with research and academic journals is important, but so is keeping current with what is going on in your industry, particularly in your own city. If you are educating people to get jobs as technical communicators, then you need to be sure you are giving them the right training for the markets they are entering.
Campbell, Alexa. Intercom (2009). Articles>Education>Instructional Design>Usability
