I took this class because it was compulsory--it was the last of my 4 classes for the TEL Multimedia Design and Development certificate. After attending the first class, however, I was glad that I was taking an Instructional Design class at this time. Life is busy, and I gather that I work more along the lines of Rapid something or other Prototype (an obvious sign that this is my first Instructional Design class).

I'm at the stage of my PhD career where I'm thinking long and hard about how to make myself as marketable as possible after finally obtaining that piece of paper, which is where the Final Project of this class comes in. I'm thinking of designing a syllabus for teaching either:
i) qualitative research through the use of NVivo; or
ii) Computer-Assisted Language Learning from the perspective Second Language Acquisition
I suspect that option (i) would be more acceptable since I myself felt the need to be taught NVivo and wondered why it wasn't offered. Quantitative research (statistics) is taught through SPSS but PhD students are left to discover NVivo on their own. Option (ii) might be more difficult because there may be an overlap with what's offered by another department.
Perhaps I could combine option (i) with an online format in some manner, making use of WebCT Vista in some way, and thereby fulfilling the Instructional Technology component of the course. In any case, my aim is to present my idea to the powers that be after I've ironed out the details.

As someone has mentioned in class, I too feel technologically-inferior in the presence of the overwhelmingly IST (or rather LT) students in the class. I'm sure there's much I can learn from my fellow classmates. Actually, attending this class is a bittersweet experience because I made the decision to give up the IST part of my interest to concentrate on SLC (Second Languages and Cultures) and being with IST students makes me second-guess my decision (not that I have any choice since I'm already collecting my dissertation data).

And now on to the reflections on the actual first class ... The point that learning should be fun is valid. However, I have to say that not everything that is fun is educational. Another point that was intimated was that changes in learning theory brings about changes in learning tools. However, I also think that changes in learning tools afford changes in the way people learn. An example that comes to mind (although this deals with qualitative research software rather than learning in particular) is the use of NVivo (the qualitative software) which enables the researcher to do new things previously too time consuming or cumbersome with word processors. However, just because something can be done doesn't mean that it should be done. Therefore, in the IST arena, this begs the question of how often an educational activity that uses instructional technology is really a sound activity. Might it not more appropriately be done without new technology?