Me: What kind of programs?
Russ: Well, we write two kinds of programs: one is an accounting-tracking product, and the other is a risk management product (including training and game products), which represents our entire suite of products.
Me: The first question is, what is your job and your perception of the field instructional design?
Russ: I think it is an emerging field that is available to a wider audience due to the Internet.
Me: Second question, could you briefly describe your professional role, credentials, training and responsibilities?
Russ: Well I've been in the software business over 25years, and I started out working for a telephone company. I got a lot of training and experience, mostly on accounting systems. But as time went on, I got a chance to get more involved in some of the more advanced technology, such as working with Sony and a joint venture product that was the predecessor to PlayStation. It started out called CDI (compact disk interactive), which was based on a format standard agreed upon by Sony and Phillips.
Me: So how did Sony see it as a learning tool?
Russ: Typically, what happens with the big manufacturers agree on technology and standards to insure compatibility across platforms. Phillips and Sony’s compact disc interactive was pure technology, which didn't yet have any applications. As you can see we came a long way since that time, and so with a lot of these platforms start off as pure technology and it takes a while for developers to write applications for them.
Me: What year was that and what was your role?
Russ: That was the early 1990s and I was involved basically in strategic alliances. So what you had is a telephone company with a lot of applications. We had a technology company and Sony who had pure technology. So we tried to look at what they had and what we could do with it, where we tried to put the yellow pages on CDI in some entertaining way. It had a lot of capabilities and it's interesting to think about the early stages. Also, I was actually spent time in Tokyo working on this project.
Me: Okay, what knowledge have you learned from your professional experience in instructional design technology (IDT) and what does it mean exactly?
Russ: Well, I think like I said, the pure technology kicks in, and it takes a little while for developers to catch on and figure out how to use it to leverage that technology for applications. I think what I learned over the years is that some developers -- I would put myself in that category, where I was always kind of waiting for the day that we could have our applications delivered to a larger audiences. For Instructional Design a lot of the things that we wanted to do, we couldn't do because computer processors were not fast enough. Or bandwidth wasn't there; you really couldn't do Instructional Design. That would be like computer-based design, using 56k. So one of the things I learned if you're producing an application and you have some requirements for Instructional Design, games, or whatever and if the technology isn't there yet, you don't have to wait too long because eventually it materializes, and you've got those capabilities now that you were hungry for back then. So one of the things I've learned is that whatever it is that you're trying to produce in term of ID, and you've got an issue with technology, you don't have to wait long to produce.
Me: What is your advice for selling the learning tools to clients? Do you have an effective way to convince clients your process is a successful model for site development and educational purposes, and what is the ID?
Russ: The way I get more traction is by showing the demo because again, we're talking about new technology. But a truly interactive training product, you don't get an appreciation for what it really can do until you actually see it. I want to say another thing about interactive training and computer based interactive training back than and where we are now. There have been great programmers, very creative that have done simulation training, and I'm going to draw the similarities between game which is designed for entertainment; and simulation, really designed for instructional purposes and there is an overlap between both of them, and from the case of instructional simulation that if it is not a little entertaining, then it will not be engaging; and if games are not a little challenging from a instructional standpoint they're not going to be engaging. But they have been around for a while, so the technology and the difference for what we have now is a bigger audience. Those programs in the past ran on mainframes where you had to be there close to the mainframe in order to use it. Programs now that do simulations are just as challenging, and run on servers, and now that we have more bandwidth and speed you're going to see these done on the Internet.
Me: What are instructional designers' responsibilities in the field of new media? Any challenges of being an instructional designer for new media development? What skills are important for an effective instructional designer to succeed?
Russ: The challenges I think are that your knowledge base needs to be pretty vast. Not only do you need to know all the principles of movie making and computer principles, but also that creative piece to make it engaging, plus perfection. And that is difficult to manage when you have people working together with different skill sets. Typically programmers don't usually work with actors. They usually don't cross paths. But in games and ID they have to cross, because you are dealing with a lot of variety of content, and if you look at how ID has evolved over time, it has gone beyond anything that the movie industry or video training could ever hope to achieve. It is much more complicated and requires much more discipline from both developer and designer.
Me: What models and processes do you use to develop an instructional program?
Russ: Well, I can talk to you about what things are a priority in business that is competitive. What I know is some of the techniques we use start backwards at the end and work to the beginning. Because if you don't know where you're going to end up you will never get there. What approaches have you taken when addressing the issue of multiple audiences needing similar training content, which would ideally be presented slightly differently to each audience? What factors influenced your decisions when making compromises? There are several questions, and I come from a corporate background so I think in a way of gender or ethnic neutral types of applications, just because of my particular background, but having said that, if there is a lesson we are trying to teach clearly, we're going to depict an off setting where that will be the case. But with an urban flavor we try to type cast, because we tend be cutting edge and look at it more realistically going after real people, not animated characters. We have a different look and feel than other developers or organizations, which is pretty standard for the course. I kind of say that where you come from will determine the programs you bring to market and I say I am a product of my experiences.
Me: What tools do you use out there on the Web that you find useful? Are you a devotee of any of the "Web 2" tools?
Russ: I think Web 2.0 tools are great and I think they give you a lot of flexibility, like Flash, which is a platform that says if you're a game or ID developer you'll love Flash. But in our particular shop, we use a little Flash, and we develop our own tools. So we look for more open source languages that can do whatever effect we need for the market at that time, such as all the classical languages from php, JavaScript, java, even databases like My SQL, and Ajax. However, for accounting applications, we're an Oracle shop, which is really proprietary. By open source I mean basically that there is no patent. If you know the language and you know how to make them do the things you want them to do, you can use them. Okay, so how do you do that? Instead of writing everything from scratch, we write a tool where we would just use that segment of code over and over again.
Me: Are you involved in creating the storyboard or flowchart? When do you begin to create it?
Russ: Somebody described the difference of screen play from a game play, that if you had a fifty page screen play and you threw all the pages up in the air and they all came down and they were all scattered, in order for the screen play to make sense you would have to put it all in order. But game play you can do the same thing, but if they're all scattered it doesn't make much difference.
Me: Which roles are involved in the design and production phase, how many?
Russ: Most likely it would be about six people. You may be a generalist with the solid liberal arts factor to understand a variety of different disciplines, and you're going to need experts in each discipline.
Me: How do you draw the line between the design of elements that are very obvious and clear to your target user and elements that may confuse him?
Russ: I think certain pieces of the game should be harder than others and in the case of instructional simulation it really refers to the weight that you're going to put behind a successful quest versus another.
Me: Can you think of any examples of lessons learned from experiences in the field?
Russ: Well it's different from shop to shop. We think of it in three ways, from a memory standpoint, there are certain things we want a player to remember and we test that in the game -- did you see that three screens ago? Second is in regard to strategy, which we defined as having a number of goals. Like you can go to the left or right, and will the right take me longer with more obstacles, or less to the left, so I have to make a decision on which way I have to go. Finally the next thing is time, so I have to make a decision on how much time I have to figure it out. Okay those three things interact and depending if you have a little time to figure out something really hard to solve, and if all three things come into play, then we learned that we should give more weight to that or a higher score.
Me: What inspired you to build your game for CDOT and for Swing Vote Magazine? Describe how your game simulator explores instructional learning, and how is the interface designed?
Russ: We looked at market need and we thought our technology would do the best in that particular market. We tackled a problem to reduce workman's compensation claims, which was our goal to keep people from getting hurt, and operating safely. The interface is designed by keeping it simple because we wanted it to be suitable to a large amount of people. In this particular case company wide. And it wasn't going to be something console-wise but for the Web. So we combined something with the navigation that you could achieve via a keyboard, using that as a (GI), game interface.
Me: What advice would you give someone who wants to become an instructional designer?
Russ: Start at the end and work forward because the cycle time that it takes to bring a game to market has to be reduced. Usually you have a wish list of what you want to put into it, but once your deadline is starting to loom you might have to dump something overboard.
Me: What type of qualities would you personally look for in an instructional designer? What quality makes up a good instructional designer?
Russ: I think somebody that is driven, and a people-person because you have to interact with a variety of people on a team. Again, somebody with vision that can look at a blank canvas and can see the finished product.
Me: What software languages do you use? Why? Do you work with designers in creating animations?
Russ: In our shop we didn't want to use (cgi) computer graphic interface, and we relied more heavily on videography.
Me: In what way do you utilize user testing?
Russ: No guts no glory! We did do some testing, but we should do more. But there is not enough time when we have a deadline. Plus we wanted to make it more realistic to give it the look and feel we want.
Me: What additional trends, changes, and issues do you anticipate in the near future?How will these changes affect your role?
Russ: Well you know the technology is going to get better -- more bandwidth on the Internet, faster processing speeds, you're able to cluster them together -- two quads. And then just peoples' creativity with the technology that you cannot even dream of. The paradigms are going to change and are going to be different with games, and instructional design. Like, what happens when there is no keyboard and everything is voice activated? So I think you'll see that go back and forth. Technology changes, applications come and use the new technology. People have an idea that new technology is not there yet. They wait on the technology, and as soon as it's there, now they can do their new idea. I think you're just going to see those paradigms continue to shift.
After talking to Russ about all his accomplishments and opportunities afforded him through out his life. I was surprised and amazed of all the knowledge he had obtained through hand on experience than academic, since there was no degree in technology when he was getting his education. He believes the internet in the future will continue to impact technology beyond our wildest imaginations.
Besides this was an excellent way of finding out information in order to better understand aspects about the career world of instructional technology and games which has inspired me more to seek the path as an instructional designer creating tools for learning through games and technology for the Web.
No comments:
Post a Comment