Whats with that title anyway?

This is as much for my own recollection as it is for anyone who wants to read this, so forgive the probable ramblings.

I've noticed over the last few months that I finally, after two full years of coursework, am beginning to feel like an educational researcher, with some new superpowers of design and being able to integrate theory into instructional design.  That old adage "the more I learn, the less I know" is so very, very true - and especially in a field with intellectual giants.  I am humbled, frequently, just reading the words of Dewey, Eisner, Hara, Norman and others, along with seeing the killer work going on within my program at the LTML. For example, Avenue DHH (not linkable at this time due to early production status) could be a very powerful teaching tool outside of DHH classrooms. 

Oh, the name...

It's a car reference.  On a modern serpentine belt drive, the thing that keep tension on the belt is an idler pulley.  Without it, the whole system breaks down and the car will soon stop working.  I view ID (Instructional Design) and LR (Learning Research) as critical to keeping our whole country going through contributions to education.  I am using the lower case "e" for education here since I think we need to collectively move away from this idea that "real" learning happens in a formal school-based setting.  That's not to say learning doesn't happen there, but rather, in order to meet demands of modern society we, as educators, should perhaps consider ways to go beyond the classroom both for relevance and for instruction.

I plan to document the changes I see in myself, along with creating a repository of interesting things I come across.  Feel free to subscribe, RT, or whatever amazing interactions are available at the time you read this.