Should you go back to school for an instructional design degree? So far, we’ve covered how to be a successful ID without a degree. Today’s episode though covers the benefits of ID degrees and their value. To dive on deep into this conversation, I’m joined by Dr. Karl Kapp from Bloomsburg University. We explored topics like researching an institution’s curriculum, the differences between certs and degrees, current ID trends, and how to capitalize on the benefits of going back to school.
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Transcript:
Luke Hobson
Hey folks and welcome on in to your favorite learning nerd podcast. My name is Dr. Luke Hobson and I’m here to help you with all things instructional design and online learning related. My purpose is to help you make the online learning experience incredible for you and for your students. You can learn more about myself and the podcast, blog, youtube channel and instructional design institute over at drlukehobson.com
This is the second part of the series all about instructional design degrees. Last episode, Tim Slade gave us great insight into how to be a successful instructional designer without a degree. Now, we are going to talk about the other perspective. Today’s episode covers the benefits of ID degrees and their value. To dive on deep into this conversation, I’m joined by Dr. Karl Kapp from Bloomsburg University. We explored topics like researching an institution’s curriculum, the differences between certs and degrees, staying up to date ID trends, what warning signs to look for in a degree program, and how to capitalize on the benefits of going back to school. You are going to love this episode so I won’t take up any more time. Here is the one and only, Dr. Karl Kapp.
Luke Hobson 00:03
Karl, welcome to the podcast.
Karl Kapp 00:05
Hey, thanks, Luke. It's great to be here. Thanks for having me.
Luke Hobson 00:08
Absolutely, I am so excited that you are here. And for those folks at home who somehow don't know who you are, even though if you just Google your name, like 7000 pages pop up of all your accomplishments and what you're currently doing, but for the folks at home, who somehow don't know who you are, can you please just introduce yourself? Tell us a little bit more about you and what it is that you do?
Karl Kapp 00:31
Sure. So my name is Karl Kapp. I'm a professor of Instructional Technology at Bloomsburg University in Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania. And I've been doing that since 1997. And I always say to people, that's my day job. And then I also number of years ago, got really interested in gamification. So I've written a number of books on gamification, game based learning and things like that, and then got interested in 3d virtual worlds, have some books on that and got interested in micro learning and have done some, some people maybe have seen me on LinkedIn learning, done some LinkedIn learning courses there. So really been interested in the field of Instructional Design and Technology for for a long while now and have been, you know, when you're old, a lot of stuff just piles up. So that's why there's so many things. Just because of, you know, sheer length.
Luke Hobson 01:28
The thing is that, like, whenever I say follow you a course on all these different channels, and I'm gonna put all the links in the show notes, so folks can follow you as well. But then I would go, and I would watch one of your courses on LinkedIn learning. That's where I first actually heard about you was over there. And then as I'm following along, all of a sudden, you're like, Hey, here's a new book on micro learning. But then the next day you're like, and here's my new video on gamification. I was like, how is he doing this? I need to understand your project planning methods, because it's not how much you're doing. And not only that, you go so deep into these topics, it's not like it's surface level, you are really hitting home.
Karl Kapp 02:06
With every project I get really fascinated by a subject and just kind of dive deep into it. I tell everybody, between two and three every morning, I'm totally open. But I just get really fascinated by the subjects. That's all gamification I was I was trying to find a word or a methodology to express like using parts of games, but not whole games. And for for a lot of years, I didn't have a word. And then I came across this word gamification, like, okay, let's take a deep dive into gamification. So that was that project. And then I had read a blog, somebody said that they had invented gamification, and they hadn't. And I did some research there. And that got me interested in the unofficial unauthorized history of learning games. And then with gamification, a lot of people were putting out stuff using micro learning, but the micro learning wasn't that good. So I'm like, Okay, now I need to dive into micro learning. So it's just kind of like, it's like, my wife is redecorating our house and it's like, you change the curtains, then you have to paint the wall. If you paint the wall, then you have to change the rug, change a rug, then you have to get a new table. And so that's kind of how I approach instructional design. But my main focus is, as a graduate professor at Bloomsburg University, teaching grad students the design, development and implementation of online learning and learning design. And that's really kind of my passion. I've been doing that since 1997.
Luke Hobson 03:35
Yeah, that's that's a wonderful and exactly why you were on the show today, because I was trying to think of who to talk to about Should I go back to school for an instructional design degree and 2021? And I'm like, yep, well, Carl is a person. He is the guy. And luckily, we had a mutual connection. Shout out to you, Peter Shea, for introducing us. So this is all because of him. So you got to get it. Exactly. Got to give a shout out to that man who somehow knows everyone in the instructional design field. It is an absolute mystery, but it's just so cool. So it's not a surprise to hear that more folks. Right now, we're thinking about instructional design. Now, of course, more than ever, but you somehow had enough insight to actually pursue a doctorate instructional design way before any of us actually came about what made you want to pursue a degree in this field? Back in the 90s. is I think, when you start in the early 90s?
Karl Kapp 04:32
Yeah, so it actually started when I graduated from college. I graduated from college in 1989. And so, yes, there was electricity. So when I graduated, back then, I wanted to find a job and I had a teaching certificate. I had a degree in English and I had almost a minor in psychology. I didn't have a minor because I did not want to cut the heads off a rat. So I'm like, you know, that's where I'm gonna I'm gonna Draw the line right there. So couple classes, it was called rat lab. And you would have to end on like now I'm not doing that. So anyway, so I had this weird combination of degrees, I was trying to find something. And it turns out there was a company near where I lived, called Applied Science associates, who did instructional technology. But I didn't know it at the time, I had no idea. They did a lot of government work. But when I was in sixth grade, I did a video called Willie whistle for this organization Applied Science. So when I graduated from high school, or college people said, Yeah, Applied Sciences, something with English or writing or what, you know, talk to them. So I go up there, and I said, Well, I'd like to reapply for a job here. And they're like, reapply. What do you mean, you're like, just thought of colleges. So well, when I was in sixth grade, I did the Willie with old videotapes. And it was an instructional video on how to cross the street. And it was taught, this woman kind of directed it. And it was like, we were the kids who would look both ways or not look both ways and get yelled at, and it was for kids. So I'm like, Oh, I want to do and so they had us do a little test. And I guess I passed. Then Then I got there. I worked there for like, four weeks. And finally, I'm like, What is this field even called? Like? It's really cool. But what's it called? And they called? Oh, it's called instructional technology. They explained to me that the technology wasn't necessarily the tools, but a methodology that was systematic for Designing Instruction. And they had a government division, and they had a corporate division. the meantime, I was going back to get my degree in counseling, because I thought, Oh, I would. So this is weird idea. I thought I would counsel kids into how to get into like Harvard or whatever, as a as a guidance counselor. The flaw in that plan was, I didn't go to Harvard or any of those places. So why would anyone Listen to me about going? I don't know what I was thinking that was a bad plan. But But as I was going through, I said, a lot of people got their degree at the University of Pittsburgh. And so I switched from counseling to this thing called instructional technology. And it literally changed my life. And I'm like, Oh, my gosh, this is the coolest thing ever. I can apply what I know about teaching, I can apply what I know about psychology and what I know about writing and analyzing and those kinds of things, and put it together and create really cool instruction. And, you know, the professor, I remember when he brought Mosaic, you know, and gopher, and we thought those were the coolest things in the world, like mosaic. Wow, it's, it's so much better than gopher, because it's graphical. Now, at the time, the internet took an hour and a half to download a graphic. But nevertheless, you could see a graph. And so that really kind of got me started. And so then I said, I want to get a degree in this field, because this is really, really fascinating to me. And I just, I just got hooked on it.
Luke Hobson 07:59
I could absolutely see it now is your mind is completely blown by seeing the evolution of everything from 1998 to now.
Karl Kapp 08:07
Crazy. I mean, it's so like when I went instructional technology, people going industrial design. I'm like, No, where did you even get that right now? It's Oh, you teach? No, I don't teach. But I you know, my mother in law still has no idea what I do. So the idea of right what what is instructional technology was wasn't there. Now the interesting thing, though, back then we were studying virtual reality. And we're still studying virtual reality. So the more things change, the more they stay the same. So some of the things are really fascinating how they've changed. And some things are really interesting why they haven't changed. So it's been a really interesting ride. And I've enjoyed every, every moment of it,
Luke Hobson 08:50
I'm sure I'm sure. And speaking of changing, obviously, things in our world have changed. By far, the pandemic has made things very different for us over here in an ID land. And for us who are already in the field, I think we've all adapted, we figured out what to do and where to go next. But for those who they're just been introduced to instructional design, there's many teachers out there that just realized this as a field, or they've heard about it, but they never really thought about it. And now people are seriously considering, hey, maybe I should become an instructional designer. And that is certainly where the confusion goes into everything is that as just normal people who have gone back to school, I think that's the first idea that people have is, Oh, I should go back to school and get bachelor's, master's, PhD, you know, whatever it is, but then there's always these other different options of you have different forms of certificates, or you could potentially train yourself for various, you know, so many different things out there nowadays. So before you do anything else, how do you actually know if it's right for you to go back to school?
Karl Kapp 09:54
Yeah, that's a great question. So yeah, I'm always fascinated me how teachers didn't know about instructional design, and how college professors didn't know about and socialism. But to me, I think one of the things that you want to think about is, is, you know, kind of look at where you are in your group. Now, obviously, I'm going to have a bias toward going back and getting our degree. But take a look at where you are in your career, and where do you want to go? What do you want to do with it. So if you're a teacher, and you're just tired of teaching, and you kind of want to do some development of instruction, but it's just something that you're doing, because you know, it's not your avocation, it's just your vocation, then I think there are a lot of methodologies to get up to speed to understand what to do. Teachers make great instructional designers. But if you're thinking about really changing careers, or taking a deep dive or looking extensively at the field, that I think a degree makes sense, if you really are interested in immersing yourself in the concepts and ideas. I think if you do it for a little bit of like, certainly, it makes sense. If you're like, Hey, I got a few years to retirement or, you know, I think this might be of interest, then take some non degreed approaches. If you're like, you know, I really want to explore this and understand it and take a deep dive, then I think degrees work really well, master's degrees, and PhDs, PhDs are funny, you can price yourself out of a market, if you go for a PhD. If you want to teach, you should definitely get a PhD. But sometimes, you're overqualified if you if you have a PhD, so be careful about why you want to get that I say to people, if you want to consult PhD is perfect, because it definitely adds a sense of consult on the strategic level definitely adds a sense of credibility and things like that, if you want to be a freelancer, and you want to get into storyline or whatever, there's so many ways you can learn those tools. And many graduate programs don't even have those tools. So if you approach it from a tool perspective, many graduate programs are not the way to go, if you want. And the other problem I've heard about instructional technology programs is that the designers that come out are too rigid, like they won't adapt to the model. And I always say, my students, you know, take the a and Addy and the unnati and just chop them off and you have die. And so most companies just want to die their instruction, right? So that's the way you approach it. So that you know, you need to think about that. Now on the other hand, you can make your whole living just doing learning analysis, or you can make a whole living just doing evaluation. So it depends on like, kind of where you want to approach it from, but I think there are, there are valid reasons to do both. And I, I mostly counseled people, they say I'm thinking about getting a PhD or thinking about a master's degree, like go for it, do it because you never regret doing it, you'll always regret not doing it. In my experience, so just go ahead and go for it and see what you can do and what kind of examples but you know, going back to school full time, or even part time is a commitment. And online. It's a commitment and what kind of commitment Do you want to make? And then how do you want to leverage your return on investment? Do you want it right away, then getting the skills right away, being an instructional designer right away, taking workshops right away is very effective. If you're kind of in the long haul, then getting the degree and investing that way can be pretty lucrative as well.
Luke Hobson 13:35
So let's say that you've made up your mind and you're determined, you're going to go back to school, but you already have let's say, like a Bachelor's in education or a Bachelor's in it or something similar ish enough, we're now facing the crossroads of do I get a certificate? Or do I actually go and get the full degree? I've heard that a lot of times too, because for the the cert, you dive in deep to the heart of the core of like the four to six courses that you're like, these are what I'm really interested in. But obviously the degree has much more to offer, but it's going to of course take more time. So what kind of value could you get from like one or the other? Or does this go into more of like a question about sector you mentioned about freelance higher ed but like for corporate, is the certificate enough if you already have a degree and this is just the icing on the cake or is it you know something else entirely?
Karl Kapp 14:26
So that's a great question. So I think certificates a couple of things one as certificates work really well. If you're in a position of already Designing Instruction but you don't quite have any kind of formal background and you want to solidify that. Or if you're like a professional trainer and you want to go into Designing Instruction or you're in marketing and you really like Designing Instruction betters certificate works really well because you already have a job here that if you are fresh out of school and and you're or you're in a field and you're trying to That's totally not related and you're trying to compete with other people who have degrees, then it becomes the certificate doesn't, you know to be more being evaluated their certificate versus the Masters, the Masters will win out. Because if you don't have that experience, if you don't have examples to show, if you don't have a portfolio, you can run into problems. So it's really important, I think, to examine where you are in your career trajectory, and then figure out where you want. If you got years of experience, and you have some knowledge, and you're not totally shifting careers, I think a certificate works really well. If you're totally shifting from logistics, let's say to Designing Instruction, or from you know, you, you've taught K, you know, you've taught kindergarten, and now you want to teach adults, while many of the similarities, the degree is going to help you with any stigma of a hiring person going. And I don't know, you know, you don't, you've taught kids but you don't have that instructional technology background, you know, so the certificate can be helpful in that element, but the Masters will be better to win the job. Now, neither the certificate nor the Masters ultimately get you the position. It's kind of what you're able to do, what your portfolio looks like, lots of other intangibles. So relying on one solely to get you a job is not a good plan. You know, you've got to think beyond that. And you've got to think about well, what what can I show? What can I do? What can I leverage that I already know, and bring to the to the table?
Luke Hobson 16:41
That's awesome. And I'm so glad that you said portfolios, too, because that is definitely been one of like, the hot topics when it comes to looking at a degree is just overall, whenever someone is this, like, Oh, I think I want to go back to school. And we're looking at the overall curriculum of what the program has to offer. And we're starting to go through courses like together, like, we read the course descriptions together, and I'm looking at it and I was just like, you know, I think this is it's a good start. But like, I feel like it's kind of missing something. And a portfolio is one of those things that somehow doesn't come across in the curriculum is that you can never finishing but still not have a portfolio at the end of the day, which is kind of interesting for our industry.
Karl Kapp 17:23
It's so interesting. It's it's not fraudulent, but it's borderline. Right, right, if you if you are so I saw a debate the other day on Facebook, or someone said, you know, some programs just teach the theory and they teach it, and others only teach, you know, the tools and you know that it and I'm like, why can't we teach both, like our program at Bloomsburg. We teach the theory and the tools. So when you graduate you've used beyond, you've used storyline, you've used captivate, you've done podcast and audacity, you've, you know, you've done that stuff, but you're also learning the theory of the designer, the instruction. And so programs should really do both. And it's really important that and this is kind of a question that we talked about before, but it's really important that you look for a program that has both unless the if you want to go on to become a professor, then go on a pure academic focused, here's the theory, here's a deep dive into the theory. Here's, you know, every person that you know, again, yay, and you know, marrow and all those kinds of stuff. But if you want to get a job in corporate and you talk to a client about ganja, they're gonna look at you like you've got three heads, right? Is this gag and the person right? So that's not gonna help, that's not gonna help you get ahead. Like corporate people know about it, but their clients, their stakeholders, their business leaders don't care. All they care is that you've gained the attention that you've recalled prior knowledge and that that person can do the job when they're done. And that's really what the focus is in corporate, you know, academic is a little different. If you become an academic instructional designer, you I can say this because I'm a faculty member and you work with that. Are you faculty work with faculty?
Luke Hobson 19:20
I am. So I'm an adjunct instructor for one university, and then I'm a program manager for MIT.
Karl Kapp 19:26
So you're both sides, both so I am. Sometimes working with faculty is an experience all in and of itself. Yeah, some faculties are like my son when he was younger, somehow they are blessed by knowing everything, even even things that they've never heard about, right, like instructional design. So the idea there is that you've got to work with them a little bit differently than you would work with a corporate environment which is differently than you would work with kids and parents. You don't you know, when you go as a teacher going into instructional design One less stress is dealing with parents, because parents, you know, somehow know even though they're not trained, what's the best for the kids and everything. But you have a different set of pressures and a different set of expectations. And you've got to move a lot faster than you move in the classroom, you don't have as much autonomy as you do that you have in the classroom, you are sometimes asked to do things like, well, this won't work, like we're just making them aware of this compliance issue, we're not actually changing behavior. Yeah, that's not what the client asked for. And, you know, sometimes, if you don't do it, somebody else will. So there's a lot of trade offs that have to be considered. When you go from the academic environment, or the K through 12 environment, to a more of a corporate type of environment, the language is different, the expectations are different. When I got into academia, we have a corporate Advisory Council and one of the people in the council said, you don't talk like an academician, you talk more like a corporate person, I'm like, Well, that's because I came out of corporate. So even like, just small things in your language makes a big difference as you transition from the classroom to a corporate setting.
Luke Hobson 21:15
So if I'm looking at a degree right now, and I'm trying to review it, and let's say like I have a checklist in my head of what I know, should be in there somewhere, one of the things that you mentioned is almost like, it doesn't jump out, when I review things were for me, I am always looking for relationship management, for negotiation for talking to clients and sneeze and things of that nature. I'm looking for a course that somehow words that somewhere in there, but you're gonna get this experience of basically just collaborating and working with others. Are there any types of warning signs I guess I'm asking about is that if you're reviewing a program, it doesn't have something, does that instantly shoot off a red flag, whether its portfolio or certain models, or they do too much or?
Karl Kapp 22:01
Right, so So one of my one of my big warnings is, and one of my pet peeves, because this was in graduate school, is if they don't teach you any tools. And the excuse typically is there's so many tools out there, they just change so frequently, you should not learn any tool. And I'm like, Okay, so now you get this degree, and you don't have any tool to use it. That's not good. So look for courses that have tools. The second is also look for design courses, like theory course. So if it's only tools are only theory, don't do that. The other thing is look for courses where you have to work in a team. I'm sorry, if you're going to get into this field, you've got to work in a team. If you are someone who doesn't like people, this is not the field for you. It's okay not to like people, I guess, but don't like them in this field, because it's not going to work, right? You can't sit in the corner. So look for courses where they force you to do group work, Oh, I hate group work. Somebody always, you know that a guess what that happens in real life. Right? If you think when you get out of the classroom, that you're going to be at a team and everybody's going to carry their weight. Sorry, not happening, right? There's always somebody that doesn't carry their weight for whatever reason. So look for courses that have team in them, look for courses that or coursework or program that has portfolio development. And it doesn't have to be a course, but that you have experience with software that you can put into a portfolio portfolio. The other thing that I always say is look for their relationship if you want to go corporate or academic look for the relationship with those kinds of organizations. So does the school have any kind of relationship with corporations does the school have, for example, some schools have commercial arms where they do work with graduate students or undergraduate students on real life projects. So look for that, that is something that you definitely want to see, look for schools where their faculty are active in the field that you want to be in. So there's some schools that have a very heavy k 12, or a very heavy college focus. There's other schools that have a corporate focus. So if you want, for example, corporate look for faculty members that are speaking at corporate industry events, if you want academic look for academic people that are speaking at academic industry events, because if the faculty aren't engaged with the field, then it's gonna be really hard for you to get that leg up as you want to get involved in the field. So make sure you do that. The other thing to look for is a little bit trickier but look for programs where you do a project for an outside client. So for example, to learn ID you might want to learn how to do ID for a Boy Scout. trip or learn for a library or for the local police station or for a local company or something like that. So look for look for programs that have those kind of requirements for the course, where you actually have to have a finished product when you're done. And those can really make a difference. Look for programs where they're supported by the other parts of the university. So for example, does the administration support them? And then, you know, the program at Bloomsburg is has been around since 1985. I didn't start it in 1985. My predecessor did. But it's got a long history. So look for program, you know, now that the pandemic has hit, and a few years ago, everybody popped up a hung up a shingle said, Hey, academic Instructional Technology Program, well, where did they come from? Where what's their history? What are they doing? So you want to look into that, too, that's if you want to go for degree, I mean, if you want to go for like a certificate or or a series of workshops, look for somebody that has a lot of experience, delivering the kind of instruction who's done the job, so that they can give you their advice and kind of help you through that process. So there's a lot of different ways to think about it. But those kinds of things I look for in a program, I look for faculty member that's actively involved, I look for real world experiences, I look for portfolio work, I look for group work, I look for support from the rest of the university, if you look at those elements, that you're going to pick a pretty good program.
Luke Hobson 26:37
Yeah, that's wonderful. And the one thing I would add on top of all of that, too, which is not a part of the program, so it's kind of an interesting addition. But it still reminded me as soon as you were talking more about it, is to be able to chat with the alumni, to see where they are, what have they done, where are they currently working? What are their skill sets? Because when you can talk to them? And that's something I wish I did, you know, way back in, in 2006, when I started to think more about going to college, and this would be to network and talk with people. What have you done? Where are you going? What's going on? And that that connection networking piece is huge?
Karl Kapp 27:09
That's a great, that's such a great advice. Yeah, absolutely. Talk to them, and look to see if alumni are active with the program. So for example, Bloomsburg, twice a year, we have our corporate Advisory Council, and we invite alumni back. So we get 30 to 40 alumni every semester who evaluate the upcoming students. So almost like a rite of passage, right? It's, I call it it's, it's, it's basically your defense. So you have to write a proposal, I wouldn't say the only thing is, is look for programs where they don't just teach you design, but the business of the business, right? So because you want to know about it. So in this capstone class, I didn't invent this, Dr. Bailey did Hank Bailey who founded the program, but basically he had students write up a proposal based on a mock RFP, develop a sales presentation, a working prototype, and a response. And then you present it to this corporate Advisory Council, who then evaluates you on how well you wrote the document, created the prototype, and gave the sales presentation. So now you're getting sales skills, as well as design skills, as well as business skills, you have to price out a project. So look for programs like that, so that you can be successful when you graduate.
Luke Hobson 28:37
I can't tell you how much public speaking I do nowadays, by the way, as an instructional designer, who normally you would think oh, you're sitting behind a computer, it's just like, I am constantly presenting. Like, I wish I had known this before. And luckily, I like to speak I have a microphone, you know, so this is this is fun for me. But the amount of people I keep on telling them about this of just Hey, FYI, get ready to demo more and present and, you know, go up and whether it's going to be presenting at a conference talking about a white paper, or trying to convince somebody that hey, this program is right for you. It's a known thing. And I just feel like this is going to grow more and more now, since we have these different forms of opportunities and ways to connect via zoom and everything else that we're doing, right. So it's definitely interesting. And to your point for everything you just said to obviously from I have not taken any courses at Bloomsburg. But just knowing the fact that you invite back your students to come and talk means that obviously they have done well, because you're not gonna invite back people who are like, yeah, it didn't really work out for me. I'm still just, I didn't find a job. Yeah.
29:39
Yeah, I sleep in my Dad's garage. I'd love to talk about instructional design. Yeah.
Luke Hobson 29:45
So that speaks volumes about everything. So let's say hypothetically, we have somebody who is in a nother University, a different degree program, and they are realizing halfway through Hey, this isn't what I thought it was, but I'm not already halfway through some gonna finish. Because unfortunately, there have been plenty of people, as you were talking about just don't rely so much on only one skill set of the learning theories or tools. And that's what I've definitely heard from a lot of folks, especially in higher ed, Hey, I just learned about 10 different learning theories, but I have no practical experience, like, wow, that's not good.
Karl Kapp 30:21
That's not really gonna help you.
Luke Hobson 30:22
So, for those folks who are finding themselves in these kind of sticky situations, what could they do as far as we're trying to upskill currently at the same time while going to school?
Karl Kapp 30:33
right, so the salesperson in me says transferred to Bloomsburg. That's the phrase that they can't do that or, or it's not practical. But we do accept all kinds of degrees. But anyway, so the fortunately, nowadays, there are a number of ways to do it. So we talked about LinkedIn learning has great skill set. If you look at articulate online community, if you're a self starter, and you jump into that community, you can learn a lot, you can look at, you know, some of the things Luke even that you're doing in terms of getting more practical skills and using that to augment the skill set and what people are doing, you know, if they want to supplement the degree. And the other thing would be to find nonprofits that need instruction and develop it right. So, learn the tool, apply the tool, develop the tool, there are lots of online communities or lots of groups that you can join. And, sadly, when you see advertisements for instructional designers, they want everything plus the kitchen sink, right? They want you to design they want you to develop, they want you to know every tool, even tools that are obscure, and you know all kinds of things. The good news is you can google almost any tool and watch at least an introductory tutorial. So spend the time doing that and building your toward building your portfolio, learning those tools, applying those tools. And then that's how you get into into the position. And again, just because you have a degree just because you have a portfolio doesn't automatically mean you're going to get a job, you're going to have to apply yourself. And, you know, the good news is, everybody has heard about the field of instructional design, and it's a great field for teachers. The bad news is everybody's heard about it. And it's a great, you know, and everybody's going into it. So you it's going to be a little bit competitive. The other thing I would think of is like my wife's a microbiologist, and she actually got a job at a company doing a wife science instructional design, she actually went through our program a number of years ago. And she combines her background of epidemiology with instructional design. So take your background, whatever it happens to be, and see if you can't work instructional design into it. So could you do design for kids? Could you put stuff stuff on on teachers helping teachers write and sell something? So now you have something on your portfolio that you could say, hey, not only did I create this, and people are using it and finding value, but guess what, I made a little bit of money. So I understand the entrepreneur process, or Hey, I was in, you know, K through 12. And I was teaching French and I made this kind of French flashcard game using articulate, hey, guess what, boom, I got this, hey, I was doing this, and I use captivate. So take your background and apply it to what you're doing, that's going to help you tremendously. So. So to sum it up is grab something like LinkedIn learning or other tool based instruction, get that. find places for practical application of instructional design, use that. And then join groups like on Facebook and LinkedIn and other places that are communities helping structural designers figure out the field. It's a great thing to have all this new perspective and ideas in the field. But it makes for like the fog of increased learning, right? The fog of increased opportunity. And so having someone to guide you through that can be pretty helpful.
Luke Hobson 34:13
Absolutely. And I love the idea too, of just trying to go and use something like a LinkedIn learning or something else along those lines, to even just hear a different perspective, have someone teach it to you a different way, even if you already know what it is, right. And that's, that's how I found you. And I can't recall if it was something for gamification, or for add ears, and it was a while ago, but I remember being like, Oh, I'm kind of curious. What's his perspective on that? Because all my professors in my doctoral program, they all could teach, you know, the same similar subjects, but they all have their own angle. So it was like, oh, okay, I relate to this one more. Let me see how I can use that to my advantage. And it was this. It was neat. So what if let's say you have the opposite problem, you have like 1000 electives you can choose from that are all awesome. Which I know for some of these programs, they're they're huge. It's just astonishing of how much is actually out there. So if you're able to, let's say, pick a couple of electives, but you're able to choose between learning analytics scenario based learning gamification blended learning, you know, is there a certain way of going about picking and choosing how to stack the right ones or for thinking about what you want to do next? Like, how do you go about that?
Karl Kapp 35:23
Right. So I have two thoughts on electives. So one is you couldn't use electives to get a good breadth of the field. So if you're like, Hey, I really kind of want to find out what's the valley take a you know, analytics over here and LMS over here and gamification over a year, and that kind of stuff would get a great perspective, that's helpful. But if you're really saying, okay, at the end of this big investment, I want it to pay off and I want a job, then you need to stack your electives toward a subspecialty. So for example, it might be learning management systems. And so well, what do you learn it? Well, learning management systems, there might be a course in that there might be a course in analytics in learning management systems, there might be a course in uploading courses or thinking about curriculum, you know, then go that way. If you're interested in Hey, I want to create game based learning, then maybe look for courses in gamification, branching scenarios, designing instructional games, something like that. If you want to do analysis, look for courses on evaluation, assessments, conducting focus groups, writing good survey questions, you know, that kind of thing. So you should really sit down with your advisor, or and think about, where do you want to specialize. And again, I'll go back to your background, right? So if you have, let's say, you were a history teacher, and you did a lot of work, analyzing history, maybe analysis would be a good place for you, if you were a math professor, and you really got into the coding, maybe developing is so sick authoring advanced authoring HTML, you know, those kinds of things. So think about what you've done, where you want to go, what kind of position you want, and then stack your electives in that direction. If you've got the the luxury of just figuring out the field, because you know, you're new or you're young, or you're just curious, then take a smattering of electives, but most people don't have that luxury. So I would say, figure out where you been, where you want to go, and then put the electives together to get you to your end spot.
Luke Hobson 37:36
I wish you were in my advisor back in the day in college. So my my bachelor's is in graphic design, and I faced this issue, I had 7000 electives. And I'm like, I don't know, let's see what what sounds good. You know, and I am picking and choosing here. And now if I of course go back in time, it's like, wow, I really wish that I went down like the UX UI type of road. Where before I picked one a web design with flash and flash is dead. Yeah, great. This is super awesome. So no, that's awesome. I absolutely love that different answer to because it certainly makes some sense. Where you have the breath, you have the depth, you can pick and choose what exactly you want to do. Because for some job postings, too, they specifically call out certain skill sets over others. Maybe we saw a job posting the other day that was requiring an instructional designer to know about UDL. And they called it out right there. And I think that's awesome. Like right now, that's the place you want to work for. And you could you know, yeah, try to get and tailor everything you want to do towards a job organization like that, right? Like that just is this 100% makes a ton of sense. So I want to ask a professor in this field, how do you stay on top of the current trends and issues within everything for instructional design? Because it's nuts. And I know that as academics, sometimes we don't move the speed in which we want to because there are barriers, and we try to get around those. So how do you do it?
Karl Kapp 39:02
Yeah, that's a great question. So a couple of things, one. So from a pure academic perspective, for example, I haven't published a ton of peer reviewed articles, because they take so long. So I would say, to remain active in the field, what I do is I try to write practitioner guides. And by researching what practitioners are doing and consulting I, I think one really good way and again, I said this before, but look for faculty members in the program, they're in the field, consulting, speaking, writing, because they have to stay on the edge, because people will hire them. And the big secret about consulting is we learn as much consulting as we do giving to the client because we find out what are the issues, what tools are they working with? What kind of items are they working on? So So I say fresh by consulting, I say fresh by writing about the latest trends in the field and I say Fresh with my students. I had a student, I tell the story over and over again. But way back when student Wally came into my office and said, Dr. Kapp this thing called blogging. It's so cool. You should be blogging and I'm like, What is blogging and he explained it to me, and I said, Yeah, you write every day and you know, people read your stuff. And like, well, Lee, that's all I need is one more thing to do every day. You got to be kidding me. And then like, two years later, I'm like, Oh, my God blogging, I should be blind, you know, while he gave me a two year headstart that I totally squandered. So the students always seem to have a handle on like, what's a really cool thing that's happening? Or really interesting thing? Or? Or like, oh, check out whatsapp Dr. Kapp? What's up? What's that? You know, there's a beer commercial right now. It's what's happened, you know, you check that out, hey, check out this new 3d software that I found, oh, cool, you know, so students also help keep me up to date. And I think it's really important to, to listen to the students, I think a lot of not a lot, but some faculty members who have made it to being a faculty member, they're tenured, etc, they've been teaching it the same way, they're pretty comfortable doing that, and they're very uncomfortable, not knowing something. But in this field, you can't, you should, you should always not know something, right? Because it's impossible to know everything. So to be open to the new ideas that the students have, and the new ideas that are happening in the field. And then the other thing that I do is, I go to the conferences, and I'll walk the booths. And I'll just say to the, hey, show me something cool, or show me what you're looking at, or show me what's really interesting. And that's important, because, you know, a lot of people, poopoo vendors, but vendors are like consult, they talk to a lot of different customers, and find out what their needs are. And then they have a solution for that. So they know what's going on, they have a lot of insight. And so talking to them can be very helpful as well. So those are some ways that I try to keep up, up. And then one of the futurists said, the way to predict the future is to make the future. So if you can find some area that you think is interesting, and you can push the envelope a little bit, I was fortunate with gamification. And literally, you know, for years, I had fellow faculty members that people tell me, we're not making games here. Why are you talking about this thing, or gamification doesn't make any sense. I had a huge online battle with someone about the manipulative nature of gamification, I mean, all kinds of things. And I just kind of thought it was interesting. So I just kind of persevered and turns out that, you know, became a thing, I didn't plan for it to become a thing, but I was really interested in it. So if as a faculty member or someone in the field, find an area of interest, and just absorb the information there, like so, for example, and look outside the field. So so for example, you know, contact lenses that have images on them, like microchips, that present images are going to be an awesome tool for augmented reality. And so I kind of keep an eye on what's happening, and guess what's going to happen. Deep fake videos are going to be used to create characters in our training, we're not going to need to do videos anymore with the cast of characters, we'll make fake characters, and in five years, you'll type in new clothes, and they'll look as up to date as the date, I mean, all those kind of things that are not here yet, then maybe it'll be 10 years before they're mainstream, but you should look at them. And you should think about them. And you should think well, what would happen if my instruction was delivered on a microchip and somebody left I like, what would that look like? You know, sometimes those thought exercises can be helpful as well. So those are a number of different ways that I try to think about the future. And there's tons of stuff that, you know, like I miss, just because, I mean, you can't keep up with everything. But I think it was William Gibson said the future is already here. It's just not very evenly distributed. And I think that's how we need to think about it. You know, you can look at pockets of people doing stuff, and think, Oh, yeah, that's going to be the future. Okay, I should keep an eye on that. And someone another wise versus enemy, you know, when the internet first started, and you couldn't do it. I mean, you couldn't do video on that. I mean, we went backwards. We went from CD ROMs, which were media rich, branching, etc. And then when the internet hit, we went backwards, right? You couldn't put images on the internet until like, after a while, and then video on the internet was like pulling out your hair, as you can tell, you know, like it just didn't work, right. So someone said to me, though, because even though videos on the internet now or poor, you should learn all about it, because in 10 years or so, they'll they'll be ubiquitous and you'll have a 10 year start on everyone else. So it's If he goes in here, I don't know about this AR VR whatever, or I don't know about whatever deep fakes or be aware of that because things have a way of going from the fringe to mainstream like and the greatest example of this I always think is Janis Joplin has a song Oh Lord, won't you buy me a Mercedes Benz? Oh, Lord, you know, that was a protest song about capitalism. And she was when she came first was very fringy. And then, and the couple years ago, there was a commercial on TV for a Mercedes Benz, using that song. Janice is obviously rolling over in our grave, but it just shows that the evolution of fringe to middle happens all the time. And it happens in our field, I think, even more than other fields. So we have to look at the fringe and then be aware of what's happening.
Luke Hobson 45:54
It's it's absolutely mind blowing, because sometimes to what you're saying on the fringe is, it's just one small little tweak, and then all of a sudden explodes. I mean, I think about clubhouse and podcasting recently, nothing too crazy. That's that difference, but just enough where everyone's like, Oh my gosh, and same thing, when I think about live streaming and video games, just the explosion of how much that happened. And now what I'm currently seeing, so I'm huge into football and a couple of different sports and seeing YouTube live with how some different people host different sports events are aren't the big time ESPN NFL network's but they're just just a smaller type of people. But then they can have 1000s of people watch at the same time just by using YouTube TV, and like FaceTime. And that's it. That's the only technology they have. And then 1000s of people are tuning in. So it's, it's just absolutely mind blowing. I am afraid I'm going to completely miss out on the VR experience. By the way, I get motion sickness like crazy. And I've tried a couple of different headsets, like the Oculus and the PlayStation ones. And, of course, I'm like, Oh, I can't wait. And then three seconds later, and like sitting down on the ground, I need stabilization where I'm like, No, the world is spinning. I can't do.
Karl Kapp 47:09
Yeah, well, I really think AR is gonna leapfrog VR. Sure, yeah, it's not VR is it's too isolating, I think. Which is ironic. Because it, I mean, yeah, anyway, so yeah, I really think AR is gonna leave, leave for that. But I get sick too. Like, like, okay, you're just not quite there yet. That's why I kind of laugh right? over 20 years ago, or 30 years ago, when I'm in graduate school, and there was a wall street journal article had john larney, a, you know, with his dreadlocks and his big helmet, and he was all VR is the future. And here we are in, you know, 2021. And it's not quite the future just yet. So it's, some things take a lot longer to unfold.
Luke Hobson 47:54
Yeah, I know. But then once they do, and that's it, and then everyone gets it.
Karl Kapp 47:59
And then the other interesting thing, so the whole thing with clubhouse is that and this is really interesting point is that we always are looking for the next technology, but sometimes taking a step back and disaggregating some of the technology and simplifying it makes all the difference. Yeah, so I'm involved right now. And, you know, I have been doing games, you know, forever. And what I found is that digitizing something like a card game is almost more powerful than an online learning game, like World of Warcraft, or something like that, because everybody knows how to play cards. Everybody expects Oh, you flip a card, you sorta card. Oh, you shuffle cards. And so there's no learning and how the game works. It's all on the content, and things like that, I think are, you know, very helpful from the perspective of the field.
Luke Hobson 48:54
It's amazing when you think back and see something and you're like, Wow, it was right there. What happened to I think about my space, my space, I have a customized HTML amazing page, I can put up my own banner, my own music, I can select top people, I can customize my wall. And then we go to Facebook, which is like, no, this is what you're gonna do. And all these options, and now they're gone. And yeah, yeah, it's, it's a good time. Well, Carl, I'm just gonna ask you one more question and let you head on out of here. But I am just absolutely, yeah, I'm really curious now to ask you already shared some awesome stories about things. Just curious. What is your favorite story when it comes to an instructional design student landing their dream job because of what they went through at Bloomsburg?
Karl Kapp 49:39
Yeah, so. So this is interesting. So back in 2000, so I'm teaching in like, 9798 99. You couldn't students were being snapped up before they graduated. Right? Because the 2000 boom, right? So our students were they weren't even web developers, but they We're kind of aligned with web development. And so people were like signing bonuses and all kinds of stuff. And then, literally one semester, like 80 people, the corporate Advisory Council, students getting signing bonuses, the crash, the next semester, the students were like, Oh, my God, what am I going to do? Like, how am I going to find a job. And the greatest thing are our alarms, and students, we had more people at that corporate Advisory Council event than any of the ones leading up to it. And they supported those students. And they help them any way they could get internships and, and get even pro bono work so that they could get the skills and you have to have your internship to finish your degree, so that they could all at least finish their degree while the world like kind of bottomed out. And to me that was really a testament to the students in the alumni how, when, even at the worst of the best of times, they showed up, but also the very next semester, at the worst of times, they showed up and supported the current crop of students. And I always say, pay it forward, and those folks paid it forward. And to me, that was one of the most exciting and thrilling times of my teaching career to know, those people came back and supported those students when they knew the students had no I mean, literally, job one semester, no jobs the next semester, but as many if not more people supporting them. So that's my favorite story of instructional design.
Luke Hobson 51:37
I love it. Let's end on that positive, awesome, happy note, Carl, where can people go to learn more about you your work and everything else?
Karl Kapp 51:45
So So the easiest ways probably to Google me. It's Karl Kapp, but I have a website called cop calm on twitter at kKapp. I am on LinkedIn. I'm on LinkedIn learning. I'm on YouTube, I have a YouTube channel, just as I said released the unauthorized unofficial history of learning games, which has been a fun video series on there. I've got books. So if you go to Amazon and Google, so like, kind of kind of all over, I try to offer as many things as I can. Because I'm just interested in a lot of different things. I know, different people like to consume media different ways. So you can get a book, you can get a LinkedIn learning course you can get a YouTube video, all kinds of places and of course at Bloomsburg University.
Luke Hobson 52:47
right. Yeah, no, no, absolutely. Well, thank you so much for your time. It's been absolutely so awesome to dive on into this. Appreciate it,
Karl Kapp 52:53
Luke, thanks for having me. I really appreciate being on the show. Thank you so much.
Luke Hobson
Well, folks, I hope you enjoyed that episode. I had an absolute blast chatting with Karl. His joke about taking the A and D out of ADDIE leaves you with DIE was just hysterical. Be sure to check out all of Karl’s amazing resources in the show notes. He has so many with his books, YouTube channel, LinkedIn Learning courses, that I just included as many things as I could. If you are thinking about pursuing an ID degree, check out the link to Bloomsburg as well. Quite a few of you have been asking me for recommendations on where to go back to school. As you just heard Karl is a wealth of knowledge and if you want to learn from him, I’d give Bloomsburg a strong hard look.
If you enjoyed today’s episode, share this podcast on LinkedIn, Facebook, or Twitter. Feel free to tag me in the post and tell me what you learned from the episode. If you haven’t already, connect with me on LinkedIn and subscribe to my YouTube channel. If you are looking for a group of learning nerds to talk about all things ID, check out the link to our Facebook group called Instructional Design Institute Community. As always, your 5 star reviews on Apple Podcasts are deeply appreciated. That’s all I have for you today folks. Stay nerdy out there and I’ll talk to you next time.