Episode 288

The Real Role of Instructional Designers After AI

When content generation becomes fast and frictionless, do learning specialists need to be involved at all?

In this episode, Matt sits down with Tim Slade, Speaker, Author and Founder of The eLearning Designer's Academy who discusses the human vs. the automated in instructional design today.

Tim acknowledges that as content generation has become easier and faster, audiences are developing digital media fatigue and how as creators we can aim to overcome this.

Tim emphasizes that 'the human’ exists in ensuring that what we are ‘churning out’ is the right thing to solve the problem - should we make this? Why? What changes if we do? He argues that one part of the work still can't be automated, sound judgment.

The conversation also gets into how most people tend to use AI for practical reasons, and how the online discourse leads audiences to believe they are somehow ‘behind the curve’ in their AI skills. Tim dubs AI a ‘replication tool’ and discusses the issues that arise from getting carried away with the capabilities available to us.

The Instructional Design Handbook by Tim Slade is available for pre-order through May 29th. Pre-orders include a hardcover signed edition with a dust jacket. 10% off when you use TECHSMITH as the coupon code.

Learning points from the episode include:

  • 00:00 – 01:03 Intro
  • 01:03 – 03:13 Latest book release: The Instructional Design Handbook by Tim Slade
  • 03:13 – 05:55 Becoming an intentional Instructional Designer
  • 05:55 – 07:56 What Instructional Designers need to know for success
  • 07:56 – 10:55 Improving the human piece
  • 10:55 – 13:20 Connecting theory to practical application
  • 13:20 – 14:30 What can ID professionals take away from the book
  • 14:30 – 18:25 Why AI doesn’t fit into everything we do and content fatigue
  • 18:45 – 20:57 AI as a replication tool and the problems in getting carried away
  • 20:57 – 24:22 Practical uses of AI
  • 24:22 – 25:48 AI skills are having a clear vision that you can explain
  • 25:48 – 27:51 Book release details and where to find Tim
  • 27:51 – 29:15 Tim’s final take
  • 29:15 – 30:21 Outro

Important links and mentions:

All Episodes Previous Episode

About the Podcast

Show artwork for The Visual Lounge
The Visual Lounge
Discussions about the power of visuals and videos and how to make them even better.

Listen for free

About your host

Profile picture for Matthew Pierce

Matthew Pierce

Matthew Pierce, Learning & Video Ambassador from TechSmith Corporation, has created videos for learning and marketing for over a decade. He is the lead behind TechSmith Academy, a free platform teaching video and image creation for business, which has been used by tens of thousands of users. He is the host of The Visual Lounge Podcast from TechSmith, which streams live on Youtube and LinkedIn weekly. Matthew is a regular speaker at multiple learning and development-focused conferences and is a regular contributor to various training publications. Connect with him on LinkedIn.