A recent study shows that influencers may be the better and more lucrative advertising option for companies. Celebrities used to be the obvious choice for product promotion but Nike may be better off using an Instagram influencer from San Diego who loves to post/blog about running than a high-paid athlete. Why? Well these influencers show rates of better engagement which is the result of the authenticity-factor that influencers hold and celebrities do not. Read More

Now that we covered a lot about the substance of what an Instructional Designer is, how to dawn some successful traits, and develop your unique style, it is time to learn the tools of the trade! IDs use both Instructional Design models and learning theories to help develop their delivery systems. Learning theories are used to determine how to adequately present the information to a certain audience. Models are used to analyze systems to see their effectiveness, where faults are and where improvements can be made.

Learning Theories are abundant; there are many different schools of though out to approach content and relate it to the audience. The diversity in theories allows an ID to see which specific theory would best benefit a certain demographic. For example, let’s say you need to produce an instructional system for new developers about a tech company’s unique software programming language, and these new employees are all averaged at 21-years-old. How should one approach it? Malcolm Shepherd Knowles’ Adult Learning Theory (aka Andragogy) suggests to have the developers involved with the planning and development of their curriculum, as well as having the content show how the new language relates to them and their job presently. This is because Knowles noted as learners became more mature, they shown motivation and readiness to learn, stemming that passion from the sense of self. The information becomes personal, as now mature learners apply it to how it affects them immediately. Having the content presented to the developers as if they were 5-years-old in grade school would diminish the effectiveness of the system.

Instructional Design Models are frameworks to help identify key parts such as Needs, Desired Outcome, etc. to blueprint the actual instructional system. Like theories, there are many ways to approach the problem: how to make a system for said content? One approach is using the ADDIE Model. The ADDIE Model stands for Analyze, Design, Develop, Implement, and Evaluate. This model breaks the process into set stages, and continuously goes through them to improve the systems. Fun fact: this model was developed at Florida State University in 1975!

Here are some links to different learning theories, as well as the source I used for Andragogy:

https://elearningindustry.com/the-adult-learning-theory-andragogy-of-malcolm-knowles

https://elearningindustry.com/top-instructional-design-theories-models-next-elearning-course

Mike Bloomberg has now decided to use influencer-marketing to pay for campaign promos that will be geared towards the younger demographic. For 150 dollars, social media influencers with a substantial following must post to promote candidate, Mike Bloomberg; however, with the growth of influencer-marketing, this payment may not be enough to get influencers on board. Read More

Fantasy sports are taking over the sports industry and are only growing and growing weekly. Headlined by FanDuel and DraftKings, daily fantasy sports is projected to reach at best $4 billion in total annual entry fees by 2020. With that amount of money coming in, those companies are using data models to help determine which is the best matchup for each player and help the users pick the best team. Analytics is continuing to grow by predicting stat lines, the odds of each player getting a certain amount of yards for example and changing the fantasy/sports gambling industry.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaellore/2019/09/17/stat-shark-brings-wall-street-style-analytics-to-daily-fantasy-sports/

Since any of us got our first laptops, we have experienced communication with a chatbot on a variety of websites. Whether it was from online shopping or looking for technical support on a website, we have also definitely all noticed the disparity between human and the robot-like conversation we would have with these chatbots. Google claims that it now has these forms of chatbots beat, introducing Google Meena.

Meena challenges the traditional chatbot which has the capability to give general responses, by giving back very detailed ones instead. If you’re talking about how you like tennis, Meena can agree and state her favorite team. This closes the gap between humans and robots greatly, as Google is trying to make it more difficult to tell that Meena is an AI machine, trying to give their users the best experience.

Meena won’t be coming out just yet, as Google has to run more tests for safety and bias of the AI machine. These machines require a great deal of testing performed beforehand, as chatbots can easily go south.

https://www.technologyreview.com/f/615153/ai-adverse-drug-interactions-chemistry-health-care/

Julia Riccio; jmr17e

There is no understating the importance of error messages – they will, one day, be encountered. It is impossible to create an entirely perfect product and it is important to have a good backup if something happens. This story gives six tips (with examples on designing perfect error messages). https://bit.ly/2vi5cZo

One thing that I noticed while reading the article is that this sentence was highlighted by many people: “if sentences contain eight words or less, readers understand 100 percent of the information.” It’s very funny that the sentence has more than 8 words, but I do not think that it is a detrmiment. I think this sentence is important because it illustrates the point that readers do scan a lot of information – basically saying that if a user message is long, the whole point won’t come across.

Another thing I that I found important was the part where it mentioned to not overcommunicate the problem. Closely entertwined with the previous paragraph, this gives the example of not stating too much in the message. A way to get around that is to include any solutions or extraneous information in a drop down tab that is optional for users. Users will be able to click if they want, but it will not burden the technologically challenged with too much information.

Proving success in numerous fields, there continues to be lack of women entering the field of technology. Importantly, the lack of women within this field is not due to disinterest – as many young women continue to express enthusiasm for this field. This gender disparity stems from much more.

In fact, girls are often discouraged from pursuing STEM careers due to the societal expectation of pursuing a more “feminine” role, such as teaching and service jobs. Moreover, the lack of female mentors across schools and work environments contributes to the gender disparity. For these reason, women tend to be less inclined to enter the technology industry as they’re highly underrepresented.

The lack of women in technology is unfortunate and continues to better in incremental changes. Hopefully, more people will find ways to involve and encourage these women to be a part of this field.

https://gritdaily.com/gender-equality-stagnant-in-tech/

50% of young people do not tell their parents when they are being cyberbullied. Only 1 in 10 teens tell their parent. 50% of teens also have been victims of cyberbullying. 1 in 5 teens have also sent nude pictures of themselves to others who have then posted it. On the other hand, 1 in 10 teens have had pictures take of them without their permission that were then sent around.

Mean comments and spreading rumors are the most common type of cyberbullying. Additionally, girls are more likely to be cyber bullied than boys; however, boys are more likely to be threatened than girls. Cyberbullying effects all races as well but these victims are more likely to have a lower self-esteem than the average teen.

With all these saddening numbers and stats, it gets worse. Less than 1 in 5 cyberbullying cases are ever reported to the police. All cases should be reported so that the bully with get what they deserve as well as the victim feel safer. But that is not the case. Some teens think that if they report it, it will only get worse.

Learn more at: http://www.bullyingstatistics.org/content/cyber-bullying-statistics.html

These celebs are using their influence and platforms to champion change in America. Following the white supremacist and neo-Nazi rally in Charlottessville VA., many celebs took to social media to speak out against racism, hatred, and violence that is continuing to happen in the U.S. The following celebs included John Legend, Gabrielle Union, Kal Penn, George Takei, Zendaya, Mark Ruffalo,Kumial Nanjani, Kevin Hart and Barack Obama.

There is a significant amount of importance that needs to be said for these celebs speaking out about the amount of hatred and racism that has been occurring in society today. Using their platforms to promote change amongst communities all over is a great deed that should be in regular occurrence when violence and racism is being spread. Most importantly, for many of the celebs I’ve listed above, this isn’t the first time they’ve used social media to condemn racism. In a recent interview with Us Magazine Zendaya told them,”I feel like your’re supposed to speak up on issues that you think are important.”

https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/celebrities-against-racism-twitter-zendaya-nanjian/