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Nicholle Stone is the program advisor and lead instructor for the online graduate certificate program in instructional design at the University of Wisconsin-Stout [http://www.uwstout.edu/soe/profdev/instructionaldesigncert.cfm] (one of two grad certificates UW-Stout offers; the other is in eLearning). While you can use the certificate courses at UW-Stout for the school’s Master’s in Education, there is no master’s specifically in instructional design. UW-Stout developed only certificate programs in the field because so many of its students already hold advanced degrees, says Stone.

Before beginning your school quest, you need to figure out your goals, says Harris. “You really have to develop your own personal rubric: ‘What is it I am looking to do?’” he says. “There is no Good Housekeeping book where you can look up a recipe to find your ideal school; you have to determine this yourself, based on research and an honest assessment of your professional objectives."

Coursework at UW-Stout includes understanding learning and design theories, models, and instructional strategies, as well as hands-on work developing computer-based training pieces. The work students do is customized to their current job or career interests, says Stone

We create economic value out of information when we figure out an effective strategy that includes aggregating, filtering and connecting.

So, the real question is, how do we design filters that let us find our way through this particular abundance of information? And, you know, my answer to that question has been: the only group that can catalog everything is everybody. One of the reasons you see this enormous move towards social filters, as with Digg, as with del.icio.us, as with Google Reader, in a way, is simply that the scale of the problem has exceeded what professional catalogers can do. But, you know, you never hear twenty-year-olds talking about information overload because they understand the filters they’re given. You only hear, you know, forty- and fifty-year-olds taking about it, sixty-year-olds talking about because we grew up in the world of card catalogs and TV Guide. And now, all the filters we’re used to are broken and we’d like to blame it on the environment instead of admitting that we’re just, you know, we just don’t understand what’s going on.

The five forms of filtering break into two categories: judgement-based, or mechanical.

Fundamental to the modern definition of mlearning is that it is the learner/learning that is mobile, not the device. In-depth analysis of mobile learning research, trends, instructional strategies, curriculum integration, professional development, and on-the-job training using handheld technology such as the iPad, iPod Touch, iPhone, and smartphones.