Ubiquitous and connected: Practices and indicators of using social networks in professional instructional design

With the proliferation of social media in virtually every industry, especially education, instructional designers are in a unique position to utilize social networks to create connection points and platforms to accommodate a shifting paradigm towards ubiquitous learning. Using a three-round Delphi approach, the researcher investigated the best practices of instructional designers in the use of social media when developing professional training and coursework. Additionally, the study looked at the indicators and evaluative practices used by instructional designers to measure the effectiveness of integrating social media with respect to the learning process. The data gathered from this study documented best practices that 25 professional instructional designers used to integrate social media when developing courses and training designs. The data documented how instructional design experts measured the effectiveness of using social media. The study was conducted through three rounds of surveys. The first was an open-ended survey format and the subsequent second and third round surveys used a Likert-type scale to measure the opinion of the experts. The following themes emerged from the open-ended survey: (a) instructional design decision making, (b) digital literacy, (c) evaluation of instructional design, (d) learning theory, (e) personal learning networks/ environments, (f) instructional design competencies, and (g) futuring instructional design. The first round survey produced 66 statements that were then used to achieve consensus from the experts using a Likert-type scale survey. As digital literacy continues to be defined and professional education continues to become more ubiquitous, the use of the social media provides rich opportunities for instructional designers to help learners connect and create learning communities. In addition, the experts also indicated that instructional designers and designers by assignment can utilize the power of social media in their professional careers to meet the competencies that provide a framework for excellence within the instructional design industry.