Searching for Instructional Design blogs and Newsletters has been a very reflective yet fulfilling task. I found it interesting the number of hits I got and how many of them I quickly disqualified simply because I did not think they would be useful for me as I work toward working in the  instructional design field. However, for the benefit of whatever purpose some of these sites may have for me later it just might be wise not to totally disregard all of them. I will, however, discuss three of the resource sites I bookmarked and researched.

Online learning insights is described as “A Blog about Open and Online Education” and the target audience includes people who “have an interest in open and innovative education, and to educators that might develop, study, teach, facilitate and/or administer online education through open learning or online credit courses” which effectively describe my goals and interests. This is a blog written and maintained by Debbie Morrison who is and experienced instructional designer. I chose this blog mainly because I have seen posts relating directly that not only interest me but that also shares ideas on some of the issues raised in the first weeks’ such as cognitivism. It also provides links to relevant resources for

Academic Technology Newsletters is a website for University of Florida. Although this resource is purposefully for faculty and therefore refers mostly to what pertains at the university, I also find that the information presented is will be useful to me as an instructional designer as I get to see what has been implemented, challenges faced and new innovations being implemented. This will mean I do not have to reinvent the wheel but graciously learn from what has been tried and tested. There are also very interesting discussions on how best to utilize already existing technologies such as Twitter, Google Docs and the like.

Instructional Design Central  not only provides resources for students like me as well as professionals but also provides  a direct link to a community of instructional designers. The side menu includes links to definitions and a history very much linked to what has been already covered in this course. The models, forums and other instructional design sites should be very useful for me as I develop skills to be a credible instructional designer.