ID in Practice
A Professional Home
Although some other organizations provide professional development for those who are instructional design professionals, AECT's D&D Division is uniquely positioned to be the home for instructional design practitioners - whether they are in institutions of higher education, a corporate setting, governmental agencies, or non-profit organizations.
AECT's annual conference brings together both practitioners and those who teach instructional design - many of whom are well recognized names in the field.
Once one is a member of AECT, there is no charge to become involved in any of its divisions. Joining AECT brings with it access to a number of professional development resources, as are explained on the organization's site. The annual membership fee is very reasonable, and the annual conference is also an excellent value when compared to other conferences.
Designers for Learning
AECT's Design & Development division is pleased to showcase the work of "Designers for Learning" (D4L), a non-profit organization that "crowdsources the design and development of open educational resources (OER) to help adults improve their literacy skills for career & college readiness."
"D4L promotes service-learning opportunities through collaboration with students, volunteers, schools, and other social enterprises. Since 2014, over 4,000 participants have volunteered to gain instructional design experience and develop free educational resources for underserved and underfunded adult basic education programs.
"Designers for Learning was founded with an aim to provide instructional design support to underserved social needs and it has devoted 100% of its focus to helping adults with low literacy and math skills. D4L's service-learning projects have included both small and large-scale projects to crowdsource the creation of free open educational resources."