A recurring theme in instructional design seems to be that of instructors who are hesitant to try online teaching and learning. Even though online teaching and learning have been around for well over a decade and a half, from K-12 to university graduate level studies, there are still many who are skeptical of this "method of instructional delivery." The business world has built large digital delivery methods for their farflung employees with mostly automated non-instructor-led courses.

Yet, in many areas, an ID's job is to "sell" this more efficient way of teaching and learning in one sense. The soft sell is created through offering instructor tools and trainings and information. It is created programmatically through the structuring of incentives for instructors to build online courses and to teach them. I've seen this at various institutions of higher education and also at the state level

There really is no room for any "hard sell" because an unwilling instructor isn't going to do a very good job for students. If teaching online is perceived as a compromise of integrity and teaching effectiveness, there's no way to really work around that. It's hard enough to show that there are many different teaching strategies in the online space, and many of these can be highly effective--if the instructor (who is the linchpin in all of this)--is willing to put in the design time and the greater effort it takes to teach well online.

It sometimes seems like the early adopters have already taken the great leap into the digital void, and those who are thinking about leaping are maybe poised to leap or maybe not. And then those who never want anything to do with IDs or learning objects or LMSes are merrily doing fine without us.