- Video Tip - AI Quick Tip: Project Management
- Professional Development - TOPkit Workshop Registration and Call for Proposals
- Top Tips - Optimizing ID Project Management Workflows with AI
- New Content - Centering Students in Digital Learning: Insights from Every Learner Everywhere
- Ask ADDIE - Years in Review: ADDIE 2023 – 2025
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From the Community - TOPkit has Resources for You
- Top Community Tips
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This AI Quick Tip focuses on how AI assistants can automate tasks, predict project delays, and summarize meetings. Watch this video for useful options for higher education instructional designers and project managers to streamline their workflows.
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Join us Tuesday - Thursday, March 31–April 2 and share your experiences by contributing to TOPkit Workshop 2026 — a premier live virtual event for online faculty development.
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Join us in transforming the future of online teaching and learning. Together, we can make a meaningful impact!
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📣 What professional development opportunities would you like to share with TOPkit colleagues? Email the details to TOPkit@ucf.edu.
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Optimizing ID Project Management Workflows with AI |
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Integrate, Automate, and Elevate your Model and Processes |
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Optimizing project management (PM) workflows through strategic reviews and AI integration can significantly enhance efficiency, creativity, and quality in instructional design and development. This article outlines a few key strategies for evaluating your current PM model, identifying opportunities for automation, and incorporating AI tools to support ideation, collaboration, and continuous improvement across project stages.
It might be time to review and revise your project management processes. Especially with all the new ways AI can lighten the load!
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Audit current workflows for automation opportunities: Identify repetitive or time-intensive tasks in your project lifecycle (e.g., content outlines, feedback tracking, communication) that can be streamlined using AI tools.
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Use AI-powered project management platforms (like Asana, Trello, or Monday.com with AI integrations) to automatically assign tasks, track deadlines, and send reminders for course development milestones.
- Automate repetitive communications, such as sending template-based emails to faculty about course updates or feedback requests, using AI-driven email assistants.
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Employ AI tools to generate initial content outlines for new courses, freeing up time for instructional designers to focus on creative and pedagogical aspects
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| - Use generative AI tools to co-create learning outcomes aligned with Bloom’s Taxonomy or online course quality standards.
- AI can help instructional designers quickly prototype course modules, discussions, and objective-aligned activities.
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Ask AI to generate multimedia asset lists, recommending video concepts, readings, or simulations based on course themes (e.g., “Generate multimedia examples for a module on ethical leadership”).
- Employ AI instructional design templates to draft course maps or visual storyboards.
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- Enhance team collaboration and documentation: Incorporate PM or AI-driven project management platforms to summarize meetings, tag tasks, and manage communication flow.
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Use AI meeting assistants (e.g. Microsoft Teams Copilot, Zoom AI Companion) to summarize design team meetings, tag key decisions, and automatically create project management tasks in PM products (e.g. Asana or Trello).
- Implement AI documentation tools (Google Docs Smart Chips, Notion AI Summaries) to auto-summarize revisions, highlight pending feedback, and ensure transparent version control.
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Implement collaborative documentation tools (e.g., Google Docs with AI suggestions) to streamline version control and feedback cycles, ensuring all team members can contribute efficiently
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Embed AI into quality assurance checkpoints: Use AI to flag inconsistencies, readability issues, or alignment gaps in instructional materials before final review, saving time and improving accuracy.
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Integrate AI proofreading tools (e.g. Grammarly) and accessibility checkers (e.g. UDOIT) to flag language complexity, ADA compliance, or multimedia accessibility issues before final course reviews.
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Use AI alignment tools to compare instructional content against institutional or accreditation standards—such as online course quality rubrics or state policy checklists.
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Conduct monthly AI reflection sessions where IDs share use cases, challenges, and ethical considerations of AI integration in course design (e.g., how AI is shaping learner equity).
- Establish AI ethics checkpoints in your design workflow—for instance, review AI-generated quiz items for cultural bias or misinformation before deployment.
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Encourage faculty experimentation with AI tools while providing clear guidance on appropriate pedagogical use and citation of AI-assisted materials.
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Summary
Start by spotting those repetitive or time-consuming tasks that could be automated, then let AI lend a hand with brainstorming ideas, organizing content, or keeping project documentation tidy. Using AI-driven tools for collaboration can make meetings, feedback, and communication flow more smoothly, while AI-assisted quality checks help catch little issues before they become big ones. Most importantly, build an “AI-in-the-loop” mindset into your workflow—pause to reflect on when and how AI adds value, and keep your team focused on using it ethically and creatively to keep improving your instructional design projects.
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Centering Students in Digital Learning: Insights from Every Learner Everywhere |
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At Every Learner Everywhere, we believe that digital learning empowers faculty to adapt instruction to students’ diverse needs, promote active and collaborative learning, and improve academic outcomes. This work centered on student voices, featuring panelists who shared their lived experiences with digital tools, AI integration, and instructional strategies that support equitable student success.
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By bringing students into the conversation, we catalyze institutional transformation through evidence-based teaching practices. Read more →
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Years in Review: ADDIE 2023 – 2025 |
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Since its inception in 2017, the Ask ADDIE column has been an integral part of the TOPkit Digest as a function of topkit.org, providing recommendations and strategies to questions asked by the readers – faculty members, instructional designers, and management alike. The last review of Ask ADDIE articles and trends was provided in 2022. Since 2025 is soon coming to an end, a current review of Ask ADDIE through the intervening years of 2023 – 2025 may provide some insight into trends and practices encountered in the instructional design field – and where we go from here. Read more →
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TOPkit has Resources for You |
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Project Management and AI Resources |
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Project Management / Program Planning & Evaluation |
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Generative AI may have been used to retrieve relevant research, generate suggested language, and enhance original content.
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Bren Bedford, MNM, SFC®, Web Project Analyst II, Center for Distributed Learning, University of Central Florida
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Florence Williams, Ph.D., Associate Instructional Designer, Center for Distributed Learning, University of Central Florida
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