Instructional Design Central – Website

Instructional Design Central is a company website with information a student of Instructional Design and Technology (IDT) may find valuable. The website address is http://instructionaldesigncentral.com/. This site provides access to resources, information, networking, and job resources.
The website includes information regarding instructional design models and methods. In addition, the website lists IDT conferences and provides links to the organizations that sponsor these conferences. There are links to eLearning software, tools, and programs that provides information on the popular software including reviews of the product and approximate cost of each program. The website has links to eLearning companies and communities. These communities frequently require one to become a member to access the content on the website.
After spending a fair amount of time on different blogs, and then linking to different websites, I found that many of the websites are similar to this site. The sites are often selling their product or service, or require a membership to link the content. Much of the content from this website in referencing learning theories, models, and defining instructional design was taken from wikis, which I do not consider a reliable resource.
As someone who has relied on searching for websites to obtain information, this exercise has shown me the role blogs play when one needs to find relevant and free information regarding a specific subject. Websites seemed to be trying to sell me either a product or a membership. The blogs were giving me information based on real life experience and knowhow. The information on the website may link me to information I may need to pay for, the blogs will link me to information that I can learn from immediately. I will be investigating more blogs in the future. I will admit that I was unaware of the wealth of knowledge one can glean from blogs.