I find this interesting but not uncommon. When I see this I think about instructional designers at the higher institution where I work at don't know anything about the LTI tools that can be embedded into their courses. Faculty tend to rely on them to understand their experience of LTI tools when supporting them for instructional design needs but the majority of the time they can't. I wonder if this will in the future change how LXD and ID is conducted.

This is a good preliminary assessment to take of how a learner interacts with what they are using. It reminds me of backward design in a way but focuses more on the learners' experience first with the artifact. I recently did this when I was preparing fieldnotes for a project and it helped close the gaps quickly. With there being two different types of personas in this case faculty, the touchpoints were significantly different which enhanced my approach to the learning experience.

While personas are a helpful way to create engaging, more productive, and effective educational experiences there are no two personas that will be the same. It is great to think about this during the process when asking "Who are my learners?". However, if you have a lot of different personas then how do you identify the commonalities when creating personas? What does it look like if personas are too different than the same?

This can easily create biases for personas. Using a reflection activity and choosing a persona that resonates with the instructional designers individually are two different things that can impact the creation of a persona. I can see this being misleading for who learners are. When we put ourselves into the shoes of the learner, it isn't about us. It is truly about the learner outside of our own biases.

What does it mean to be empathic truly? Describing what it means to design with empathy is important. Being empathic looks different for everyone. Sometimes, it can be impossible to understand and share the feelings of someone else if you don't have similar experiences. To create personas with empathy, we must define empathic in the realm of education that is equal for all learners.