Week 8 Blog

Working on this project has been an interesting process.  During my work on this project, it has been really eye-opening to the design process.  It has taken a very specific pace.  I am trying to keep up with the pace set by the course but it has been difficult to keep up.  This is because of other commitments.  The regular corporate timeline for a project like this is 3 weeks.  I am guessing that is from start to completion.  I see that timeline working but at a quick pace.  I could see one week of work taking the time to get the design document right so the first part of the assignment is really set up properly.  If this document is not correct, then the course is going to be wrong from the start.  A week to really design a good course design document would really take an attention to detail and the ability to have someone there to review and edit the document to make sure all of the possibilities are set up and all of the objects are set up towards the goal of the course.

The second part of the process would be building the course.  This part would take the most time and take the most discipline.  It can take some time to gather all of the information, resources, assignments, and media.  This task could take a while if all of the things are not already in one location.  Having to go out and find all of the resources for my course can take some time.  I know what I want each module to do but I do not know where the material is located.  I am trying to use already created resources but I might have to make some.  That is the issue that I can see in hitting the 3-week deadline.  When designing a course like this, it is important to get some feedback from other so you would need to be done with building the course in time to get a review or two.  Time would also need to be there to make changes based on the feedback that you have done.

The corporate timeline is one that can be done but would really take some focus to get all of the parts done with enough time to properly create it.  But if this was your job, and you spent your work days creating, this can be done.  It would be interesting to try to keep up with that timeline and see if that was something that could be followed.

Week 7 Post

Working inside a Learning Management System has been different than just working to create digital assignments.  Designing a course inside that system has changed the way I am approaching this course.  It took about a week to really understand the way Canvas worked and how I can create the assignment types inside it that are needed.  The LMS has given me some structure to my assignments.  It has given me an easy way to do create some of the environments like discussions that are more difficult in other environments.  It also gives an easy structure to hold all the documents in one place and allow them to open up as they are completed.  These structures are helping give the course a nice flow from one module to another. 

There have been some challenges as well.  The structures are something that is different than I am familiar with using.  This has caused some tasks to take different forms than I was originally thinking.  This mainly comes from the way the instructions are used in this platform. It works best to explain the entire module in one document and then move through the work than explain each assignment individually.  This is different but it does allow the educator to help explain the learning process to the learner and that allows the entire module to be seen as a unit. Each assignment is part of the unit and adds to the overall learning goal for that module.

I am starting to look through my feedback.  I am going to take into account what was said as I build the rest of my course.  It is always good to get an outside set of eyes on something that I am creating.  I tend to overlook things that are missing.  I read in the things that are supposed to be there but are left out.

Overall building the first part of my course has been challenging.  I enjoy learning a new environment to use and I have almost started thinking in the Canvas mode to create assignments.  I am looking forward to creating the rest of my course.

Week 6 Blog

Learning a Learning Management System (LMS) can be challenging.  In my current role, I take the official stance of the district and do not prefer and LMS.  The total of my experience with any LMS has been through UNT’s program.  During my two years in the program, I have used Blackboard and Canvas from the student side.  Both have their advantages and disadvantages but they seem rather strong. 
Learning to use an LMS is a challenging task.  You have to really think inside the flow of the LMS to set up your course for your learners to follow easily.  I am accustomed to working in an online learning system but nothing that really organizes your content like a LMS.  I really enjoy the different and the organization of a LMS.  It helps to organize the information in a better way than just using a website to give the student their assignments.  From an instructor point of view, it helps in designing the course because there are distinct modules.  This allows the course designer to set up distinct learning breaks.  These breaks can serve any function that you want them to service but the distinct breaks are there. 
This has also been a challenge.  It seems that each module is not complete even when I add all of the information that I need.  They feel like I am not allowing the student to complete the module with all of the information they need.  This is where the course evaluation can help to develop the course.  I can use the learners that complete my course to help refine it.  A good designer is never done with their course.  They are always looking to change things that need to be changed to better help their students.  This is a process that I am not familiar with this process but it is the way to create a good course. 

Week 4 Blog

Empathic Design is something that I have not heard about until looking at the list of designs this week.  It is interesting because empathy is a great way to create relationships with learners and learners tend to learn better from an educator in which they have a good relationship.  By starting the design with what would benefit the learner as far as places to start and what to include is an interesting idea.  This is mainly a corporate design technique.  That would explain why a K-12 educator is not familiar with something like this.  Lenoard and Rayport set out five steps in how to approach this design type (1997).  These five steps are observe, collect data, reflect and analyze, brainstorm, and prototype.  These steps are set up to assess what your learners know, where they are in learning, and what you need to teach to get them the knowledge they need with the minimal about of time.  That is the empathy part, think about your learner and set up learning for them from their perspective.  The models used in K-12 education takes some prior knowledge into account but teaches all aspects of the lesson not just what the learners need to know.  In a classroom, there could be a wide difference in what learners walk into the classroom knowledge and since the educators are responsible for teaching all parts of the lesson, they design lessons to teach all parts that need to be learned.  That is the biggest difference.  This model is something that would work really well in corporate settings.  By designing learning like this, it can help create learning that will hit the mark with people that must complete modules like this in addition to their regular job.  Corporate learning is something that happens to employees that are usually added to their normal job.  Starting design from their perspective could help create some very effective learning.  These instructional designs like this are the results of putting different design theories into practice.  To get the Empathic Design, a designer looks at the theoretical model and then set up an instructional design model from that theory.  These design models are what the instruction follows and that is what the impacts the learner.  The theory behind the learning is what sets up the model but it is the model that sets up the learning.

Leonard, D. & Rayport, J. (1997). Spark Innovation Through Empathic Design. Harvard Business Review November - December 1997.

Week 3 Blog

The Design Document Process

Creating a design document has always been a challenging task for me.  Having to think through the entirety of a course at the very beginning is a very daunting task.  I want to think of all of the possibilities and set up a successful course but I learned through this process that there is no such thing as a perfect course.  No matter how many times you think and rethink, plan and replan, you will always have something that can be improved.  This process has really hit that home with me.  I sat down and was very deliberate about how I designed my course.  I know I am just learning but I didn't expect to not see some of the things that were suggested by my peers.  It really helps to have an outside set of eyes on something.  Often I would imply something in my design.  I would know what I was talking about but it was not clear to anyone else.

With that start, I had some really good feedback on my Design Document.  There is a sentence in my Summary of Analysis that my peer reviewer pointed out.  He needed some clarification on the statement.  It was something that many teachers that I work with had mentioned to me.  I did not provide enough explanation around the statement for it to make sense to an outside party.  I am in the process of going back and changing that part of my paper.  I am going to include more context around that statement to make sure that anyone reading my design document will be able to understand that part.  That one statement is actually the entire reason for me creating this course.  It is to fill a hole I see in the new hire orientation.  It was really eye-opening to see that I missed the point with that statement when it was the beginning issues that I am trying to address.  

I still need to add more on the constructivist philosophy and how it is used in my course design.  I added more to it after getting my paper back but I still need to add more information.  I am looking into more research and documents on that educational philosophy that can be used to strengthen my paper.  I want to use specific references, mentioned by my peer editor, and then explain those references in my paper.  This will give me a more academic feel to the Design Document.

I really learned a lot during this week's assignments.  It is always good to get another set of eyes on your work, no matter what it is, to make sure you are going down the path that you think you are going down.

Week 1 Blog

Starting a project like this can be very intimidating.  Throughout the Learning Technologies coursework, I have created each of these parts in pieces but never put everything together.  It seems to be a daunting task to include all of the things necessary to create an effective course.  The Constructionist learning theory seems to be the one that makes the most sense to me to be used in an online learning environment (Savery and Duffy, 2001).  It allows the learners to learn at their own pace and create material that is meaningful to them.  This gets more engagement from the learners and will then allow them to better retain the material being taught.  This makes the learning more personal and allows the learner to work through the material and create something from their learning.  The course that I am looking to design will help with the new hire technology orientation for my school district.  Right now we are hiring about 300+ teachers each year.  There were 80+ new hires at the high school alone.  We will be opening at least 2 new schools each year for the next 5 to 10 years.  We are a technology-rich district with Chromebooks in every classroom from 2-12 and not all teachers are comfortable with that level of availability.  This is on top of the basic set up new accounts, creating welcome web pages, and setting up phone systems that each new hire must complete before the first day of school.  Larson and Lockee (2009) talk about the importance of design and technology in other areas outside of education.  This includes the training developed and run by HR offices for their new hires.  This done in an online format that allowed access from anywhere a person wanted to learn when they were ready to learn would increase the retention over a set time and place.  These ideas are going to drive the development of my course.  I want the new hires for my district to get access to the course when they complete their account creation training that they attend so they can start working on their technology knowledge before being bombarded with district New Hire Orientation that takes place over 3 days before returning teachers report for in-service days.  Stretching out the learning and allowing learners to go back and repeat modules, learn at their pace, but still ask questions to the course instructors could really change the way new hire training works.  It could allow for more information to be taught and learned to help teachers attack the learning curve of how to teach with the technology we use in my district.  Ruey (2010) sets the bar at changing the passive learning of the corporate world into a more collaborative environment seen in other places.  This will be a challenge to set up but it will help increase the learning in the course I develop.