Final blog for the semester

I know I missed a few of these blogs. The blogging was one of my least favorite things to do. But since I started working on the instructional design of my EdWeb, I see that blogging is a viable tool. It's to help the instructor see if the student is understanding, frustrated, etc. It doesn't mean that I like doing it, but I understand why we're doing it. :-)

I did some research on adult learning styles and characteristics for my instruction design part and I found this interesting little tidbit of information. According to John Mihall and Helen Belletti, adult learners "Can barely tolerate studying anything that can’t be applied to a task they expect to perform." Maybe that's my problem with the blogging.

We have a blog on our company intranet. I was on the team that helped develop it. I even created a tutorial in Captivate on how to use the blog, but I never use it. To me, it's another 15 minutes on a computer and since in my job I'm on a computer all day and at night, working on the course work for this class, it was just 15minutes too many on the computer. Anyway, this is my last entry for this semester so you don't have to hear me complain about it anymore.

This class was very challenging. I don't have a problem with a challenge, I was just surprised at HOW challenging it was. There was so much information I had to take in. I didn't even know what a "Bloom Taxonmy" was. Heck, I had to look up "taxonomy." One of these days I'll have to share with you the spreadsheet I created to keep track of all the learning models, taxonomies, etc. I even created an instructional design spreadsheet to map out all of the lessons/topics, behaviors, criteria, conditions, Absorb, Do, Connect and CIV's that my EdWeb will eventually cover.

I will just need to think for awhile about where this class, my job, and my elearning project with my brother is going to take me. I have a son who is leaving in August. He's going to college. I have to assume, if I've done my job right, that he won't really be coming back. He will be going out on his own after college. So this is my last few months truly to be with him. Do I want to spend that time sitting at a computer working day and night or do I spend time with him? Does he even care about me spending time with him?

I have a lot to think about. Maybe a few weeks off will be a good time for me to reflect. (ah, reflective observation!) See, I did learn something.

Happy Holidays!

Unit 9 - My Ah ha moment

Personally, I'm lost as to what Unit the last blog was referring to. I know I posted it FOR Unit 8, but the topic seems to be more of what happened DURING Unit 8 instead of about Unit 7.

Oh well. It doesn't matter, I hope.

My last post was about my struggling with the CIV's. I feel like I'm getting a better handle on it. I'm not sure how to provide all the CIV's; what tools, techniques, etc, are best for which CIV, but I get the idea. The website critiques helped with that.

I think this was in Unit 9, but the article on Writing Learning Objectives was really good. I put the information from that document into a spreadsheet I had already created. In this table, I have the Course Name, the learning objectives my client wrote (which are really more goal statements), then I added columns for "Absorb", "Do", "Connect". Now I added three more columns for "Behavior", "Criteria" and "Conditions." I probably need to add columns for the CIV's, but I'm probably going to have to transfer this to a new document and have one document for each class I will be creating for my client. I also created a list in google of the Cognitive Learning Domain and listed all the "action" words for the various processes.

I uploaded this to Google Docs so my client and I can work on this together. He called me Friday to discuss the information I put up there. I was explaining it to him and he said, "There's also a learning theory called Bloom's Taxonomy." I replied that the Cognitive Learning Domain and the Action/Verbs are from Bloom's taxonomy. I told him there was more domains than Cognitive but that in higher education or adult learning, this is the domain that we need to focus on. I spouted on a little bit longer, just trying to explain why his learning objectives weren't going to work. He used words like "Understand" or "Review." He really began to understand what I was saying. I just had to laugh and I told him, "wow, I can't believe I just said all that!" He laughed and told me that he could tell I was learning so much.

What was funny about it to me, is I wasn't trying to sound like I was so smart or trying to use big words, I just finally understood what the learning objectives are and the importance of assessing/testing the right way.

Then I told him, "You do realize we have a lot of work to do." And he agreed.

I'm not saying I have this down pat and I'll probably need a lot of coaching, but it's finally sinking in.

Unit 8 - Frustration sets in

I still don't understand the CIV's. Most of them are so similar, that I don't understand the difference. My team partner sees them as one thing I see them as another. I would like to see more concrete examples of where people have applied these values. We been given several sites to view, but I don't know what I'm looking at. Which things on a site is which value? Do you HAVE to have all 5 instructional values?

Unit 7

In this unit we were given links to prior EdWeb courses created by former students. Most of these were fairly good attempts at online training. I think the main issue here is trying to combine elearning with web design. I think that creates quite a challenge for anyone that is new to both topics. Most of the sites seemed to use a lot of text. I personally dislike reading so much text on a monitor. It's too hard to read and I tend to skip a lot of it. There didn't seem to be enough graphics and visual used through these. There was no audio or voice instruction that I found and no video.

The one site that I enjoyed going to was the Wild Horses site. The activity where you choose what kind of horse you are and then make choices and faced the outcome of those choices was very clever. I enjoyed that whole scenario-type learning.

Another component of this unit was the video of Downes. I do not agree with Downes theory of minimal instruction. The topic was pretty much over my head, but I got the jest. In my discussion group, I listed the issues I have with this theory, so I won't go into them now. Needless to say, I a not a fan of this philosphy. I prefer clear cut direction/instructions. I don't like floundering trying to find my own way. I figure, if I have to fork out money for a course, there better be something worth while. Minimalist instruction seems to be the easy way out for the instruction by putting all the "teaching" on the student.

Unit 6

Unit 6 was a discussion on Do-Type activities. Horton describes a lot of activities for the Do phase. I was especially intrigued by the Case Studies and the Role Playing.

I used to be a member of the eLearning Guild and I attended one of the online conferences they held a couple of years ago. I don't remember who the speaker was (it could have been Horton), but I remember how he described and demonstrated Role Playing using a story of a murder mystery. The one Horton described in his book was exactly the same one I saw demonstrated. I thought it was so cool. I had never seen that type of elearning.

I love the whole idea of branching; that the answer the learner selects can take them in a different direction. Trying to put something like that together would be a lot of fun, but I imagine a bit of a challenge as well.

I purchased Captivate 3 several months ago because of this funtionality of branching. I hope to someday be able to create a story telling elearning using this type of Do Activity.

Unit 5 Lessons Learned

In uni 5, I found the Horton discussion very interesting. I enjoyed writing a post and having others challenge me on it and then having my chance to try to explain my view in more detail.

My discussion topic was about the use of drama in elearning. Through the back and forth discussion, in order to supply some valid examples of how drama can be used in elearning, I was able to think of new ideas that I hadn't really thought of before. These new ideas I will keep in mind as I begin to work more in an elearning environment.

The other members of the discussion team also had really good ideas and thoughts about their topics as well; storytelling, online library and absorb-type activities in general. Not being from an educational field, I found all this very helpful.

Unit 4 Lessons NOT Learned

This week the focus was on Common Instructional Values. We reviewed the various components of our eCollege course such as the survey, the blog, etc. and determine how these components match up with common instructional values.

Unfortunately I don't understand the CIV's. To me, they are still too nebulous. How do I make something concrete to match these CIV's?

For example: Learner Centered instruction is personal and motivating. As educators we are supposd to guide the learning, support the students as they take ownership. And the Learning environments include flexible physical structures, tools and rubrics. So I'm supposed to do . . . .?? What?? What does that mean? I don't even know what a rubric is. What is a flexible physical structure?

Unit 3 Lessons Learned

It's hard to say what the lessons learned were for unit 3. Probably I would have to say based on the "Best Learning Experience" that the most effective instruction is when it becomes personal to the student. Either the material has to be personal and apply to the student's life or just the experience of the class becomes personal through interaction with other students. Anytime you sit through a training or a class and all of a sudden you see how the topic truly applies to you, that is amazing.

I recently had that happen to be at a Women in Project Management conference I attended. This one speaker talked about what makes a person a good leader on a project. As she listed the key points that a good leader needs to have, I realized where my project was lacking and what I needed to do to become a better project leader. The information I received became very personal to me and has stuck with me since the conference.

I have arrived!!

Okay, so I'm here. Now what do I do??

Barb