Final Semester

It's February of 2011. I look forward to finishing this Masters Program and being able to continue to cultivate my mind in other areas. Each semester in this program has has it's challenges, from both class work and life outside of school. The people I go to school with have made this experience great. As we work toward graduation, going our separate ways will be difficult. I think that cultivating your mind can correspondingly enrich your life. Hmm, something to think about.

New Semester, New Challenges

I'm now in my second semester of graduate school and I must say it's been a growing experience. For one of my classes, Integration of Educational Technology, I needed to explore Web 2.0 and also contribute to it in some way. I have enjoyed looking at "The 10 Sites and Services That Will Matter in 2010". I experienced Wikitravel.org, Justin.tv, popsi, and Grooveshark. Justin.tv seemed weird to me- live video feed? Not my thing. Popsi (Popular Science Magazine website) was okay. I think Wikitravel.org has great potential; I look forward to using it more. By far my favorite site I experience was Grooveshark. I like being able to look up the songs I want to listen to from different artists. I HIGHLY recommend Grooveshark.

I also opened accounts at delicious.com (http://delicious.com/greenwood_md) and flickr (http://www.flickr.com/photos/arookie/?saved=1). I choose to contribute to delicious.com because I had heard about it and wanted to know more and to Flickr because I like digital photography.

Final Blog for EDPS 6430

I end where I began, with the questions we were asked to answer and at the beginning of this blog. What is technology? What does an 'instructional designer' do? How would I explain to friends, co-workers, or my mother-in-law what it is that I am learning and what I will be able to do with my future degree?

Technology is a tool that is used to accomplish a task. Technology includes the alphabet, paper, a wheel, a computer, a video camera, and on and on. It was surprising when Dr. Monson shared in class that technology isn't necessarily helping us do new things, but helps us to things we would already be doing anyway- only we can do them faster (please correct me if this not what Dr. Monson said as my memory could be fading).

As I said in my answer to this question at the beginning of the semester, I still believe an 'instructional designer' works to set up steps to solve an existing problem in the most efficient and effective way. Only now I believe the process is more detailed then I did before. An instructional designer needs to be able to analyze a problem to see if instruction is even the correct solution. It can take restraint to say 'what I do as an instructional designer' is not the solution to this problem'. If instruction is needed, the designer needs to know what questions to ask to determine what kind of instruction is needed and we willing through the process of designing to evaluate what they are doing and if they are still on track solving the problem that started the design process. An instructional designer, like other professions, needs to be persistent in their questioning so the instruction meets its intended objectives. An instructional designer needs to constantly seek feedback on their work from subject matter experts and people in their target audience to see where the instruction can be improved to meet its objectives. An instructional designer needs to stay up to day on instructional media and methods that are being created so they can use the best method to present the instruction. I learned in this area of instructional media and methods I need to do more study to be up-to-date. The media presentations in class were eye opening to what is out there to aid in instruction.

And what do I now tell people about what I am learning and what I hope to do with my future degree, I think I was on track at the beginning of the semester. I hope to be able to begin lesson preparation and presentation with my end goals in mind. I hope to design instruction that engages different senses of each student to make it a richer learning experience for them. Outside of work, I hope to be able to more efficiently and effectively solve problems at home and in other areas of my life. I think the fact that I still feel on track with what I wrote at the beginning of the semester shows that I choose the right program of study.

To Dr. Monson and everyone in class, thank you for a great semester!

The Final Project

The process of analyzing, designing, and producing a product for instruction was way more detailed then I thought it would be. As I llok at it, I think the reason for the attention to detail is to help the learner understand the information so whatever problem existed that was the genesis for the product would be solved through the instruction. I appreciate the attention to the learners perspective. Thanks for Josh and Wade, it was great working with you.

The Final Class

It was great to see what every group did for their projects. It was great to sit and learn from each group- such a wide range of interests. I was also amazed at all the new things people learned by during the creation of their project, I think I'll try Googledocs. Thanks everyone for teaching the class and for encouraging me to try new things in my teaching.

Restructing Education Through Technology

I enjoyed this article for three reasons (which made it easier to discuss with our class). First, I thought this article was understandable (language and content). Second, the ideas presented were interesting. Breaking education down to teacher, student, content, context, and environment caused me to think about my teaching experience and how this five things combine was a good experience for me. Teaching is much more then lesson plans or classroom discipline. Thinking about the learning process from the students perspective, about what content would be most needed, etc., helped me look at my teaching (changes to teaching are still in process). The part of the article where the five parts of teaching were paired with each other (context-student, content-environment, etc.) helped isolate each component in my mind. This made it a much better learning experience for me! The third reason I enjoyed the article was Frick's 'Now' and 'What if...' section. Frick wrote this article in 1991, when the internet was bring to be used. His what 'What if...' section is our now, so as I read it was fun to see if Frick's possibilites had come to fruition. In the seven areas, some of the ideas were in use but not all of them were used. Overall, I'm glad my group had this article to discuss with the class.

Instructional Strategies

Tonight our group did our media presentation on 10 Instructional Strategies: presentation, demonstration, drill-and-practice, tutorial, games, discussion, cooperative learning, simulation, discovery, and problem solving. I hope the class got something out of the presentation. It wells good to have it done, but also it feels good because I learned from the preparation for the presentation.

Being at this point in the semester, I am convinced that education and specifically instruction are like cultivating a garden. It takes a lot of work to get a learner ready to learn. As an instructor, my role is to determine when instruction is needed and when it is to prepare and deliver material in the way where that seed of knowledge will have the greatest chance to take root and grow in the mind of the individual student. The lessons, discussions, readings, and presentation have reinforced this belief.