ETEC 561 Capstone Video

ETEC 561 CAPSTONE VIDEO

To expand on my Capstone Video please read the following.

What was the most challenging thing you learned this semester?

The most challenging thing I learned this semester was found in Section Two. This section was on epistemology, models, and theories of instruction and knowledge gain. I found wrapping my brain around the different epistemology camps was a true struggle.

To be successful in this we must understand what Epistemology means…

·         Epistemology the study of what and how we come to know.

A few of the different theories behind learning as they pertain to instructional design are:

•          Behavioral Learning Theory-focuses on feedback, behavioral objectives, and practice.
•          Cognitive Learning Theory- focuses on attributes of learners and the role of prior knowledge.
•         Situated Learning Theory- focuses on the learner’s situation (socioeconomic factors).
•          Constructivist- focuses on constructing learning environments that encouraged learning.

I think that this quote from Gange really sums up that more than one of these theories can all be employed together to facilitate learning.

“There are, after all, some useful human activities that are acquired without instruction, and others that result from self-instruction. But most practical and purposeful activities, such as the pursuits involved in vocational and technical training, are learned in settings that employ instruction.”

What was the most interesting thing you learned this semester?

Much of the information that I learned in this semester I found interesting so it was a challenge to come up with the most interesting. However, after thinking about it for a while, I think that I found Section Five the most interesting. Getting to look at how instructional design is used in fields different than the field of education was a real eye opener for me. I also found it interesting that many of the same trends and issues are universal across fields. To sum up some of the fields trends and issues:

Business and Industry

•         Design teams can vary from organization to organization based on size and need.
•          Others such as the client or a subject matter expert are involved heavily in the process.
•         Many designers are also project managers
•         Diversity of clients and audience, time, and funding concerns

Military

•          Focus on needs of the military and the individual
•          New and rapidly changing technologies
•          International or multinational military is the focus of the design and instruction (Joint Training)
•          Funding and delivery environment are concerns

Health Care

•          Varied settings or organizations of focus for the instruction.
•         Broad range of rapidly changing knowledge and research.
•         Costs of education for the professionals in this field can be high.
•          Instruction of consumer can cut cost of medical care.
•          The many Regulations, Standards, and Licenses that are needed.
•          Convergence of technologies and information received by the consumer and provider.

What was the most useful thing you learned this semester?

Section three, had some of the most useful information in it. I found thinking about evaluation challenging and useful. I learned there are many different models of evaluation, but what I really found useful was reflecting on different options for evaluating. An instructional designer should ask themselves a few questions before deciding on one or more evaluation models. The following are a few examples I came up with that might be useful to know:

a.     What is the “value” to the learner?

b.    What type of data is being gathered?

c.     How will the data gathered be used?

d.    What type of environment will the evaluation by done in?

e.    What type of organization will be evaluated?

f.      What is the focus of the evaluation?

g.    How long will the evaluation last?

h.    Who is being evaluated?

i.      What are the desired results of the evaluation?

As I stated in my reflection over this section, all of these questions have the commonality of a focus of determining how an evaluation will be given and used and what the “picture of success” looks like. I think that we must think about these things before we develop instruction. If we design with the end in mind then we should be more successful in the long term with our results and the performance of our learners.

List and explain three examples of how you have either already implemented or plan to implement things you have learned this semester?

1. I have already started to think about my instruction in a different light. I am trying to focus on making it more authentic and engaging for my audience (students). I have also thought about how all of my instruction should improve their performance not only in the short term, but for life.
2. I really like the idea of permanent learning objects. I have been doing this somewhat as I save everything that I design/produce. I have since becoming department head started to make sure that what I design/produce as well as what my fellow department members design/produce is saved and cataloged in our “teacher share” history folder. This will make it easier for all of us to stay together and come alongside teachers that are new to the department.
3. I also plan to start looking into professional organizations. I have already joined a couple of LinkedIn groups. By doing both of these I hope I will be able to stay on top of trends in the field. 

ETEC 561 Section 7: New Direction in Instructional Design and Technology

Section 7: New Direction in Instructional Design and Technology

This section of the textbook addresses new directions and emerging technologies for IDT. For your final post, reflect on how you might apply each of the following in your current or future position in the IDT field:

• distributed or e-learning environments
• reusable design or learning objects
• rich media
• Emerging instructional technologies, such as artificial intelligence, cybernetics, Web 2.0, virtual worlds, electronic games, etc.

Distributed or E-Learning Environments

Currently, I am the one receiving most of the distributed/e-learning. However, now that I am a little more comfortable with blogging I am considering creating some online learning for my American History Class. This would allow me to test some ideas with a captive audience. As far as distributed/e-learning we are using more and more technology every day in class. However, I am not creating the learning on the technological devices. They are more being used for knowledge seeking. If I get a job as an educational technologist, then I would be creating digital lessons for district staff to help them use technology more successfully or conducting face to face training using technology to support professional development.

Reusable Design and Learning Objects

One of my classes this year has several students that are also English language learners. I am not bilingual and lend to talk a little fast. What I discovered through a couple of formative assessments was that these students along with a few others were struggling with my traditional style of teaching. What I am doing to help these students is actually simple. I slowed down and decided that I needed to show them more as we discuss history. I am redesigning my lessons so that they incorporate more pictures, short videos, and diagrams. Through Chapter 30 I have learned that these are reusable learning objects. I plan to take what I am doing for this class and incorporate it into all of my lessons as I am seeing great returns. I think that learning objects help reinforce information and encourage greater learning. When I move on to my next challenge I plan to take with me the idea of using learning objects, especially using short videos.

Rich Media

Rich media should not be used unless it compliments learning. We are able to produce or acquire amazingly high quality media but, this media can be too much for the learner. In my current position we use America: the Story of Us, which was produced with a large budget, by the History Channel. If I use this media only showing full episodes then my students will enjoy it, but I will not get maximum impact. What I do instead is break it up into small chunks that supplement my lessons. I have also found that if I use a diagram and it moves or does something my students seem to remember it. Making rich media is something that I would like to learn how to do. I think that as I transition into producing original instruction for professional development that using rich media in a beneficial way it will enhance engagement and learning.

Emerging instructional technologies, such as artificial intelligence, cybernetics, Web 2.0, virtual worlds, electronic games, etc.

As an educator and hopefully a future educational technologist I am trying my best to stay on top of emerging instructional technologies. There are many programs and games that have elements of artificial intelligence incorporated into them. It has been my experience that AI makes me work hard and increases my learning when it comes to a challenge. I could see this being very useful in simulations. Working with AI is learning in virtual worlds. In my robotics program we are starting to use virtual worlds along with AI to produce effective learning at a lower cost and in less time. My students see these virtual worlds as games not learning. The really nice thing about using these virtual worlds is that there are already lessons designed to accompany them. The challenge that I have is making the lessons fit my middle school students. I know from experience that doing equals learning and these emerging technologies are making it easier to do over distances or make the product more reusable. The great thing about a simulation or virtual world is that they are easy to reset and start over, where creating in the real world uses up materials and resources. I will always try to keep up with emerging technologies and incorporate them into my design.

ETEC 561 Section 6: Getting an IDT Position and Succeeding at It

This section of your textbook focuses on jobs in the profession of instructional design and technology: lessons and tips on how to get one and organizations that can support the job search and continued learning in the IDT field. Many of you already have a job in the field or in a related field; however, based on this week’s readings, you’ll reflect on where you are, where you want to go, and what you need to learn or do to get there.

Begin your post for this week with some background: what is your current job, what program are you enrolled in, what brings you to that program, and what do you expect when you graduate (change jobs? obtain a promotion?).

This year will mark my fourth year as a middle school social studies teacher. In my short time as an educator I have done several things at my campus. I started out teaching seventh grade Texas History and coaching girls volleyball and soccer. After two years of this I made the change to eighth grade American history and took over the Vex Robotics team. This year I also became the social studies department chair.  Taking over the department and my robotics coaching role has driven me to pursue my Masters of Education Technology-Leadership. My goal is finish my degree program by August 2014. I plan to use my degree to become an educational technologist in the field of Education. However, I may also test the waters of the corporate world again. I chose this program partly because of its versatility. Either way that I ultimately decide to go it will mean a raise in salary and allow me I be involved in education without being in the classroom all the time.

Next, describe the kind of work that you want to do and the type of organization or institution in which you want to work. Use the WorkMatrix^TM in the chapter titled “Getting a Job in Business and Industry” to help organize your thoughts. Do you most desire first, second, third, or fourth level service? Or would you rather design or develop instruction? What features of work are important to you? What economic sector do you want to work in?

After using the WorkMatrix^TM  tool, I narrowed my desired Level of Service to Service Level 1 or Service Level 2. The reason I list both would be because I am somewhat undecided as to what I want to do once I finish my degree. I enjoy working in secondary education and would continue with the field if I could become an instructional technologist for a district. I would love to help teachers become better users of technology to influence their students learning.
I see this as more Service Level 2 as you are training the teachers (trainers) how to be more effective. However, if I went to the corporate side of instructional design I would want to be more involved in Service Level 1, the design and delivering of training. Either way, being able to assess and deliver a product to a group is my desire. When I work I like a high level of autonomy and purpose in my work. I like to make an impact with my organization. As far as the features of work from the matrix, I would say that location is most important. I am willing to take a lower salary to stay near my family. Opportunity for promotion would be next, followed by income growth. At this moment at time I would not want to travel much as I have a young family however, in time that might change. Starting salary would be my least concern, but I would expect a fair salary for the position and location. As I said before the plan would be to work in Education however, I may be open to other options like the knowledge industry or even manufacturing.

Based on these intentions, explain what you need to learn. What skills and qualifications do you need? Will you obtain the skills you need in the required courses in your program? What electives might you need to take to help you develop skills specific to your aspirations?

The plan, as it stands at the moment, is to stay in education. I believe that through this program and other trainings that I have pursued I will have a good grasp on educational design and technology. I have supervisory and management experience and feel I could make a move in education to management. I do need more experience on designing to fix large scale culture issues that are part of education. I believe that through education, training, and just on the job experience I could become successful. I might consider taking a business management class before I finish the program.

Finally, what organizations would best support your continued learning after you graduate? Do you think you would benefit from joining those organizations before graduating? Explain why or why not?

Professional organizations can be beneficial. There were four listed that sound interesting on the surface. They listed here:

American Educational Research Association (AERA)

Association for Educational Communications and Technology (AECT)

International Society for Performance Improvement (ISPI)

International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE)

I would have to continue to look deeper into these organizations however; I do not believe that they would benefit me as far as gaining employment. I do think they could help me in my education of the field I am pursuing. Now, if I decided to go the corporate route they might help more in employment. I think that I will continue to research these and join a couple soon.

ETEC 561 Section 5: Trends & Issues

Chapters in Section V identify trends and issues in IDT in various contexts: business & industry;
military; health care education; P-12 education; and post-secondary education. Select at least 3
of these 5 contexts and compare/contrast the IDT trends and issues. Then explain how they are
similar or different from the IDT trends and issues in the context in which you work.

Business & Industry Trends & Issues

It seems that the trends and issues pertaining to instructional design and training focus on two main factors in Business & Industry. Those factors are culture and cost.

Culture

As corporation become larger or more global there is a greater demand on the instructional designer to be able to design for cross cultural use. Societal cultural factors are important to a diverse organization as there are different norms when it comes to instruction and learning. There is also a need to understand symbols, colors, etc. of the target culture.  For training a cross-cultural group one should focus on the cultural similarities and stay away from the culturally sensitive content.  The designer should also focus on the learners and in an ideal situation should get to know the target leaners. Relying on a subject matter expert (SME) is also an important part of understanding and designing for a culture. Ultimately, understanding the target culture of the leaners will serve the designer best. It is important to have a broad accepting worldview.

As our schools and classrooms become more culturally diverse these same aspects come into play for instructional designers in the educational setting. I have students from many cultures and with many different worldviews, the challenge I have is teaching them a subject that is based around one culture. That culture is the American Culture. In eight grade American History we discuss many topics and events where we as Americans look at it in a favorable light. However, as our classrooms become more diverse I find myself having to consider how my Hispanic students see certain parts of American History and how to engage students that don’t see value in understand parts of how the United States Government works. This I have students from England and Ireland and as we get into the American Revolution I look forward to them being able to contribute their worldview on the part of our history. Unlike the corporate setting where designers are told to stay away from culturally insensitive topics we as American History teachers have to discuss them, but walk the line of using them for educational and instructional purposes.   

Cost

Cost in corporate instructional design can be summed up in the idea “Better, Faster, Cheaper”. This can be achieved in a few different ways. The first is rapid prototyping, here making a working model in essential to the process of cutting down on time used to achieve results. Web-based or technology-based training is a major trend in the corporate world. This kind of training can take many forms in today’s world, but makes for quicker training. Impact evaluation is very important. It is not good enough to just evaluate to see if knowledge has been gained, but that the knowledge in being translated into impact on the organization. Training must achieve results. The designer can also save time by being a researcher for the organization. The research done by the instructional designer should focus on improving performance.

With my other role as an educator being a middle school robotics coach, I relate with the cost aspects of corporate instructional design. I often think how we can build better robots cheaper and faster. We use YouTube videos from other teams and prototypes and examples from the past years to speed up the design process. YouTube videos and other online resources are used to train the students when they are away from the classroom thus reducing the need for in class instruction for certain areas of the robot building process. As the teacher/leader of the robotics program impact evaluation is incredibly important for me to gage the value of the instruction I am providing to my students. If what I am trying to teach them is not being applied then I need to reflect on the overall design and delivery of the instruction. As we try new ideas with in the robotics department for the district, I find that I am often the researcher and SME for the middle school years. I am constantly looking for ways to improve our product and the results it achieves. 

Military Trends & Issues

It is important to understand that the modern militaries of the world today and not simple, but very involved multifaceted organizations that have reasonability to train their soldiers both at home and abroad.

Trends

There are two major trend challenges that face the instructional designer for the military. Those trend challenges are:

·         international responsibilities of national or multinational military force

·         new technologies

Like corporate setting military settings can be culturally diverse. Much of the training and training material handled by America, when designing for the military client the end user has to be taken into account. Technology is another area that is shared with the corporate world, as well as education. No matter where you are at in the world and what you are doing you are being affected by emerging technologies. With the military being on the cutting edge of technology I would assume that this would always be an issue as well as a trend.

Issues

Budgetary issues are concern when providing effective impactful trainings in a military setting. The military is always looking to get the maximum bag for the buck. Another issue is the range of the technology needed for the military and for its training. From paper products to flight simulators or live action trainings could be part of the instructional environment of the military. Environment for the delivery of instruction can be a challenge. Training and knowledge gain is central to the success of the military and is an ongoing process where in the corporate world it tends to be a when needed process. Both corporations and the military can be very complex. Unlike the corporate world though, the military does not always have a single goal for instruction. Often, the military will have many needs to be addressed by one training. Then that information might need to be applied in countless ways. The final major issue is people and finding the best way to address all of their learning needs.

I have a much harder time comparing the military with my world. However, I do see the common theme of technology and budget concerns.

Health Care Trends & Issues

Instructional design has been a part of the Healthcare world for a very long time. It has gone through many trends and has been faced with many issues. The history of medical training is comprised of three distinct eras:

•    Prescientific Phase
•    Scientific Phase
•   Post-Flexner Phase

Trends

As with other heavily science based fields’ problem-based learning and evidence-based practice are central to medical field.  Factors to be considered in the medical field are risk, science, innovation, altruism, professionalism, and sensory perception. A medical student or practitioner has to take all of these factors into account. Again we find that innovation/technology is a key component.

Issues

 Knowledge and research are major factors in medical education because; knowledge is always advancing much like technology in advancing for the military or corporate worlds. Convergence of technologies, as in other settings, is a factor in medical training. Cost is another shared issue. One that is seems to be unique to the medical profession in regulations, standards, and licensure. I would lean that way if we were only looking at the corporate and military environment, however, education has a healthy dose of all three; standards, regulation, and licensure.

Compared to Education

All three of these fields compare to the Educational field. Budget concerns, changes in technologies, diversity of learners, standards, regulation, and licensure are all issues that we deal with on a daily basis. It was nice to read this section and realize what we are doing in the educational setting can translate to other professions so well.

ETEC 561 Section 4: Human Performance Technology

Not all problems in learning and/or performance require an instructional solution. Many times a non-instructional approach is a more appropriate solution. This week's reading and reflection focuses on human performance, performance support systems, knowledge management systems, and the concept of informal learning.

Chapter 14 discusses the concept and evolution of human performance improvement. Several sections of chapter 14 present a variety of non-instructional solutions to performance problems. Identify a performance problem in your area of work and identify non-instructional solutions that may help solve the problem. 

Motivation towards the TAKS/STAAR Test and the rankings coming from the success or lack of success has been an issue in my area of work. The last few years TAKS and now STAAR were tuff on my district. We were slapped with an unacceptable rating the final year of the TAKS test and this put our school into a funk and things seemed bleak. However, since then we have worked hard to correct this. We were led by our principal who put together a vision for success. To do this he had the department heads look into the areas of deficiencies within their own departments. He also motivated staff through vision and feedback in meetings with the departments and the staff as a whole. As a former coach he is a natural at motivating through words. He also started sending key members of the staff to trainings,^th grade writing.  We were ultimately successful because we wanted to get that monkey (STAAR) off our backs.
so they could gain knowledge to be used in the classroom. I am happy to report that our campus met standards this year and even earned an academic distinction for 7

Chapter 15 presents performance support systems. Define performance support systems and explain how a performance support system might (or might not) help solve the problem you identified above.

We had a performance support system implemented in the hopes that it would lead to better performance when it came to STAAR scores. We had several supports put into place. We started using Eduphoria to track student performance on tests. I also gave the ability to look at a student over time. We also analyzed previous TAKS/STAAR scores and how our students performed towards specific TEKS. Another way we were helped was that our district hired aides to help in lesson preparation when it came to preparing for our unit tests and ultimately the STAAR test. We also got new technologies in the classroom like Promethean Boards and other resources like support texts. The last key support was additional training that would increase student performance by increasing our knowledge of designing lessons towards our student’s success.

Chapter 16 explains knowledge management: the way we manage information, share that information, and use it to solve organization problems. Organizations, such as schools, accumulate a great deal information/data, which must be organized in a way that we can make sense of it in order to use for making decisions. What knowledge would help solve the problem you identified above and how would that knowledge need to be collected and managed to help facilitate problem solving? 

I explained towards this some before, but the things we looked at in becoming more successful on the STARR test were many. We looked at students previous scores on other tests. We also tracked their performance through the year when it came to Unit Tests. We also looked at released STAAR questions and previous TAKS test questions. In doing this we looked for areas that the students as a whole needed extra support. This allowed us to be able to come up with focused instruction to help improve the understanding of difficult areas.                                                         Our department became very focused on improving student success.

Chapter 17 describes types of informal learning. What informal learning experiences have you participated in at your organization? Could those informal learning experiences be shared with others? Could the knowledge gained in those settings be codified and managed? And should it be managed or should the informal experiences be replicated or broadened for others?

The thing, I think, that improved our specific departments STAAR scores more than anything were our department meetings. Now in saying this, what comes to mind might be a very formal meeting between members of our department, but what these meetings became was an opportunity for us to share with each other our knowledge, success, and failures. These were very informal meetings and what was truly nice is that we for the most part were able to just be left to ourselves to come up with our plan to conquer the STAAR Test. These meetings could have been managed by a principal or some other person from central office, but I think if it had been the outcome would not have been as good as it was. We needed to be informal and left to ourselves so that we had creative freedom.