For now, it looks like I will need to focus on editing and final preparations for the course content. I did not receive any more peer reviews as of writing this, so I guess I can assume that all of the peers in my group just thought they reviewed my full course when they did the 3/4 review. I did have about 95% of the content in the course at the time, so I guess that will be close enough. Or maybe they just didn’t see the deadline for today in the grade book and I will be getting more in the future. Either way, I have implemented most of the feedback, or at least all of it that fit into the scope of the course and the intended audience. Like I think I said previously, designing a course for instructors means that I really need to strike a balance between not putting in content they already know and leaving out stuff that they don’t.

For the job aid, I will need to review the feedback and make changes. I know there are also a few things I left out due to being in a bit of a rush on that one, so that will probably take most of my time in the next week.

The biggest challenge I have faced is trying to take a course with changing and advanced theories and place it into an LMS that really thrives on being a simplified interface for more basic design theories. I think I could have made a better course in some places if I could have used the tools (like WordPress) that I wanted the professors to learn themselves, but that might have possibly been too difficult on the learners to skip from platform to platform. Ultimately, I think the unified interface and familiar design elements each week will help pull together a course that covers a huge amount of epistemological ground.

Like I said in the last post, I will be able to make the timeline. I am pretty much finished except for final details and editing. Implementation may be possible in the future, but there will be several hoops to jump through to see that happen and it will be next year at the earliest. Evaluation will need to wait until implementation occurs, but that will also be possible in that I will be still have co-workers that can evaluate the course. In fact, UTA will probably require that before implementation.

Technically, I believe I was able to finish ahead of my own timeline, mainly because I think I created one that was slower than the course requirements. I have only really gotten behind on addressing peer review feedback and course videos overall (but I should take care of that this weekend). I should be able to finish up the module intro videos this weekend by deadline. Really the videos were the largest aspect that I got behind on, but that was due to a technical problem I will discuss next. But I was able to work ahead on content during that time, so it all worked out in the end I believe.

The main technology challenge I have faced is with creating the videos. As a full time instructional designer, I was used to having others produce the videos we used (since I am not the subject matter expert). We have a video production crew where I work that handles all of this part of the process. Finding a time when my house is quiet to record videos is difficult, especially with a little extremely active person in the house. I think if you listen close enough, you can actually faintly hear him in the background of the first video. Plus, my computer at home seems to do a horrible job of recording audio. The built in microphone picks up the hard drive clicking the whole time (seems like someone would have thought of a way to deal with that before selling it). Any microphone I use sounds bad (probably because I am use to listening to professional podcasts with expensive microphones).

There have been no real people problems with this project since I am working with myself. The peer reviewers gave me great feedback that really helped. A few places I had to skip the advice directly because my design paradigm and audience have specific requirements, but I still addressed those issues in some way because if the reviewers have that question, someone else might.

I have been working for several years on major projects with hard deadlines, so what I mainly learned in the process was how I would not want to do these projects while working from home. Well, at least until the little guy is in school full time. And if they made sure to have a media production team for me. If I do this again, I would probably look to create several short courses that focus in on more specific topics. Training for an organization like I tried to design for just doesn’t fit well into the typical University credit hour schedule.

My strength as a designer is my experience in the field. I have dealt with many of the major and minor issues of being an instructional designer (and I still like doing it, so I guess that is a plus). Of course, that also serves as a weakness or place to improve – gaining experience also gives a false sense of security in your own knowledge and abilities, so you can stop stretching and growing. So the areas that I need to grow in are professional development and expanding my horizons as an instructional designer.

What is left to do on my project? I have been able to work a bit ahead and get much of the content and activities completed. What is left are the last two intro videos and then major editing for not only grammar but educational flow. I also need to incorporate some of the feedback from the peer reviewers into the first half. I have just gotten behind on that part. Then I need to go through and make sure that I am really accomplishing the intended theoretical perspectives for each module. Its easy to choose one and stick with it through the whole course, but change from one to another can be difficult. Especially if you are trying to present a consistent end-user experience. Obviously some things will change, but if you don’t provide some familiarity with structure, learners can become stressed.

That probably also touches on the challenges that I face. Changing theoretical perspectives is a good way to get professors to see learning from other perspectives, but you don’t want to confuse them. Finding that perfect balance of changing the perspectives but not so much as to lose people is a bit challenging. Change it too much and people get frustrated (and rightly so), but don’t change it enough and your participants don’t notice it and will continue on as they have been. So I am striking a balance of explaining the changes but using similar repeated elements in the design to tie them all together.

I will be able to meet the deadlines as long as something unexpected doesn’t come up. Which is why I work ahead – that is always a possibility. But I do intend to meet the deadlines and have worked enough ahead to hopefully be able to ensure that.

As far as implementing this course, it probably won’t be immediately. The system for getting something like this going at UTA just takes a long time, so implementation will be in the future. There has been some interest expressed in a course like this, so I am pretty sure they will be open to the idea.

Evaluation will probably have to occur before it is implemented, because that would be part of the approval process at UTA. There would need to be considerable formative evaluation as part of that approval process. If it does go forward as a project, then there would also be summative evaluation built in. As far as getting my colleagues in review the course as part of formative evaluation, that will probably also happen, too – but not until after May. We are just over-extended until then.