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.

Overall, most of the feedback I have received is good. One of the repeated points was to have guidelines for how to respond to a Tweet. I’m not sure that will be  a good idea – Tweets are so short that there really isn’t much guidance you can give. I also don’t want people to over think a Tweet that much. I understand that people are used to having a very specific set of guidelines for forum comments, but with tweets it might be different. I may just need to spell that out – Tweets are short, don’t over think them, just make them worth the time to read them.

There were several suggestions for content to add or clarify, and those will of course be incorporated. Some of the additions that were suggested (like explaining PLN research or why a self-hosted website is important) is actually part of what the participants are supposed to define as part of their learning process. So, of course I can’t spell those out in my content since participants need to find that on their own. The target population for this course are also already self-identified as being interested in these topics, so I’m not sure if they would appreciate me trying to tell them stuff they already wanted coming into this course. But I can definitely add some text that points this out more.

I have been working on professional timelines for years now. Most corporate timelines I have worked on have been 6-12 months, so I’m not sure if I fully agree with the question about 3 week duration. I am sure there are many out there – but they also probably produce much shorter courses that we are producing with this one. The overall timeline we have been following in this class has been a bit more confusing than what I am used to. It would be nice to have an overview with dates on it. For example, are we finishing the second peer review this week, or next week? Some places put it this week, but the assignment in Blackboard has it due the end of next week. But we were supposed to notify our peer reviewer last week when we finished the half of the course. In corporate/professional settings, all of that is spelled out on a calendar with dates so there is no confusion. I realize that a lot of the order was changed/updated in this course since it was last offered and a lot of the disconnect is due to that. I just hope that I am not late on any work.

Yes, I have had to make revisions to my course based on the Canvas structure. I noticed that once you dig into the content, you can easily get lost if the week/module/etc is not part of the title itself. The box within a box structure of Blackboard usually means that one box will have the module number and it will be listed in the breadcrumb. Not so much in Canvas. Their system of creating breadcrumbs could use some flexibility. I’m also not sure about how I grouped my weeks together into modules in the actual course. It seems to work okay, but I wonder if having each week be a separate module will work better. Still not sure on that one.

I am also constantly needing to play around with the image settings to make sure the images are easy to see. The CSS that has been applied to Canvas makes that a bit difficult. The smaller font and minimal space between paragraphs makes it difficult to view. I could always insert custom CSS inline declarations to fix that, but that is very time consuming. Not to mention that the next Canvas update could change something else that would make those changes nor work again. I just wish they had put more thought into readability.

So far, my design model is working great. Even though Canvas has differences from Blackboard and Moodle and other tools I am used to, it is still the same basic content repository model that I am used to working with. You can arrange this model to really meet the needs of most design structures, even though it sometimes takes some creativity to be less linear. But I am used to implementing that creativity after so many years of being stuck in Blackboard, so that is no problem.

Of course, as the design progresses and becomes less instructivist, the linear design I started out with might become more problematic. But that should be fairly easy to design around. I just hope that the tools will be flexible enough to allow for more connectivist structures inside of Canvas. Most connectivist instructors tend to abandon any LMS in order to accomplish their designs. Hopefully that won’t be the case here. Probably my biggest concern will be designing the content so that reviewers will be able to tell that a lost of course work is happening even though there won’t be a lot of “text” in the LMS.

So far, putting content into Canvas has gone well. Its not really that difficult of a system to figure out, so I am glad they put some thought into user interface. Still room for improvement, but much better than Blackboard. The challenge has been creating the content. Usually as an instructional designer, the content is given to you by the subject matter expert, so creating content is more than a bit out of my comfort zone. Even when we do create content, we are allowed to rely heavily on textbooks, websites, and existing YouTube videos. So creation of content has been a challenge.

The feedback will begin this week, so that means so far I have not received much feedback on the content. I did receive feedback on the design document, and incorporated some of it into the design. I think a lot of the feedback was based on a specific design model that I wasn’t using, especially about the objectives. So I didn’t really use that advice, but other parts that pertained to other details I did use. I also gave out advice on a design document, mostly to expand some details that were needed.

Of course, I have been working for years in an LMS, developing content as part of my job for years now. So most of what I learned about this time was specific to the Canvas system – where to find certain functions and how to host media. I also learned that creating content from scratch is very time-consuming, so I will be an even bigger fan of OER after this 🙂 (at least, the good parts of OER).

What was the model?

Gerlach and Ely Design Model

What is the point of the model?

It appears that they wanted to create a simpler model that focused on group work and can be combined easily with other models. This model pretty much jumps into the design process where most instructors already are – ready for development. Often times, schools will do the analysis phase and some of the design phase of ADDIE before bringing instructors in. So this design model appears more practical for the average instructor.

How is the model different from what you already know? How is it the same?

The focus on group work is different than models that I am used to. Group work is possible in other design models, but is usually just one of many possible design solutions. There is also a focus on pre/post learner assessment that you often don’t see written into many design models.

It is similar in that it is iterative and that it has several steps that are not linear. While ADDIE and others can be linear, they are often designed to not be strictly linear.

Is this model something you may use? Why or why not?

It may be something I can use parts of, but seeing that I will be teaching University professors, I won’t be using the pre/post assessment too much. Professors seem to hate taking those even if they give them. I like the process for creating group work and allocating resources. That could be a very useful method to use when designing group work.

How is an ID model different from a theoretical model (i.e. social constructivism)? Why is this distinction important?

Theoretical models often address how learning happens, where do we find truth, and other larger questions along those lines. ID models look at the practical side of how to create instruction and activities for learners. The distinction is important because theoretical models tell you how learners will learn, and ID models help you to create instruction that can make that learning occur utilizing content, activities, assessments, and other educational materials.

Do you think such a differentiation will matter for a client?

Well, when referring to clients, possibly not. They will usually know what they want to see happen with a course, but they may not see the difference between the two. However, as a designer, we need to know the differences and be able to address them in our design. Our clients will probably have some kind of idea of how they think learning occurs, and we don’t want to create something in a different direction without interacting with the client first and bringing them on board with the theoretical and ID models they need.

Based upon your experience revising your instructional design document this week, reflect on what you learned from your peer’s feedback. What did you learn about your work? What did you change as a result? What did you not change? Why?

It looks like we will still have a week or two added to the schedule for updating our design documents, so I think this will be more about me predicting what I will change or not change.  I knew coming into this that I would be a bit rusty on these more formal parts of instructional design. Its really been over a decade since I had my last Master’s course that covered this more formal method. My Master’s Degree focused more on a wide variety of instructional design methods, so we kind of did one intro course on ADDIE and Dick & Carey and then off down the rabbit hole of connectivism and open learning. Many of the classes that I have designed at UTA over the years are also more open in design, in that we tend to collect various open resources to teach with, rather than recreating things that are already on YouTube. So the biggest thing I have learned is that I will have to dig deep back into my schooling to probably finish this course. That may not technically result in a class that I can actually use at UTA, but I may not have to worry about that going forward.

I will be changing some of the areas and places where the language was not clear what I was working on. Technically, I only used words that some one with an ID background should know, but some were flagged and so better safe than sorry. There were also some suggestions on changing the order of content that I may take or leave – I will basically see what the instructor feedback is and if he agrees, then I will go with it. But if not, I will stick with the order that was given in the instructions 🙂

Probably what I won’t change are the objectives, at least not as radically as was suggested. I went for a more connectivist / performance-oriented set of objectives, and it was recommended that I switch back to simpler behaviorist lists of actions to accomplish. I feel that objectives are much easier to evaluate if you include the criteria and conditions along with the behaviors.  This just makes it easier to connect the goal and topic with the assessments and outcomes.

Of course, I may have bitten off more than I can chew with the idea in general, so we’ll see if I can accomplish the transition I want to make in less than 45 hours of instruction.