The Art of Effective Communication: Interpretations

This exercise proved to be quite interesting; the written message seemed to be extremely wordy and came across as timid. The message felt as if the writer was almost afraid of being a nuisance or pest. The voice-mail was an entirely different story; it started off with the same tone of timidity, but quickly became assertive and borderline demanding. The speaker’s voice emphasized the importance of the report data that was needed. The face-to-face video seemed to take a step backwards; it did not give off the same feeling of timidity as the written notice, but it did not seem as assertive as the voice-mail  The speaker’s body language and ending smile lacked assertiveness as well, making the request seem less important.

This exercise is attempting to illustrate the importance of communicating with your team members in the appropriate manner for the appropriate situation. When dealing with many different people that each have potentially different personalities (and work ethics). It is imperative that, as a project manager or instructional designer, you communicate both clearly and effectively so that your team can operate smoothly. It is especially important in a case such as this, in which a deadline is in danger of being missed; one cannot afford for a team member to misinterpret the level of urgency of the requested task. This could be the difference between success and failure. When I take on either of these rolls I will have to make a conscious effort to maintain a clear and concise line of communication with my team members, especially in relation to meeting deadlines on project deliverables.

Post Mortem Of A Failed Project

I took on a household project in 2008 that, in retrospect, should have been left to professionals. I decided to build my own custom home theater in the basement of my home in Atlanta. I had a rectangular shaped 30 x 14 foot room in which I wanted to build a three level platform in order to simulate stadium seating for watching movies and entertaining guests. I performed my “research” by looking through multiple home theater magazines and web sites. I was on vacation and planned to begin and complete the project in 13 days (the amount of time that I had left before returning to work).

Unfortunately the project was a complete and utter failure. If I had any knowledge of the project management process (or common sense) I would have been a lot more thorough during the planning phase of the project, make sure that my research was more thorough. If I had performed a feasibility study I would have realized several things:

·         I did not possess the  carpentry skills that were required to complete this project

·         I did not own some of the required tools needed to complete this project

·         I did not even attempt to set a budget for the project, thinking that whatever money that I spent would pay for itself in the end.

·         I did not research the design specifications for the type of platform that I was building

When I measured the area for the platforms I did not account for the crown molding at the base of the wall. I measured and cut three platforms, but had to re-cut each of the platforms to adjust for the molding. Additionally, I had to purchase a particular type of electric saw and a much higher grade of wood that I had previously anticipated, for durability purposes. When all was said and done, the upper platform collapsed under the weight of the seats because I did not build the proper support structure underneath. The project ended at that point because I could not justify the cost of starting the project over (to my wife, LOL).  If I had properly researched my project, looking at blueprints of other similar projects; setting an appropriate budget, which would have included determining the proper tool set and properly pricing the required wood. In short, my project required management.

The Future of Distance Learning 

 

What do you think the perceptions of distance learning will be in the future (in 5–10 years; 10–20 years)

In the fall of 2005 I enrolled in a brick and mortar M.S. program in order to advance my teaching career and, of course, my salary. I had previously enrolled in the same program the prior fall, but was forced to withdraw because of a back injury sustained in a car accident. When I was finally able to begin the program, I was hard-pressed to earn my degree as quickly as possible, as a promotion was all but guaranteed to me. My graduate enrollment advisor informed me that I had the choice of taking the majority of my classes either face-to-face or online. I had never taken an online class before; additionally, every educated person that I knew would make light of online courses, usually poking fun at commercials from schools like the University of Phoenix. I was quite reluctant to sign up for any of the online courses, fearing that I would not receive that same quality of instruction that I would receive in the brick and mortar classes. This attitude was not uncommon among the general populace for the majority of the next decade.

Today, things are quite different. A decade later, people’s attitudes have changed immensely towards distance learning, particularly with full time professional adults that do not have the time or scheduling flexibility of a younger person. Due to the fact that I am a public school teacher, I am surrounded by professionals that can only get a significant pay raise by attending graduate school. I found that a lot of teachers spend much of their adult lives in graduate school in an attempt to improve their quality of life and. This has led to a large number of adults that don’t have any choice but to enroll in a distance learning program. What I have noticed in my profession is that over time there has been a gradual change that went from teachers justifying their choice to attend an online program, almost ashamedly, to the present where we routinely discuss the rigor of our programs and often express shock and awe when we encounter a graduate student that has chosen to attend brick and mortar classes.

 

The Instructional Design program that Walden offers is a completely different experience than the online courses that I participated in almost a decade ago. Programs such as Walden’s show that while not perfected, distance learning has seen a significant amount of refinements, making it my personal choice for graduate education. Due to both the rapid growth and change in perception of distance learning I can only surmise that the field will continue to grow in both quality and scope. I also believe that distance learning will become an integral part of undergraduate and high school education. I don’t think that it is too far-fetched to see a teen parent at home with their new born engaged in a remote course instead of missing out on valuable educational time. Also, with the rapid increase in mobile technology, it is almost assured that the “instant gratification” populace that is currently emerging will also demand to have their education a la carte; tools such as the iPad will most likely play an integral role in the growth of distance education.

How can you as an instructional designer be a proponent for improving societal perceptions of distance learning?

As an instructional designer it is my responsibility to show learners that distance learning is not only a credible form of education, but in some cases, a superior one. What it all comes down to is the fundamental building blocks of education: effectiveness and validity. As a designer of distance courses it will be my responsibility to design courses that are engaging, informative, enlightening, challenging, and effective. I feel that one of the reasons that online learning still suffers from a negative perception is partially due to course designers that “phone it in” or so to speak. If a course designer takes the path of least resistance and makes the minimal effort when designing courses, it will be apparent to the learner, as well as clients. As an Instructional Designer I must strive to make every course an experience that each learner would love to return to.

How will you be a positive force for continuous improvement in the field of distance education?

I recently applied for an Instructional Design position at a well-established company in my local area. One of the most attractive aspects of this company is the fact that employees are encouraged to continually educate themselves and attempt to innovate when designing courses. While fulfilling a contract is always the primary goal, employees are given the liberty to try new approaches and strategies. In a position such as this, I would most definitely use the opportunity to find and implement new ways to engage learners and improve the current methods of transferring knowledge remotely. The key to accomplishing this would most definitely lay in time spent performing research, as well as studying the research of others.

A growing segment of distance learning is Open Course web sites. These are free sites in which individuals can view courses that range in subject matter. These sites generally do not require registration, but in turn, they do not offer credit or certification of any kind. I have chosen to examine a Stanford Law School course focusing on the bias of beauty that is prevalent in business practices. This particular course is offered in a video lecture format, lastly approximately one hour. This course is accessible via iTunes and can be retrieved from http://itunes.stanford.edu/.

As Stanford is one of the most respected academic institutions in the United States, if not the world, I had high expectations when I began this Open Course. Despite the fact that it was a free offering, I expected it to at least resemble an actual course from mainstream academia. It did not; what I was greeted with was an hour long video of a class lecture with more faults than merits. Admittedly, the subject matter offered in this course was quite interesting, if not entertaining, but it was more than obvious that this was not designed to provide a learning experience, but more of an opportunity for those participating to become more enlightened and perhaps encouraged to seek more knowledge on their own.

It was quite obvious that this course was not tailored towards a true distance learning environment. The list of course attributes that are conducive to distance learning is quite short:

·         Accessibility: The Stanford courses are readily available on iTunes, making them accessible to just about anyone that owns a computer with internet access

·         Low Tech Equipment Demands: Participants do not need items such as scanners, cameras or microphones

·         Asynchronous Courses: Learners can participates in Stanford courses any time of day, stopping and starting as desired

These are in accordance with teachings of Dr. George Piskurich in which he emphasizes the importance of considering the learners access to technology (Piskurich, 2012) and similar emphasis stated in our course text (Simonson et al., 2012).

The shortcomings of Stanford Open Course offerings, in my opinion, are quite numerous:

·         There are no visual aids to assist with information transfer

·         There is an absence of interactivity

·         Collaboration between learners is not an option

·         No Consideration of Audience

With the complete absence of some of the core design principles that should be included in distance learning planning, I believe that it is more than obvious that remotely follow the recommendations listed in our text. As I watched the Open Course it felt no different from watching a video on YouTube. There was no interactivity during the course and there were no optional follow up activities provided for the distance learners’ enrichment. The absence of any sort of assignments whatsoever left me feeling more entertained than educated, which is not the purpose of a program such as this. While this type of distance module has it’s uses and does contain excellent information, I am not sure if it warrants the label of “course” in anything but the most loose of definitions.

Collaborative Training Environment

"A new automated staff information system was recently purchased by a major corporation and needs to be implemented in six regional offices. Unfortunately, the staff is located throughout all the different offices and cannot meet at the same time or in the same location. As an instructional designer for the corporation, you have been charged with implementing a training workshop for these offices. As part of the training, you were advised how imperative it is that the staff members share information, in the form of screen captures and documents, and participate in ongoing collaboration."

 

When creating a distance learning module, assessing the use of technology is an essential component of the planning process (Simonson et. al, 2012). Although cloud computing has been around in some form for the better part of a decade, it is only recently becoming a widely recognized as a viable tool for not only document sharing, but collaboration in its’ truest form; this is a benefit for designers as it alleviates one of the most critical hurdles in distance learning. The major hurdle that designers face when implementing the use of one of these applications is the uninitiated that may resist change. In order to best address the needs, there are two performance tasks that need to be addressed: information sharing and ongoing collaboration. There are a variety of options to address these needs that range in price and complexity. The key is to find an effective low-cost option that is not too complicated for the average worker to master in an acceptable time frame.

There are multiple methods for sharing information via the internet, but I believe that Google Docs would the most cost effective application for this process. A lead Google account would have to be created and then the desired document folders would have to be shared with all of the collaborators in the company. Google Docs will allow those granted access to save notes, voice notes, screen captures, picture files, documents (office files, PDF’s etc…). Google Docs also allows individuals to review, edit and share items in real time which would satisfy the client request for information sharing.
 

The Senior Instructional Designer at the University of Alabama has successfully integrated Google Docs into both online course development and professional development for the faculty, stating that Google Docs serves to eliminate the difficulties of collaborating across great distances and multiple time zones.  Additionally, a team of Florida State University professors researched the benefits of using Google Docs for distance learning and presented their findings at the Columbia State University Learning “Now “ Frontier Conference. Their presentation was called Google Docs: A Robust Hub for Online Collaboration; in this presentation they emphasized the affordability, wide compatibility and robust online capabilities. Google Docs addresses one of the major concerns of distance education practitioners, the amount of interactivity/collaboration that is possible in a course (Beldarrain, 2006), is appropriately addressed and should be sufficient for most collaborative scenarios over distance.

Distance Learning Mind Map



Distance Learning:A Changing Landscape

Prior to the beginning of this course I had not given explicit thought to the term distance learning. I defined it to myself in the simplest manner possible, learning at a distance. I first became aware of distance learning in 1996, when a course at my college was offered via closed-circuit television. The concept seemed somewhat novel, but I could not see myself learning in that environment, but was fascinated by the concept, nonetheless. Prior to being exposed to this form of distance learning I had heard of correspondence courses that were facilitated through the postal system, but never took much stock in them because the concept seemed to leave an open door for cheating and dishonesty.

I enrolled in graduate school in 2003 in order to earn an M.S. degree in education. The week before classes were to begin, I was involved in a car accident that led to a back injury and I was unable to begin my program of study. A little over a year later, I was eager to re-enroll, but also impatient, as I felt that I should be much further along in the program. An enrollment advisor pointed out that I had the option of taking some of my courses online alongside my physical classroom courses. Initially, I was hesitant to enroll in the online courses because, at the time, most people looked at online courses as subpar. I decided to take one just to see if it was an environment that I could both learn and excel in. The positive experience that I had in that course led me to enroll in more online courses and ultimately led to me choosing Walden’s completely online program later on.

Later on in life when I became aware of instructional design I was exposed to the term eLearning. Initially I assumed that it simply referred to online course such as this one. Upon further education I learned that eLearning not only refers to online courses, but to asynchronously deployed modules, video conference courses and various other variations of computer-based courses. I was amazed that I made a living in the field of education but was so clueless about the height to which educational delivery methods had grown. Whereas distance learning was once limited to static interactions such as using the mail system and later through two-way video conferencing it is now dynamic and robust with the introduction of tools such as Camtasia and Captivate. Tablets and netbooks have led to truly mobile learning. I can take this class at home in my basement, on vacation in Mexico or even on my cell phone while I am on break at work.

I would have to say that my revised definition of distance learning would actually not include the word distance. I would perhaps refer to it as remote learning. There are many instances in which learners may participate in a deployed module while the moderator is in the same building or even the room next door. With the advances in technology, especially wireless and mobile, learning modules can be deployed remotely at either remote or minimal distances. Now that distance learning is widely accepted as a not only acceptable, but equal to face-to-face education, its availability has grown exponentially.

I believe that the future of distance learning lies in the tablet arena. The iPad has led to a complete overhaul of the computer industry landscape. The iPad single-handedly forced Microsoft to alter the concept of the PC in order to remain relevant. Almost the iPad and Android tablets have achieved a level of saturations in a few years in that laptops did not in over two decades, with their popularity still growing. Adobe has added almost point and click functionality to their creative programs that allow transference to mobile platforms. I believe that this will lead to distance learning courses and modules being tailored with tablets in mind. Like laptops unchained people from their home desktops (but they still had to stop and remain stationary) tablet will allow people to turn on a Bluetooth earpiece and learn as they walk from place to place, run on a treadmill or even stand in line for a concert. I believe that tablets are the future of distance learning.

EDUC-6115 Course Reflection

As the weeks passed on in this course, my eyes have opened immensely in regards to, what I now know, is a complex and intricate study of how people learn. As a high school educator, one can lose focus on the learning environment outside of educating children and in the field of instructional design that is a big mistake. I would have to say that the insight that I have gained into Social Learning theories is probably the most fascinating information that I was exposed to in this course, in reference to the learning of others. Due to the immature nature of high school students, I find that social learning can become more of a burden than an asset in the classroom in a lot of settings; this can cause educators to avoid maximizing the learning potential of this theory. I personally incorporate it as much as I can, but use caution knowing that the social aspect of learning can easily spiral out of control. Due to the difference between adult and child learners I never realized the potency of social learning; entering into this program I expected to learn how to design materials for adult learners, but did not consider having to design from the standpoint of incorporating cooperative/collaborative exercises and social activities. Now that I am aware of this, I am actually substantially more excited.  Making use of social learning theories opens up a whole new world of options that I will be able to access, making me more valuable as a designer, as well as an educator. Social Constructivism emphasizes the need for collaboration among learners (Kim, 2001). With software developers such as Adobe creating suites that allow Instructional Designers to incorporate social elements into their materials, I am now able to see how learners in different places can work and learn together effectively.

               

One of the more pleasant surprises in this course was the Connectivism learning theory. I have been known as the “tech geek” in my personal circles, as well as in my professional environment for a very long time now. My wife has made fun of me because I “stopped writing” (as she says) in 2005. Grocery/ To Do lists, phone numbers, educational notes, directions…you name it and I will not write it down. When I take a person’s contact information, if they do not have a V-Card, then I force them to give me a V-Note (and usually assist them in setting up a V-Card). Any time I am introduced to a foreign or unfamiliar concept, I immediately Google from my phone or tablet and save any relevant information to the cloud for later study; I also pose questions/scenarios on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Quora, tapping into my social networks constantly. For years, this was the geek in me, but I know that my habits are actually the elements of a learning theory. Previously, I felt a small bit of guilt learning this way, as if I was cheating in some way or not really learning the right way, but now feel, not only justified, but ahead of the curve having embraced this style of learning almost a full decade before both my social and professional cohort. The Week 5 video from this course (Seimens, TBD) discusses Connectivism, placing emphasis not only on the need for social learning theories examine the how of learning, but the need to seek out and examine future trends. This is an area that is especially important for those that learn this way as Connectivism is dependent on technology, which tends to be old news the day before it comes out. I believe that younger adult learners can/will thrive in an environment that uses this theory as it’s’ design basis and believe that I may have found the foundation for my curriculum design platform.

As far as learning theories and learning styles are concerned, I have come to realize that they are not interchangeable terms, as I thought previously. As a psychology major, the concepts of learning theories were superficially covered in a class or two, but I do not recall much mention of learning styles, especially in any way to differentiate between the two substantially. Theories refer to studying how learner’s minds take in, process and store knowledge whereas styles refer to strategies  that the individual learner uses to accomplish these tasks. In my opinion, this is the first thing that any and every instructional designer should learn, as it complete alters ones approach to curriculum design strategy. As mentioned earlier in this paper, educational technology, while still an emerging area (Johnson, Levine, & Smith 2009), is intricately tied into to the adult learning environment and will continue to grow exponentially from here on out. When learning first became a subject of study technology was not an option and up until very recently, though existent, not really part of the equation. Due to the nature of our connected world and the likelihood that adult learners are more apt to be digitally connected than most, anyone that is designing curriculum for adults cannot ignore the interconnectedness nor the inherent importance of Connectivism and learning theories/strategies.

Motivation is a beast unto itself that I had not taken into consideration prior to this course. The distance learning environment is probably the arena that is most likely to have the highest percentage of people that require extrinsic motivation; not because a certain type of person takes online courses, but more likely a person with a certain lifestyle. A lot of online environments consist of busy professionals and home-makers that simply lack the time to make it to a face to face learning environment. After a long day of work, putting the kids to bed and cleaning up there is not usually a lot of enthusiasm in the reserve tank when it comes to sitting in front of a computer screen at 11:00 p.m. on a week night. I have two jobs, a 1 year old son that frequently is admitted to the hospital and graduate school. If I did not have intrinsic motivation oozing out of my pores, I am not sure where I would be in this program. A situation like mine is not uncommon and it has made me realize how important it is to design materials with this in mind. Learning styles and strategies go out the window when the learner loses interest, making motivation a top priority for all instructional designers.

I had a job interview during week 5 of the course; if I had the interview after week six, I believe that I would have gotten the job. This course has been quite informative and has me very optimistic about the rest of this program. I will now approach curriculum design with individual learners’ styles taken into full consideration, as well as make sure to take aspects of from each of the different learning theories, instead of subscribing to one, in an attempt to create materials that do not ostracize any type of learner. Connectivism has had the most impact on me; I now feel that information technology and information networks should be at the forefront of adult learning environments not only because of its social relevance, but because it allows learners to retrieve information from sources that they are comfortable with and can also provide learning opportunities, perhaps different instructional styles that the curriculum creator may not have provided, making learning easier or more complete.

All in all, after completing this course, I feel as if I could go into an organization and properly assist with the design of an adult education course. While I am admittedly not quite ready to take the helm, I am confident that valuable I could provide valuable input and using a combination of my professional experience as an educator and the information that I have received from this course. I have started the journey into a new and exciting career and feel confident that this course has provided a solid foundation for the upcoming career change that I am actively pursuing.