Gaming in the Classroom

   Here is some excellent information on the value of games in education. What I immediately latched onto was the idea of dopamine being the hook for games. Being a learning nerd AND a gaming nerd, as well as having children and watching them be mesmerized by digital games, I can attest to that hook being powerful. So much so that I wish this inforgraph would address what is inevitably a concern - that dopamine is obviously a double-edged sword, and that "hook" needs to be managed. I've watched my children learn to read because of educational games, learn advanced science and learn to even simply love learning, so I'm a fan. But it needs to be managed and this is such common knowledge I fear we shoot ourselves in the foot when not acknowledging how powerful it is. So powerful indeed that at the end of this piece, where "The Orgeon Trail" was mentioned, I was happily taken back to my early childhood where I'd squeal at having "died of dysentery"....

EDTECH 506: Personal Introduction Image

In Week 1 of EDTECH 506 – Graphic Design for Learning, here is part our first introductory assignment (beyond reading, videos etc):

Personal Introduction Image:  Using Adobe Fireworks (or other graphics editing software you prefer), create some sort of image or group of images that tell the class something about you. Consider images that represent your personality, interests, goals or anything else you’d like to share with the class. Be as creative as you’d like. Include text, color, graphics, images or anything that you feel represents who you are. Then, provide a one to two paragraph explanation about the image you create. Discuss why you chose the images, colors, designs that you did and how they represent who you are. 

Here is my image with explanation below:

Although I worried that me as a knight could give an unflattering impression to some who don't know me, I know where my heart is and that I'm not full of myself so I continued on. Rather than meaning a "hero" above others, I love the symbolism of a knight as someone nobly championing a good cause. This is the meaning I am after in the image. All of us may be far from perfect but can still strive for good things. Pursuing graduate studies in education is, to me, a worthy endeavor worth fighting (time, money, stress) for. Additionally I love fantasy (& sci-fi, and all things geeky...) so inserting myself into an image like this with armor, sword, and a Tolkien quote, really speaks to my soul. It's meaningful and fun. And I think that's important in life. 

I value design that is fairly simple and crisp, which is what I tried to do here, keeping spacial elements as consistent and contrasting as I could and balancing colors. Hopefully the simpleness of the design supports the simpleness of its message to help communicate that value I hold dear, to fight for good.

EDTECH 503 Assignment: Instructional Design Job Posting

Michael Atkinson
EDTECH 503 Instructional Design Job Posting

PART 1 - SYNTHESIS

Position: Instructional Design

This position reports directly to the Director of eLearning and, as part of a learning design team, will work with business partners and clients to conceptualize, design, author, deliver and manage distance learning programs.

The candidate will:

- Develop learning content for a variety of distance learning courses to include analyzing, writing, editing, and evaluating new and existing material

- Manage multiple simultaneous, ongoing projects

- Collaborate with various partners and departments

- Manage existing distance learning programs

- Continually monitor and assess student performance to ensure outcome match learning objectives

Required skills/knowledge/background:

- Bachelor's degree in Instructional Design or related field and 5 years minimum experience, or no degree/degree in unrelated field and 10 years experience in Instructional Design or related field

- Expertise in Articulate, Moodle and other similar learning design software.

- Expertise in the ADDIE model

- Excellent oral/writing skills and mastery of visual design skills

- Portfolio required

Preferred skills/knowledge/background:

In addition to the above, the idea candidate will aso possess the following:

- Advanced degree (Master’s or higher) in Instructional Design

- Significant leadership experience in Instructional Design

- Fluency in Spanish or French in order to better facilitate coordination with key business partners

PART II - REFLECTION

The role of teachers vs instructional designers seems, on a certain level, analogous to that of actor vs director: one executes on or delivers the message, with some say in how or what is said, while the other focus exclusively on creating that message. Teachers are expected to deliver the learning and instructional designers are not. This means presenting, teaching, coaching and working directly with the end user (the student). In my job (private sector) as primarily an instructor, I must do some of the minor functions of an instructional designer, whereas the instructional designers I work with perform no teaching functions.

Instructional designers are expected to create the learning and its assessments that are delivered to the student(s) via the teacher, the delivery system, or both. Today this is usually in context of digital tools. This includes highly specialized knowledge of these tools, systems as well as ID principles and models such as ADDIE. In my job it is understood that the role of the instructional designers is highly specialized and more ”macro” than that of teachers.

I do not know if there are 3 specific, formally recognized differences between teachers and instructional designers, but from what I have learned I see these three differences: 1) A teacher primarily focuses on delivering the learning, and an instructional designer primarily focuses on designing the learning. 2) Teachers are more people-focused, specializing in interpersonal communication. 3) Instructional designers are more technical focused, specialization in media creation (writing, pictures, video, audio etc.) and technology use.

PART 3 - Job Posting URLs

*Content Manager (Instructional Design) - Salt Lake City, UT @ TD Ameritrade

https://tda.tbjobsearch.com/salt-lake-city/management/content-manager-(instructional-design)-jobs

* I am in the middle of applying to this job at my workplace

Instructional Designer II - Distance Education @ Utah Valley University https://www.uvu.jobs/postings/10381?jtsrc=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Emonster%2Ecom&jtsrcid=763&jtrfr=http%3A%2F%2Fjobview%2Emonster%2Ecom%2FInstructional-Designer-II-Distance-Education-Job-Orem-UT-139061898%2Easpx

Instructional Designer @ Amazon

http://jobview.monster.com/Instructional-Designer-Job-Seattle-WA-138316570.aspx

Reflection on 8 weeks discussion of educational technology

The last several weeks flew by and were great. The one, huge challenge I faced was figuring out how to interpret assignments and apply them to my situation, which is not K-12. I agonized over what things meant and how to do the work, some of which was geared toward K-12. A great example is the last assignment: although an inclusion allowed for creating any type artifact (noting not everyone is K-12), much of the learning material for the whole lesson focused on school-applications ("3. Research technology use plans at your state level. 4.Find out if your school or district has a technology use plan" etc.). Because I teach and train for a corporation, and wish to apply my skills in education to the nonprofit sector - which I haven't entered yet - these were difficult things for me as I strove to do a good job with everything. For some of the course material and use of the Moodle platform I feel like there was an implicit assumption that students already knew and knew how to do certain things (academic background in teaching, etc.).

Reaching out to Dr. Haskell helped. He was really great. I should have done it more, but I dislike speaking up too much. I also would re-read and re-read and re-read the assignment material, and sometimes let it marinate. Sometimes time would go by as I'd still be fuzzy about applying something and I'd simply attack the assignment feeling blind, giving it my best shot, and at times feeling repetitious compared to previous work I'd submitted.

The artifact I feel is my best is my "Digital Divide/Digital Inequality" presentation, for no other reason than that I spent a lot of time and worked hard on it, and it's looks pretty good (although I am no graphic designer). I'm unsure how to judge the artifact, partially because I am still trying to understand what the word "artifact" even means (despite having looked it up and seen a definition somewhere) or what the purpose of them is. At the start of class it was described that we'll be making artifacts, but it was never really clear to me what they are or why we are making them. I probably just missed something among all the information.

I gained a lot from the course! I understand better how to research, and I've been exposed to a lot of source and material that is relevant to my interests. I've also learned about things I never thought to think about, which are important as well. The course helped give me a path for conducting research. As a result I plan to continue that research in my own time so that I can learn more.

Tech Trends

This last week I dove into a lot of resources about learning tech trends, both in The Horizon Report and afterward, once it stoked the fires of my imagination.

Educational ICT4D budding trends, if you could call them that, that interest me include telepresence/avatars (for lack of better nomenclature) and remote labs. But I discovered less about these than I'd like. Nonetheless, exploring was still instructive, and furthered my knowledge about the other, related topics.

Ultimately I decided to create an infographic to share my ideas. I had never created one before, and I thought it fit what I was wanting to accomplish by explaining these ideas in a palatable way to a peer of mine. In fact, a more detailed write-up in the Google doc linked below explains that this whole idea came about when she said, "... it is hard to determine just how much a smartphone could do for education in remote places." Thanks for the inspiration to create this, Kaelyn!

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1L__Y1EJxRZTckjBAKWyf25DMSU6gA5LVqCTjxUhoyRA/edit?usp=sharing

EDTECH Research

Conducting research and writing for this annotated bibliography was a heavy process, one that I learned a lot from. I struggled, a lot, with where I fit in as a non-school teacher looking forward in time to projects I know little about and don't currently work on.

My APA skills weren't as hot as I figured they'd be; I knew I had gaping holes in what I knew, but here they were revealed in all their inadequate glory. Purdue's OWL was a great help, as was this gem that I found which I can't recommend enough: http://www.ecu.edu.au/centres/library-services/workshops-and-training/referencing/related-content/downloads/ECU-Referencing-Guide-2014-July-update.pdf.

I also enjoyed (a LOT) digging into Google Scholar and Google Docs' research tools. And ultimately, what I was learned in all the reading and writing about topics that interest me was invaluable.

EDTECH annotated bibliography research paper: AtkinsonM_AnnotatedBib

RSS in Education

I'm going to come clean: I'm not the best organizer. So it was a blessing when I was forced to get my RSS-house in order over the last week. Years ago I used Google Reader a little, but not much. When it went away I switched to Feedly but never "got into it." Last week I returned to my Feedly account and discovered all of my Reader feeds were gone, so I started from scratch.

I'm so glad. I proclaim I'm a lifelong learner - and am - but often fall into sloppy habits of reading the easy stuff that plops into my lap via social feeds like G+ and little more. I've needed discipline to follow a system that would ensure I'm consistently seeing and reading more significant things relevant to my professional and learning interests. RSS is like deliberately planning and eating healthier instead of unthinkingly grabbing whatever yummy junk comes your way, day-to-day.

Hear are some ideas for using RSS in my own learning (which could also be applied for anyone interested in learning):

1. Twitter list RSS:

Many that I follow in ICT4E, as well as elsewhere, are more active and vocal on Twitter than anywhere else. Ryan Barret created a web-based app that provides Atom (RSS) feeds from Twitter (or Facebook) into an RSS reader. I find it helpful to use Twitter Lists to organize people and organizations by topic, so I organized my primary Twitter list into an RSS feed and now happily have all those tweets feeding into... well, Feedly.

What's really cool about that is since these tweets feed into my reader, I have one place to go to read meaningful content instead of multiple places. That's huge!


2. Google/news keyword alerts RSS:

Google keywords are another thing I've not used but have long felt I should be. I haven't because, again, I haven't been organized to consistently be checking them. At best they'd dump into my email, where they'd pester me and I quickly got into a habit of auto-deleting them.

Unfortunately, Google alerts using RSS are not presently working (Google says they do, but alas they don't). Fortunately, Google news alerts do work. Any news articles that feature a keyword set by the user can feed into a RSS reader. To set it up, simply use this format as the URL link you add to the RSS reader (where the red words are examples of whatever keywords you want): http://news.google.com/news?q=email+marketing&output=rss

With this set up, any news articles about topics I'm interested in are automatically delivered to my cyber doorstep. Another victory for using RSS to collect and read important content in one spot! 

3.Google Scholar alerts:

The same can be done with Google Scholar alerts. Similar to setting up the Atom feed, it can be a bit tricky. There are instructions (and details about issues and bugs in the comments below it) here: http://www.robcoers.nl/create-rss-feed-google-scholar-seven-easy-steps/.

These ideas are beneficial to me as a learner, and would be ideal for any other learner, or student - inside the classroom or out.