Professional Learning Plan

Looking back to my Personal Growth Plan from CEP810 I answered the question below.

• Do you have any new goals? What are your plans for reaching your new goals and your long-term goals after this course is over?

I plan to continue my research on the effect of multimedia on learners and share my information with the education community.

I think it's still a bit early for any major goals, but I would say that I can better organize future goals. I also have become more confident in my interest in actually teaching. With that acknowledgment I can learn more from my assignments and projects throughout my grad program. With this mindset I will become a well-rounded professional and a knowledgeable professor in the future.


I feel as though I have continued to work towards this goal. I have contributed my own knowledge to the communities I have been introduced to. I have also realized that my peers are a huge community I can make a difference with.
I am becoming more sure that I eventually want to teach. I am passionate about helping and teaching educators about the technology available to them that can really enrich their classrooms. I am rethinking the statement "I think it's still a bit early for any major goals". 

Here are my new goals.

Continue to do great work in the remainder of my courses here at MSU. now-1 year
An action that will help me achieve my goals that I am most excited about is actually a free course or two I found online that about facilitating online learning environments. I am excited to meet the professor running the course. She has great experience and works for NASA!! I think I will learn a lot, meet and network with great people and that by having this experience it will set me ahead for job opportunities.

Possibly TA for a class to gain teaching experience. 1 month - 1 year
Continue contributing to communities of Ed Tech. now-forever
Continue learning new skills at Amway to improve my e-learning designer skills. now-August
Find a better paying job that will allow me to continue my education in this field. now-August

Another actions that will help me learn and network is actually taking place on my birthday this month. Sir Ken Robinson is speaking at GVSU about education.

I have also been watching lots of TED TALKS. They inspire me and give me great ideas for when I have my own classroom. I watched one on Flipped Classrooms and it made a lot of sense. I would like to incorporate some of the features used in that setting. I also wish I would have had the same environment when I was in grad school or even my undergrad. I think some of the key strategies would have helped me learn and taught me how to learn.

Wicked Problem Project Part D

My solution did not go quite as I had originally planned. My Wicked Problem has to do with the courses and content and audience I deal with at work. However for proprietary reason I could not use any of those elements to create my solution. I still managed to gamify an online learning activity though.  

Also I had originally planned on using Lectora as the software to help implement my solution, however as I got started I realized that that software was not the more efficient method. I switched up what software I used to Articulate Storyline and I am very happy with the results and un-linear usability to the game.

However! The course that I did create to demonstrate using game theory is available online and it is an actual game. Participants can access and utilize this finished game-theory course. It also tests the users and gives feedback based on whether they were right or wrong. It also has a scoring aspect that rewards and reinforces correctly answered questions. With this game I prove my solution in such a way that it demonstrates using game theory in an e-learning environment.

I may approach next time a tad different. It all really depends on the content. Jeopardy works in the sense that you are almost surveying the audience to see what they know already or perhaps warming them up for a course or content they are about to learn about. However most courses need to cover information, content and some kind of assessment. A topic related to what I work with at Amway is selling. Ideally I would create a scenario based course that would cover different conversations with the seller and buyer. Depending on how the learner answers each question then reflects what question they get next. Doing so will allow different levels of sellers (learners) to still learn new information and improve their selling skills.

I would suggest to others doing my type of work to try out several types of software. You may think you know what you want to use but there might be a better option out there. I did my first "page" in three different tools to see what was going to work and look best. 

If I had a time machine I don't think I would do things during the implementation stage much different then I did. Time will always be a factor for which software I choose. I tried to write out/sketch what the project would look like on the developer end. With these types of courses and being so un-linear it gets almost more confusing to draw it all out. I am very much a hands on visual person. That is why I opted for making a page in each tool to test out the usability of features and to also get a better idea of what the final project would look like. 

If you are going to find a Wicked Problem and create a solution I would suggest that you don't pick something proprietary.  I don't have a classroom or a different audience or content that I could have covered. It was tough coming up with a useful topic for an actual audience. I learned that I really have to have a clear end goal and purpose for any project I do. It gives me motivation and energy to do the project to the best of my ability. In general if you plan to seek out a problem and create a solution, I suggest that you choose something that you are passionate about. You will not put up the adequate fight it may take to find the solution if you do not truly care about the solution and how it effects your target audience. Secondly, gather as much information as you can and organize it. You want to have everything laid out when you come across bumps in the road. You should also recognize that there may be more than one solution or several ways to come to a solution. This is where you need to determine what effects the audiences experience and what is worth or not worth the effort. In many cases there is no need to reinvent the wheel. You can capture concepts or use tools and modify them to fit your wicked problem/solution. 

I don't think I will be actively searching for wicked problems. I really only have the time and energy to react to problems as they come up currently. But if I see a problem that I know I can fix quickly, I will definitely do my best to offer my solution. 

Wicked Problem Project Part C

This is Web 2.0 Jeopardy!!!
Click here to play

Originally I set out to solve the problem of bland and un-engaging courses at Amway. The plan was to solve the problem by using game theory to redesign the courses, making them rewarding, engaging and increase retention.
Being that I am only at the foot of the latter at Amway, I have no legal rights to use Amway content or imagery.
So to demonstrate game theory I created a course with safe content and ...no imagery really.
I started with a software called Lectora. I felt fairly comfortable with the tool but I did not realize how many steps would be involved. I ended up using a software called Articulate Storyline. I am familiar with the original software suite Articulate but I have had limited experience using Storyline. I was surprised that it was not as intuitive as its 'mother software' Articulate. 
The biggest bump of all is not being able to truly implement my solution. I do not have the rights to Amway owned content or imagery.  I also do not hold a position in which I can freely implement or test my solution. 
Actual creation of my solution went quite smooth. However, I wasted quite a bit of time working with Lectora, but I just realized the time and effort it would take to program my game there would not be very efficient. 
I am pretty happy with my outcome but if I had to revise I would maybe add more categories or  questions. I would also, depending on time and content, pick a different game. Because of the topic, my game is not true Jeopardy  You do not wager and you really shouldn't have multiple choice answers to pick from. However designing a course that can check typed in answers from the user is over my head and way over my budget.
Once I started getting the hang of Storyline and could see my product it was pretty smooth sailing. The backbone of Articulate in PowerPoint, which is what I like to call "Comfort Software".
A minor surprise occurred when I realized I had to create the same screen for each box 5 times to work logistically. As seen below. Question & Answers for each wrong selection and each correct, and then also for the original screen when the category was chosen. TGFCP!!! (Thank Gosh for Copy and Paste!!!)In a perfect world at Amway, I would make a lot of money. Also we would hire a vendor to build us a secure system that interprets data such as courses accessed by individual users, scores, and "badges" earned based on a point system. There would also be a feature that would analyze the data for each learner and provide them with a dashboard where they would find their rankings, history, personal profile and suggested courses for them to take.
I was able to get a few friends to give my Jeopardy a run. They are not educators and really have no use or need for the Web 2.0 tools being presented, however it was nice to have them be new eyes for testing it. They did appreciate the visual aesthetic of the game. They also commented on its ease of use and found the scoring a cool feature.

Overall, I know I worked hard and did the best I could do with the time and resources I had. I am proud of my game and its fun to show off. In the meantime I can sit back and learn from what Amway decides to do, good or bad. It will only help me in future roles I will have. I will have first hand suggestions and input for implementing solutions when I have my own department.

EdCanvas

Check out EdCanvas!

I can use EdCanvas a number of ways. One of which is to for presentations in my classes. I can easily show my work, supporting multimedia and sources via EdCanvas. Another way I can use EdCanvas is in trainings. Usually I am training adults about a software or system they have to use. With EdCanvas I can have slides with information such as tips, tricks or benefits and also have easy access to the tool itself by using the url feature. Then afterwards I can share my canvas with them so that they can use it for reference after the training.

I think others will find it to be really useful knowing that they can input their old material into the canvas and just add supporting elements. Then being able to share it with either their students, staff or colleagues after is a really great feature.

One of the great things about EdCanvas is that it can be widely used in face-to-face settings and online, due to its play canvas feature, no navigation is really needed.

Feel free to share this canvas with your staff or colleauges by selecting the + button on the right side. There you will have several methods of sharing this canvas, e.g. email, Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn. If you choose to share this canvas it might be beneficial to have a few follow up options. You can simply send out a survey and share the results with the group that participated. Or give the users some time to play with EdCanvas on their own, and have a face to face collaboration of likes, dislikes and usages of the tools. It would be ideal to have someone who is familiar with tool be there to answer questions. Otherwise as a group you can gather your questions and concerns and report them to EdCanvas. Be sure to check out EdCanvas' blog. They post tips and tricks and often tutorials made by educators like you.

Data Visualization

• What tools did you try?

I tried visual.ly, Many Eyes and Tagxedo.

• What are you representing in the visualization you created?

With Many Eyes I used a data set they had about what people do with the internet to create a bubble chart. With Tagxedo I put in my blog url to create a word cloud in the shape of an apple. My favorite tool was visual.ly. I did the resume thing which was really cool and then I did the life of a hash tag and dropped in the #maet hashtag.

• What questions or "ah-ha" moments arise when thinking about representation?

I really thought about initial appeal and attraction. My Fiancé's psychology professor told him there is no proof that people have different learning styles, e.g. visual learners. I disagree to some extent. There may not be proof that people learn better a certain way but I know from experience that if something is drab and unappealing the learner will not pick it up. It will not spark their interest. I think that representing data in ways other than your standard bar graphs and pie charts is an amazing idea. I think one has to be careful about where and what they are representing, but overall I find data visualizations like this very exciting.

Classroom 2.0

Found a really cool tool Wiggio. I will definitely suggest this tool for my next team project. It seems like it has some really great features. Although google hangouts are great, Wiggio is dedicated to the sole function of collaboration. It also has mobile friendly features, which would have been really helpful in my last group project.

I was disappointed in what was available for gaming in education tools. I get that it is more commonly a pedagogy, but there has to be simulators out there that teachers or educators use to teach/train.

THE FLIPPED SESSION

Our Group met via Google Hangout. After a small delay we were down to business and brainstorming. We decided to do our project on a really cool tool called Edcanvas. Edcanvas is a great tool that can be used to organize and present media enriched lessons. Every teacher will want one! The tools we will be using vary depending on the team member and which medium they prefer their part being presented as. We are a bit unique in the presentation aspect because we are using Edcanvas to present Edcanvas. That way we can demonstrate how to use and incorporate different types of delivery (text, powerpoint, mp3, video ect).

My part is considered the summary. I will be piecing everyones parts and opinions together. I am thinking ideally I would like to make a audio/visual component. Being able to hear the conclusion and view related images really feels like it would help drive our points home for our audience. At the same time I have never uploaded such a mixed medium to Edcanvas, so I will have to play it by ear when I complete my section.Technology always keeps me on my toes!

 Here is our storyboard!