Employee Development

Personal Development Plan.

Looking ahead, I can tell you one of my major professional goals is to become a High School Video Production teacher.  Now in order to obtain this goal there are a number of things or steps in front of me that I will need to accomplish.

First of All, I will need to receive more formal education in the form of an “off-site program that is specifically designed for my needs.”(Noe)  In order to become a High School Video Production teacher, I will need to obtain my Career Technical Education (CTE) certificate.  CTE courses are designed to prepare students to be members of the work force and teaches them many of the skill needed in order to find work when they graduate from school.  In order to teach these course, teachers need to obtain their CTE certificate. The  CTE certification process prepares educators to teach 21st century skills to both middle school and high school students.  By completing this program, I will be qualified to teach any video production course at any high school in the state of Washington.

Part of the purposes of the CTE programs are for students to learn these skills from trained professionals, from individuals who have worked or are working in these fields and for them to be trained on the last strategies and equipment. The second step for my personal development will be through job experiences, possibly asking for new job assignment.  “New job assignments help take advantage of employees’ existing skills, experiences, and contacts, while helping them develop new ones”(Noe). In order for me to continue to develop my skills I need to continue to work in the field of video production.  To do this, I will continue working at my second job, as a sports videographer at Xfinity Arena in Everett, Washington.  During the upcoming hockey season, I will shadow or follow the Technical Director, in hopes to possibly learn the job and understand its function.   This will allow me to continue to improve my skills, while learning and working with the same tools and skills that I hope to be teaching my students.

The third step in my development plan is to find a mentor, a CTE teacher who is willing to help me through this process.  “A mentor is an experienced, productive senior employee who helps develop a less experienced employee”(Noe).  There are a number of CTE teachers in our school district and more importantly, one who is teaching the program I hope to be teaching.  By developing a mentoring relationship with him, I might be able to learn from his leadership, and have a greater understanding of what needs to be done and how to accomplish it.

The final step of my development plan is an opportunity for Assessment.  “Assessments are used for several reasons.  Assessment is used to identify the strength and weaknesses of an individual.  Assessments help employees understand their tendencies, needs, the type of work environment they prefer, and the type of work they prefer to do.”(Noe) I am currently teaching a similar style of courses or program at the middle school level.  By allowing the administration or possibly the High School CTE teacher to come in and observe my course and teaching, I can develop a greater understanding of my own strengths and weakness, while also getting a better understanding of how my program meets the needs of a CTE program.

By following these four steps, I should be prepared to teach a High School level CTE Video production course, and thus ready to fulfill the dream that I have been trying to achieve for the past 10 years.

By following the link below, you can observe a presentation for my school district that I created in order to convince them to institute a district wide Employee Development Plan.

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1bpdwsRA3hQ7PMuIsesNrwzBif3HyE2JgmzDxdcLwaKc/pub?start=true&loop=true&delayms=30000

Noe, R. A. (2013). Employee training and development (6th ed.). New York, NY: McGraw Hill.

High Tech Training

Instructional Designers understand that technology has changed the world very quickly over the past century, and if education is going to continue to reach those people who have grown up with technology, it is going to need to find ways to educate while providing access to technology.   The addition of technology must be more than just putting content online, the Instructional Designers must repurpose it to me the needs of the students and the curriculum “Remember that just putting text online isn’t necessarily an effective way to learn.  Repurposing refers to directly translating an instructor-led, face-to-face training program to an online format.”(Noe)

One way technology has truly helped training and education is the way it allows trainees to collaborate with each other.  “Digital Collaboration is the use of technology to enhance and extend employees’ abilities to work together regardless of their geographic proximity.”(Noe) Tools like electronic messaging systems or even program’s like Google Docs allow students or trainees the opportunity to work together on the same project even if they are physically in different locations.  A shared Google Document will allow multiple people to work on the same document at the same time regardless of location and difference in technological devices.

The integration and use of social media has also greatly influenced training.  Besides the obvious bonus of advertising and inviting people to take part in different training opportunities, social media has also proven useful in a classroom setting.  “Social Media can provide links to resources such as webinars and videos, it can help determine the training needs and issues,  it can reinforce and sustain learning, while linking learners before, during, and after the formal training event.”  Tools like blogs and wiki’s give trainers a online local to share their ideas and tools while providing  the trainees the opportunity to access important information during post training activities.

While Simulations are nothing new to education, the use of technology and its involvement in simulations has most certainly affected the way trainers are able to train.  Most importantly, it has allowed companies to use the same training techniques regardless of location, while providing the trainee with real world experience without wasting the companies time or money.  Miller Brewing Company’s use of Tips on Taps is a great example of how trainees can use technology to train in non technological fields, by using technology to teach how to pour beer using proper angle and height. “The online game does a better job of replicating  how to pour correctly than traditional classroom instruction, its more convenient and accessible for trainee practice, and the real product is not used eliminating waste and reducing costs.

Most importantly, a trainer’s use of technology prepare students to live and work in the 21st century.  For example Adult English as a Second Language (ESL) educators use technology as a vessel in which to strengthen their knowledge of the english language while giving them opportunities to develop their job related skills “The computer, Internet, and cell phone, by nature, provide more opportunities for authentic input and interaction, and can contribute to ESL learners’ communicative ability, which is a primary target in English language learning.”(McClanahan)

McClanahan, Lorna. MPAEA Journal of ADULT EDUCATION. 2014, Vol. 43 Issue 1, p22-27. 6p.

Noe, R. A. (2013). Employee training and development (6th ed.). New York, NY: McGraw Hill.

Steelcase Needs Assessment

Welcome back everyone, this week’s blog post assignment asked us to look at or explore an organization and discuss how we might approach a needs assessment for this organization.  I decided to look at Steelcase.  I did this for a couple of reasons.  For one, of all of the organizations listed, it was the one that I truly had no experience with so I thought it would be nice to check it out.  And secondly, it has a cool name, kind of sounds like a band or something so it had to be cool.

Steelcase was founded more than 100 years ago, when they filed a patent for a metal garbage can, now 100 years later they are an innovative creator of steel workplace products, furnishing and services.  “Steelcase was founded in 1912 by a few people with a strong commitment to integrity and doing the right thing for their customers, employees, business partners, associates and neighbors.  At Steelcase they believe to act with integrity, always tell the truth, keep commitments, treat people with dignity and respect, promote positive relationships, protect the environment, and of course, excel”(Steelcase).  Steelcase has a global footprint and promotes cultural acceptance through; “Fair recruiting and hiring processes, raising awareness among employees of diversity issues, and creating partnerships with other companies that support diversity”(Steelcase)

“Needs assessments refer to the process used to determine whether training is necessary and typically involves organizational analysis, person analysis, and task analysis”(Noe).  For these to work and be successful in an organization, a company needs stakeholders who have bought into the plan.  Even though they are are global organization, their principles and values are still connected to where they originated from, the staff.  “Their principles became the foundation of our company, passed on from decade to decade. Our employees are our greatest asset and living these values is at the core of all that we do, just as it was in the past. (Steelcase)  Any change to the company not only needs support from leadership like their Director of WorkSpace Donna Flynn and Nurture General Manager Rob Heitmeier, but needs the support of all Steelcase employees, regardless of job or title.

In order to meet the needs of their employees, I would recommend that we implement a focus group and use collaboration tools.  Even though it may be more time consuming, by using a focus group we are able to answer “more complex or controversial issues that one person may be unable or unwilling to explore and questions can be modified to explore unanticipated issues”(Noe)

About Steelcase (Sept 2015) Steelcase, Retrieved from

      http://www.steelcase.com/en/company/who/about-steelcase/pages/aboutsteelcase.aspx

Noe, R. A. (2013). Employee training and development (6th ed.). New York, NY: McGraw Hill.

Why Should We Train

So you really don’t think training works. I know we’ve all heard the horror stories about training.  “Trainings are organized and created by a company.  Training involves a program that employees are required to attend and after the training, employees are responsible for using what they learned in training on the job. Any support they might receive is based on the whims of their manager.”(Noe) As you know, these trainings generally fail to improve performance and/or meet the needs of the company.  These type of trainings fail because they lack the purpose and the ability to change that is needed in a Learning Organization.

“A Learning organization is a company that has an enhanced capacity to learn adapt and change.  In a Learning organization, training processes are carefully scrutinized and aligned with company goals, where learning is seen as one part of a system designed to create human capital”(Noe).  By being highly organized and placing an emphasis on training, companies are able to design training that put their employees in the best possible situations where they can meet their personal goals as well as the goals set by the organization.  “Learning organizations emphasize that learning occurs not only at the individual employee level, but also at the group and organizational level.”(Noe).

I know, you really don’t like change.  You actually get anxious, just by people speaking of change, and you don’t think you can cope with it or even value current training practices.  In order for change or training to work; employees must understand and agree on the reasons for change, they must have the skills needed to implement change, they must see managers and other employees support the change and finally organizational structures must support the change”(Noe).  By meeting these conditions before implementing any change, you greatly strengthen the rate of success of any type of training that you are thinking of implementing.  

Noe, R. A. (2013). Employee training and development (6th ed.). New York, NY: McGraw Hill.


(The blogger website would not allow me to upload an MP3 or a Wav. file. So I placed my elevator speech file on the Walden website in the Blog links folder.)

New Class - Same Blog

Hello, well its a return to the blog world.  I will be updating my blog on a semi regular basis for the next 8 weeks, I hope you enjoy it.  The first entry will be coming later this week.

My Experience with Scope Creep

This weeks reading introduced us to a concept known as Scope Creep.  Scope Creep is “the natural tendency of the client, as well as project team members, to try to improve the project’s output as the project progresses.” (Portny) Scope Creep asks for change in the project without following the proper planning steps and thus is not guaranteed to receive the resources need to succeed.  Avoiding scope creep is nearly impossible, but project managers need to understand its there, plan for it, monitor it, and hopefully control it, thus reducing some of the damage it causes.

About four years ago, the middle school that I am a teacher at was named a Priority school, meaning that our state test scores and other factors like attendance fell to the bottom 10% of the state. We received a large grant of money from the state that was intended to turn our school around.  All along with this funding, the school also received support in the form of training and supervision of the state.  As part of accepting the grant, our school was asked to find new leadership, meaning the principal of 10 plus years was replace with a first time Principal and a first time vice principal.

Now our school saw great change and growth and was even recognized as one of the most improved middle schools in the state.  But even with all of the school’s success, things weren’t perfect, and teachers we’re feeling the stress.  

Our schools transformation witnessed a heavy amount of Scope Creep.  First of all, the track of leadership was very hard to see and thus made it difficult for the lower level project workers, the teachers, to truly understand their role and how the changes were to take effect.   You would think the school’s principal would be the project manager in a situation like this but his job was not clearly defined.  He had multiple people to answer to, each with their own lists of requests and/or changes that they wanted to see happen.  Since there wasn’t a clear line of communication between the state executives who were implementing the changes, the changes had a different feel and look depending at which priority school you visited.  And since our Principal was answering to different a number of different state executives, what was needed to be done and when was left up to interpretation.  The leadership was so poorly organized, that after the first year, many of those who were in supervisory roles of different regions of schools had to be replaced.

A second challenge of scope creep that we saw in our transformation, was the continuous trainings and seminars that asked teachers to leave the classroom.  Not only were teachers repeatedly asked to attend these training during the school year, thus taking them out of the classroom, but they also asked the teachers to implement the changes and learnings the obtained from the training immediately into their classroom practice routines, which caused those budgetary issues that come when extending project without including a change control system.

The lack of leadership not only caused the school to rework how their resources were to be used, it also frustrated the staff to the point that we saw almost half the school’s staff change within the next 3 years, including new building leadership, with both the principal and vice principal leaving for schools in other districts.

Portny, S. E., Mantel, S. J., Meredith, J. R., Shafer, S. M., Sutton, M. M., & Kramer, B. E. (2008). Project management: Planning, scheduling, and controlling projects. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Online Tools for Project Managers

As a project manager, we are asked to do so much.  We are asked to complete a schedule, allocate resources, estimate the costs, understand the abilities of our employees and schedule the durations of different activities based on that understanding.  And we do all of this with our client or supervisor keeping a watchful eye over us and making sure that we come under budget.

In order to be successful, the Project manager needs to be able coordinate everything and everyone who is taking part in the production.  One way to do this is through the use of Gantt Charts.  A Gantt chart is a “type of bar chart that displays project activities as bars measured against a horizontal time scale. It is the most popular way of exhibiting sets of related activities in the form of schedules.”(Portny)  One free online tool that can be very helpful is the website smartsheets.com.  SmartSheets allows the PM to  create a Gantt charts that meet the needs of everyone working with the project. “You can customize your chart with conditional formatting to highlight team members' tasks or indicate status levels with different colors. Your team or clients will instantly "get it" and understand the tasks and related dependencies.”(SmartSheet) Not only does this website give the Project Manager the ability to build Gantt charts to plan out a project, by inviting all team to join, the site allow multiple opportunities for team members to collaborate with others and makes it easy for them to share files.   Include the web forums and mobile apps they offer, and Smart Sheets provides project managers with a single place for team members to look and understand where their at any point during the project.

One of the real problems that project managers have to deal with is their ability to work with the schedules of every team member.  A free online tool that helps Project Managers with this is Doodle.com.  Doodle.com is an online app that allows the Project manager to schedule with several people working on a variety of different platforms.  Doodle.com cooperates with calenders such as gmail, yahoo, and even Macintoshish’s Ical, and thus allows the Project manager to schedule meetings and any other calender activity with the easy of a mouse click, regardless of the phone, tablet or computer that the team member is working with. “Doodle radically simplifies the process of scheduling events, whether they’re board or team meetings, dinners with friends, reunions, weekend trips, or anything else.” (Doodle)

About Doodle http://doodle.com/en/, retrieved 4/01/14 from http://doodle.com/en/about-doodle

Product Tours - Gnatt Charts, smartsheet.com, retrieved 4/01/14 from  http://www.smartsheet.com/product-tour/gantt-charts

Portny, S. E., Mantel, S. J., Meredith, J. R., Shafer, S. M., Sutton, M. M., & Kramer, B. E. (2008). Project management: Planning, scheduling, and controlling projects. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Art of Communication

This week we were asked to reflect on “The Art of Effective Communication”.  While watching this video program, we were able to observe three a single individual message delivered by three different types of communication; audio, video, and written text.  Through this program, we were able to see that the way in which we  deliver a message can have implications on the ways in which our message is received.

The first way we looked at the message was through a company email.  In this email, Jane is asking for an ETA on when “the missing report” was going to be finished.  Jane makes sure that Mark understands that her own work can not be completed without his input, so they are both under the gun at this point.  After reading this email as if I was Mark, I felt a little more pressured to get my work done.  The tone of the email is kind of condescending to a point, where it feels like Jane makes an attempt to give an excuse for why my portion isn’t done.  Plus she makes it feel like her part is really the only important part, but she can’t finish hers without the data from mine.  Since I don’t have a really tone or inflection from her, I don’t know what she really thinks but it feels like she is talking down to me.

The second way we looked at the message was through voice mail.  It was the exact same message but delivered through voice mail.  After listening to is as if I was Mark, I had clear understanding that her work was dependent on mine, that without the data from my report, she would not be able to finish hers.  Since this was a voice mail, I could hear the caring tone in her voice, as if she was almost as worried about my project as she is with hers.  I still had a feeling of her talking down to me, like I don’t understand what are roles are and how they are dependent of each other.  I did however feel like she had an understanding tone when she delivered the last part of the message and asked for the data separately, letting me know that my job was still important and she could finish hers if I supplied her with the data.

The final way the delivered the message was in a face to face communication, Jane visits my cubicle asking me for her needed data.  In this message, her tone is still a little condescending, with the feeling that her job is more important than mine, but by making the trip to my desk, it showed me just how important my job is to hers.  She is able to cheerfully ask for my work, let me know that she why she needs it and even gives me another way in order to help her, all with a smile on her face.  By visiting me face to face, I left the conversation with a more positive feel, and much more likely to try and hurry up and finish or at minimum, email her that data that is needed.

When looking back at the three examples of interactions, the results are very close to what I thought. I went from being nervous, upset, and not willing to help after reading the email, to not feeling as threatened but still not willing to help after the voice mail, to understanding Jane’s frustration, and because she came to my cubicle and smiled at me I was willing to help. The lack of tone of voice and even visual communication lead people to supplement those pieces of the communications with ideas in there head which then leads to misunderstanding and even mistrust. For me personally, I need face to face communication.  Without the addition of verbal and visual communication, my mind starts to add parts that are not already there.  I find this to happen a lot when I am texting with friends.  I normally leave long, well thought out messages, doing my best not to leave any stone unturned.  When some replies back with a short non descript message, I start to freak out, what did he mean by that, is he mad at me.  This not only frustrates me, but it shuts me down, I don’t feel comfortable in the conversation and thus no longer participate.  

As a project lead, I think it is very important that you are as visible as possible during the creation process.  Misunderstandings can very easily lead to having to recreate parts of the project, just because the PM wasn’t clear in what they wanted and the project team members didn’t share their confusion or lack of understanding  during a given point in project.

My Experience as a Project Manager

As a teacher at Totem Middle School, I have seen a lot of change over the last couple of years.  Four years ago, TMS was named a priority school, meaning that our state test scores fell into the bottom 5% of the state.  As a priority school, the school received a grant that was intended to help turn the school around.  Through the grant, the school was able to extend the learning day, provide after school tutoring for those in need, and bring in programs that provided teachers with data about their students and help students improve academically.  

My group was asked to document this transition by creating a video presentation that showed the transformation of the school, what new programs were implemented and how they improved students’ ability to grow as learners.  We were asked to create several short 2 to 4 minute videos in which we interviewed both teachers and students, learning about each program and discussing how each of them improved the educational experiences of the students.  

As the teacher and project manager of this group, I broke up the videos between 3 different groups of students.  I place an individual student to be in charge of each group and allowed them to schedule and interview the teachers and students on their own.

The client for this project was actually the school district.  Most visibly the school’s principal was the lead client who had the final say of what was to be shot and how it was presented., But he of course still had to answer to the school district and was expected to share this with them, so that they could show it to the school board and state and national educational associations to show the growth found at the middle school over the last couple of years.

When meeting with the client, the principal, I discussed the expectation of the project and asked for a detailed description for what he wanted.  The principal was very lackadaisical and said that he was sure that with my background in video, I would be able to come up with something he liked.  Not entirely pleased with this response, I asked for more information about each program and tried to develop a plan for the videos and how they would look.

Each group produced, high quality videos that showed the students growth through the programs provided by the school, but also showed the growth of my students  over the long year of video production class.  The videos were visibly pleasant, had quality audio plus a music bed, and included graphics that helped support the information that was being shared.

As I’m sure you could guess, with unclear direction from the client, it was going to be difficult to surely meet the needs of the client and produce a video that would make the client happy.  

Some of the most glaring issues of the videos where actually the interviews themselves.  Since the questions were developed my middle schoolers, they did not have the academic feeling that the client was expecting and thus did not get the indepth answers that he was looking for.  Secondly, since I have had different groups creating different videos and I didn’t set parameters that they would have to meet, the videos did not have a similar feel because they were shot and edited in different ways.  With all of these, issues, I found myself having to rework nearly all of the project, allowing the videos to have a common feel to them.

If I was to do the project again I would definitely had done a number different things that could have kept us from having to rework the project.  First of I all I would have demanded that the client be more decisive when it came to the project itself.  I would have had him develop his own questions for the interviews so that they received the answers he was looking for.  Secondly, I would have grouped my workers differently.  Having one group shoot the interviews, one group shoot the b-roll, and another group edit the videos.  This would allow more continuity between the videos, thus giving them a similar look and feel and making them easier to watch from video to video.  By following these steps, the project could have been finished on time and presented to the school board before the end of the school year.

Perception of Distance Learning

With how quickly technology has advanced over the last half century, for instance the computer system in my cellphone is more powerful than a whole room full of computers from the 1960’s , no one can know what technology will bring us over the next 10 to 20 years but what we do know is that  “Distance education will play a central role in that future, as technology-delivered curricula will be offered by educational institutions and private corporations on a global basis to anyone, anywhere, at anytime” (Simonson).  Over the next 20 years, distance education will begin to become more of the norm than the weird off shoot of standard educational practices.   Students are being raised in a world full of technology and in order for schools to continue to be effective they will need to find a way to use this technology and meet the needs of our students and Distance learning course will be a way to do this.

As an instructional designer, it is important to create course that can effectively meet the needs of the students, by doing this, students leave the educational experience with a positive outlook, and thus are more likely to spread the good word of distance education.  One way to do this is to provide the students with clear map of what they are going to learn over the course, for instance supplying them with a detailed syllabus.  “Instructors of online course must make the course organization calendar, activities, and expectations as clear as possible.  Students need this kind of structure and detail to help them stay organized and on task” (Simonson).  

I can really see blended learning classes building in popularity as well. In a blended learning environment, the instructor is asked to create a learning environment where students have a possibility to actively participate in their learning, while feeling safe to share their thoughts and ideas. “Learners who are engaged in learning are actively participating in their own understanding of the content.” (Simonson)

After reading this week’s discussion, one negative heard about online distance learning was the delayed nature of the online class discussions and the ability to question the instructor directly.  One way that I might look to address this issue is through use of more online video discussions.  In this and many others courses, our instructors have used skype in order to answer the needs and questions students, but normally these are only one one one.  My idea is to add an semi-optional discussion forum using a technology like Google Hangouts, this would be an live online discussion, lead by the instructor, students can share their thoughts and receive immediate feedback on their thinking.  I would call it semi-optional because one of the positives of online learning is working at your own time and pace, but this would require students to meet online at a given time and place.  By making it semi-optional, you can ask students to participate at least one discussion through out the class so that they could still work at their own pace.

Simonson, M., Smaldino, S., Albright, M., & Zvacek, S. (2012). Teaching and learning at a distance: Foundations of distance education (5th ed.) Boston, MA: Pearson.

Transformation Towards Distance Learning

When a trainer is asked to change or transform a face-to-face formatted course into a blended learning course, a course that gives trainees and trainers the opportunity to interact with each other and learn the material in both a face-to-face and an online environment,  the person in charge of completing the transformation really needs to keep a number of things in mind.

Creating a blended learning course, gives the instructor the opportunity to use a plethora of activities to help move students toward the goals of the course.  First of all, students learn a lot through discussion.  Not only does discussion give students a chance to learn from the knowledge of other students, but many people believe that students learn best when they are able to share their knowledge with others.  But some people do not have the ability to take part in face to face discussions.  These discussions are fast, people are not allowed time to think of their replies, some people get nervous when asked to speak in public, and others are not confident with their comments and do not want to look stupid in front of others.  The online discussion forum is perfect for a situation like this.  These forums allow people to research their thoughts, take time a make a thoughtful reply,  allow their voice to be heard if they are not able to speak in public.  “In many cases, students will read all of the messages posted in a discussion forum to determine which ones they’ll respond to, with the result being a discussion in which everyone gets to talk and everyone listens.” (Simonson)

When preparing to transform a course into blended learning course, the instructor should follow many of the same strategies that they would when creating any course.  The instructor needs to be organized and create a syllabus that the students can follow throughout the course. “Instructors provide enough information within the syllabus that students are able to understand the structure of the course, expectations and assignments, and the assessment process. (Simonson)   By providing this information before hand, the students have a better understanding of what to expect in a blended learning environment.

In a blended learning environment, the instructor is asked to create a learning environment where students have a possibility to actively participate in their learning, while feeling safe to share their thoughts and ideas. “Learners who are engaged in learning are actively participating in their own understanding of the content.” (Simonson)

In order keep students participating in class, the instructor needs not only to come up with creative discussions, but need to show their following of the discussion by taking part in the discussion.  “In order to keep discussion on track instructor should participate once in every four or five student postings, as students take more responsibility for their own learning, instructors posts can drop to once for each 10 to 12.” (Simonson)

Simonson, M., Smaldino, S., Albright, M., & Zvacek, S. (2012). Teaching and learning at a distance: Foundations of distance education (5th ed.) Boston, MA: Pearson.

The impact of open source

http://www.openculture.com/

Journalistic Ethics – Free Online Video – Jim Newton, UCLA

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL10D71A7139FD2D0D

This week my Distance Learning course asked us to look at an Open Source course.  An Open Source course allows to take a quality course, from an accredited institution, entirely for free.  The incentive for students to take this course is not for college credit but instead gives the students the opportunity to build knowledge in areas they are hopefully interested in.  As we reviewed the course, we were asked to reflect on or assess the course; is the course carefully pre-planned and designed for a distance learning environment? Does the course follow the recommendations for online instruction and does the course offer activities that maximize active learning for the students?

The course I decided to look at was Journalistic Ethics offered by UCLA and taught by Jim Newton, an editor-at-large for the LA Times. The course description defines the The course as an intensive examination of ethical and policy issues arising from interaction for media institutions and societal institutions. I chose this course because I have a minor in journalism and thought I would be able to relate things I can learn in this  course to information that I learned so many years ago.

At first look the course doesn’t offer a lot when it comes to distances learning.  The course is basically a single camera static shot of Professor Newton’s lectures on the campus at UCLA.  Engagement wise the presentation is very lacking, the professor is standing behind a table, speaking to and answering questions from students in attendance but not seen on camera. Plus, there are no graphics that can help the learner stay on track, except for a yellow lower third graphic that tells you the course and which class meeting this video was recorded in.  The open source site speaks nothing about a classroom text that will help with the class, but it is often referred to at the end of the daily lectures.

When looking at Bate’s 12 “Golden Rules” for use of technology in education, this journalistic ethics course really meet some of the guidelines of how to design and develop an distance education course.  First of all Bates says Interaction is essential, the open source site is hosted on youtube, and the most interaction that you can have is leaving comments at the bottom of the page, which are usually filled with comments of how students didn’t appreciate the lecture.  Bates also says that courses should offer 4 different types of media (print, audio, video and computer interaction) available to teachers and learners.  The course most definitely does not meet these.  The only medium that I was able to find was video, the course seem to be so lacking in media that it didn’t even offer a syllabus or course guidelines that the student would be able to follow.  Most importantly , the course didn’t follow good teaching strategies, it did not offer learning activities that would allow the learners interact with what they are learning  and show that learning was happening.(Simonson)

All in all the course seemed to be very helpful in developing a better understanding of journalistic ethics, in ways its quite interesting, looking at the decisions that instructor had made and how he related historic events that he covered with those ethical decisions that had to be made.  

References

Simonson, M., Smaldino, S., Albright, M., & Zvacek, S. (2012). Teaching and learning at a

        distance: Foundations of distance education (5th ed.) Boston, MA: Pearson.

Interactive Tours

As the Instructional designer for my school district, I am asked to help teachers in a number of different ways.  Recently a high school history teacher was introducing his students to the era of industrialization.  In his upcoming unit he wanted his students to experience what it was like to be an immigrant in large american cities where they faced the challenges of starting a new life, working for a better future and starting a family with limited means.

I suggested that he have his students take the virtual tours for New York Tenement Museum.  “The Tenement Museum preserves and interprets the history of immigration through personal experiences of the generations of newcomers who settled in and built lives on Manhattan’s Lower East Side.”  (Tenement Museum)  The tenement virtual tour allows the user to truly experience what immigrants lived through in the late 1800’s through the early 1900’s.  “Virtual worlds have the exciting potential to place students in real-life applications of course content.” (Simonson) The tenement tour not only shares pictures and video tours of the tenements that immigrants lived in, they have an audio tour sharing stories of the people who lived in these apartments along with short narratives giving background information on their families, where they immigrated from, why they immigrated and what challenges their families faced once they moved into the tenements.  It also offers a virtual tenement where you become the tenant.  It is a virtual experience which allows you to experience what immigrants went through from Ellis Island to living at Orchard Street.  The user decides what their name is, where they come from, and what they brought with them and then go through authentic experiences of what actual immigrants went through.

After experiencing the virtual tours, students have the opportunity to select the experience of two individual immigrants and discuss what it must have been like to live in a time like this.  What were the challenges, why was this still better than where they immigrated from, and how did their experiences affect them individually?

About Us (2014). New York Tenement Museum Retrieved from http://www.tenement.org/about.html

Simonson, M., Smaldino, S., Albright, M., & Zvacek, S. (2012). Teaching and learning at a

        distance: Foundations of distance education (5th ed.) Boston, MA: Pearson.

What is Distance Learning?

Before starting classes at Walden, for me Distance Learning was what others did.  Distance Learning was most clearly defined as a means to get a pay raise.  As teacher, we are asked to continue our education, we are asked to continually add credits to our transcript, and if or when you earn your Masters Degree you move to a whole new pay schedule.  From what I had heard from others was that Distance Learning course was a lot of reading and a lot of writing and a lot of feeling very very alone.

Growing up in the 80’s, I remember hearing about my teachers or my aunt and uncle taking classes via the mail.  We talked how they had 8 weeks to go through the course. They needed to complete assignments each week, but it all actuality, many times they waited till week 7 and do all of the work at once.  The complained their lack of opportunity to communicate with others, and check their understanding during the course.  When I went to college in the late 90’s, I remember the school offering some distance classes.  They were classes the school didn't offer but they could offer it through Television.  You would still go to your original school, sit in a room with a big screen, and watch a professor giving his lecture from a far away campus.  Both of these seemed very difficult, seemed to have very little interaction with others students and thus made me think that distance learning opportunities weren't for me.

Simonson defined Distance Education as institution based, formal education where the learning group is separated and where interactive telecommunications systems are used to connect the learners, resources, and instructors.

After taking classes at Walden for a little more than a year now and getting a better understanding of the concept of Distance Learning from this week’s resources, I now have a much better understanding of what Distance Learning is and all that it offers.  For me as educator, Distance learning is an accredited institution (because otherwise my district would accept their credits and degree), that provides a formal education in fields not offered to me locally, that uses technology which gives me access to resources, instructors, and even to my fellow learners, and it allows me to access these things at times that fit my schedule.  Distance Learning allows students the opportunity to learn in ways and from people they may never had had a chance to.  It allows students to access their education from where they are at, not just where their school is at.  The student can be at home, at work, or even on vacation, and still access all they need in order to be successful in their courses.  

With technology constantly changing and becoming more accessible, I see Distance Learning growing even larger or faster than it has in the recent past. One area I can see a lot of change is K-12 education. By growing their distance learning offerings, School districts will have an opportunity to help their staff and student’s in a number of different ways. By offering online courses districts are able to reach more students in more ways. “Expanding curricular offerings through online courses may included advanced, remedial, elective or credit recovery courses.  By offering online courses, a small school can provide rich and varied options normally only available at larger schools” (Huett)  By offering online classes, districts are able to give students the tools they need to be successful.  “Learners benefit by having access to all the tools for success available in on setting, being able to review and practice as needed, and going at their own pace” (Huett).

Huett, J., Moller, L. Foshay, W., & Coleman, C. (2008). The evolution of distance education: Implication for instructional design on the potential of the web (part 3: K12). TechTrends, 52(5), 63-67

Simonson, M., Smaldino, S., Albright, M., & Zvacek, S. (2012). Teaching and learning at a distance: Foundations of distance education (5th ed.) Boston, MA: Pearson

Welcome Distance Learning Class

Hello world, or at least my Distance Learning Class.  My name is Adam Edinger and I'm a Middle School teacher in Marysville, Washington.  I am about half we through my second year in this program, so I hope you don't mind, but I will be using the blog page I set up for previous Walden class.   So if you look through my history, you'll view posts that represent previous class work.
This class definitely has me intrigued and I look forward to sharing my thoughts with you.