-
What is Your Course Built Around?
Let me repeat: What is your course / learning solution / training built around? Who is the focus of this learning solution? Instructional designers, together with your content expert: we need to do this check because what you think you have done well for the course may not turn out well for the learner. In an online course I’m now enrolled in as a learner, it is obvious to me that the course is built around the CDROM content. Learners are expected to watch the CDROM videos and complete the CDROM exercises,…
-
Concept and Technique: How to Build a Digital Escape Room
Background This is a hot topic among many K12 teachers, and we could definitely use this in higher ed and in industry. Last November, I was inspired by a session at AECT to make a digital escape room. If you have access to this AECT 2020 session, it’s called Escape Rooms: Pedagogy without Borders. The presenters were Tracy Russo, Ferris State University; Kalianne Lund Neumann, Andrea Ramirez Salgado, and Frances M Alvarado-Albertorio, all from Oklahoma State University. Check out their article, Online Approaches for Implementing a Digital Escape Room with…
-
Media Authoring Skills: How I Made a Lyric Video
I know the question in your head. Would I need to be able to make lyric videos as an instructional designer? Not usually. But should you have video editing skills? I would say yes. In some organizations, you need to be able to do everything. In the corporate sector, you need to be more of an all-rounder, that is, you need to not just be able to design, but to build out your concept as well. I made a lyric video to polish up my media and video editing…
-
PD Forever: Always Sharpening the Saw
Happy 2021! This is my first post for the year! I’ve written in the past (2016) about my super power as an instructional designer (ID) (someone actually asked me this question!). I wrote: What makes me extraordinary or good at what I do? My mind. In order to continue being extraordinarily good at my work, I have to keep sharpening this mind of mine and looking for ways to be creative. During this winter break, I completed a WebAIM document accessibility course that started in October 20 (Finally done! I…
-
Restorative Times: Drawing & Painting on the iPad with Procreate
Update, December 26, 2020: It’s been 7 months since I last did anything creative, or made anything. Work took up all my time, with a thousand and one things I personally have to attend to (without some Graduate Assistant help I used to have in my previous job). As I wrap up the few courses on my list, I took time to relearn and learn new design tricks with Procreate, After Effects, Illustrator and Captivate. My favorite way to unwind and relax is to create something with a design software.…
-
PD Musings: The Importance of Community and Value for Money
I’m enrolled in another online course to brush up my ASL skills and to learn more accurately the structure of ASL as opposed to SEE (Signed Exact English), which I had learned in Singapore. SEE is not ASL as it follows the syntax of English. It has messed up my communication with my American Deaf friends and I want to get it right, once and for all. Once again, when I’m inside this course, what frustrates me—about this and some online courses—is the lack of community. It’s a dated pedagogical…
-
PD Musings: Guided Reflection
I love having thinking protocols to guide reflection. In the opening module from an online training course (professional development) I’m taking on facilitation, we are encouraged to use this protocol to reflect in writing: What? Which aspect(s) of the materials resonated with you most? So what? Why is this information important to you? Now what? How are you going to take action as a result of your new learning? Let me begin. Here are some nuggets that resonated with me and why: “The group must define and solve its own…
-
Innovative Assessments
I’m always seeing how ideas from different fields can be adapted for the academic context. This is a document that will be updated regularly. How Superheroes Can Bring Your Online Discussion Board to Life “—students adopt either hero or villain roles and earn points for their posts based on the performance within the assumed role. This allows students to compete with one another to reach a higher status on the leaderboard, fostering motivation and engagement.” Ask The Expert Hello @NiallOfficial fans
Tweet your #HeartbreakWeather questions with #AskNiall and… -
F2F or Onground
Definition of face-to-face. 1: within each other’s sight or presence; met and talked face-to-face; a face-to-face consultation 2: in or into direct contact or confrontation; came face-to-face with the problem (Merriam-Webster, 2020) It took a while for me to get used to people at my workplace referring to face-to-face (F2F) courses as on-ground courses. I mean no ill will and am not being snooty. It’s new to me and it just fascinates me that we have these two terms to describe this in-person form of learning experience. I’m speculating that maybe people were describing and referring…
-
About That Poster Presentation at AECT 2019
If you had read my previous post, you’d know I was heading to Las Vegas to meet up with my virtual friend and collaborator at AECT 2019. And we met! It was unreal and real, to us, and to those who had heard of our story in my previous post. At the poster gallery walk, some folks seemed more incredulous of our partnership across space and time (without having met at all in person) than they were of our poster. Of course, the poster received a lot of traction…
-
Collaborating on an AECT Presentation Across Time and Space
This will be the first of a series of blogposts that I will be writing to document and reflect on my collaboration with a virtual friend from Sweden. We will be meeting in person for the first time at the 2019 AECT International Convention. This convention will also be my first trip back to an AECT conference since graduate school. So many firsts! I’m as thrilled as a puppy getting his favorite treat! Tanya O’Reilly (@TenaciousTan) and I have known each other since late 2014 or early 2015 (we both…
-
The Performative Art of Leadership
[I’ve been away from regular writing for three months, very busy settling into a new location and position. I’m going to ease back to writing and reflecting now. ] I savored the opportunity to play someone who had to be very guarded,” Chalamet says. “I often find myself in projects where the characters wear their emotions on their sleeves, and this was not the case at all. To be a politician, to be a leader, there’s an element of performance to it — but you also have to have a poker…
