Author: Angie

LRNT 524 – Unit 2 – Why Innovate?

When contemplating the concept of the renew-to-new continuum within my context, I wonder if there is anything I can do in my life that is truly new. We’re all building on the knowledge and ideas and inventions that have come before us. When I think of newness and innovation in a revolutionary sort of way, I think of the iPhone or YouTube, not of me introducing a new learning management system into my workplace. That being said, I suppose the continuum can be molded to fit its appropriate environment, and there’s no need to compare my workplace to the massive progress of the entire planet. Earth-wide innovations are happening too fast and frequently for me to keep up, but I can at least do my part to accept and move with the inevitable, innovative evolution toward digital learning.

Unit 2 asks why we innovate, and we can reflect on this question framed by a poetic musing from Dron: “If we learn new ways of changing, then we can begin a rich evolutionary process where the rules of evolution themselves evolve, thus enabling more change and continuous evolution towards a peak of fitness that forever moves as we approach it” (2017, p. 261).

Goldman (2012) describes one such evolutionary process – the journey to becoming a design thinker – using the term mindshifts to signify four key approaches that are adopted on this path:

  • Human-Centered: focus on empathy;
  • Experimental: perspective that everything is an evolution, a prototype;
  • Collaborative: radical teamwork creates transformative innovations; and
  • Metacogitive: being conscious of the greater context within the design process.

For use in our context-specific design process, we were introduced to design principles, and asked to develop our own. For my assignment, I compiled a fairly straightforward list of helpful items such as “listen to users” and “simplify,” but out of the collection, one of my design principles sparkles and shines as an upgraded version of the infamous Golden Rule, and it goes a little something like this:

“Create a learning environment that I would like to learn in.”

 

 

References

Dron, J. (2014). Innovation and Change: Changing how we Change. In Zawacki-Richter, O. & T. Anderson (Eds.), Online distance education: Towards a research agenda. Athabasca, AB: AU Press. 

Goldman, S., Carroll, M. P., Kabayadondo, Z., Cavagnaro, L. B., Royalty, A. W., Roth, B., & Kim, J. (2012). Assessing d.learning: Capturing the journey of becoming a design thinker. In H. Plattner, C. Meinel & L. Leifer (eds). Design thinking research: Understanding innovation. (pp. 13-33). Berlin: Springer. 

 

Question-Making-Risk-Taking (LRNT 524: Assignment 1-A)

Our Mission

Klaus Rimke, Terra Aartsen, and Angie Maksymetz were challenged to use Stanford’s d.school design thinking process to prototype a single element of an online integrated program for promoting engagement, a sense of inclusion, and intellectual risk-taking. Given how we are a group of three with disparate work domains, we chose to adapt and adopt a joint solution within a context we share: an online graduate program.

Empathize & Reframe

By both interviewing and being interviewed, the empathizing process allowed each of us to approach the problem as designers while also looking through the lens of learners.

“The closer the designer comes to the real user, the more easily the designer can step into the user’s world. The more the designer can live and experience the users’ emotions, the better she can transform the ideas and constraints into appealing and pleasing design solutions” (Mattelmäki, Vaajakallio, & Koskinen, 2014, p. 70).

In box #4 of our design process, a combined need emerged for a structured, socially connected, and safe learning environment.

Solution

The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development describes stimulating learning environments as “learner-centered, structured and well-designed, profoundly personalized, inclusive, and social” (Crichton & Carter, 2017, p. 18). In order to provide a safe, social, structured domain while addressing our assigned problem scenario, we designed an ice-breaker activity to take place at the beginning of an online graduate program. We named the exercise “Question-Making and Risk-Taking,” and it is detailed below:

1.  Each student conducts a 10-15 minute synchronous interview via telephone, video, or online chat of one classmate, randomly assigned by the professor.

2.  Interview questions: How would you describe yourself in one sentence? What motivates you? How does this program help meet your goals? What is your opinion of the role intellectual risk-taking plays in your education?

3.  Ask 2 or more questions about anything (within reason and being respectful).

4.  Complete a short post on moodle about your interview subject using their name as the title. Your post should contain either their word-for-word responses to your questions, their answers paraphrased, or a profile of them in your words. Optional: include a photograph of your subject (with permission) or an image which represents some aspect of them. YOUR POST IS DUE ON SUNDAY, JANUARY 5th.

5.  The professor has randomly assigned every student three other classmates. Find their names in the titles of interview postings, then read the results to get to know a bit about them. Provide one positive comment and ask each subject one more question about anything (within reason). POST COMMENTS AND QUESTIONS BY WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 8th.

6.  BRIEFLY RESPOND TO QUESTIONS ASKED OF YOU BY SUNDAY, JANUARY 12th. Read about and get to know your classmates at your leisure.

Effectiveness

To tackle the need for structure, we provided clear ground rules, deadlines, and expectations. To address the need for connection, we created an engaging exercise for getting to know peers and building community through an inclusive, egalitarian format. To meet the need for a safe environment which welcomes intellectual risk-taking, we placed this activity in Moodle, allowing students to gain comfort in presenting unpolished content online.

The exercise is intended as a first step, laying a solid foundation for building engagement, a sense of inclusion, and endurance for future intellectual risk-taking while meeting the needs captured from our empathizing process.

 

 

References

Mattelmäki, T., Vaajakallio, K., & Koskinen, I. (2014). What happened to empathic design?. Design issues, 30(1), 67-77.

Stanford University Institute of Design. (2016). A virtual crash course in design thinking.

Crichton, S. & Carter, D. (2017). Taking Making into Classrooms Toolkit. Open School/ITA.

 

To ADDIE, or not to ADDIE… that is the question (LRNT 524, Activity 1)

In my previous, pre-MALAT experience designing online learning programs (industrial safety training), I tended to jump right in and build modules without conscious thought of using any research-backed, theoretical scaffolding. Indeed we would hold meetings discussing necessary content, brainstorm about delivery, and use safety documents to extract content from, but reading Thomas’s (2010) Learning and instructional systems design opened my eyes to an endless universe – the plethora of design approaches. I began eagerly summarizing Thomas’s summarized descriptions of these models in my notes, excited about the possibilities… until I eventually realized the enormity of content and impossibility for me to adopt it all.

Bates (2014) focused on the relevance of one widely-accepted approach in his article where he asks the question: Is the ADDIE model appropriate for teaching in a digital age? As a newcomer to the educated (as opposed to practical) methods of instructional design, and as a person who values clarity, the popular ADDIE model makes sense to me as a jumping off point despite Bates’s criticisms.

I have not read the official ADDIE literature, but I presume there is not an ADDIE bible which states, “Thou shalt not add to, delete from, bend or modify this model in any way, shape, or form to suit your individual purposes. If you do, you will burn in hell for all eternity.” Bates argues ADDIE is “too pre-determined, linear, and inflexible” for today’s fluctuating learning environments (2014, para. 20), but without offering a viable alternative design model with widespread pragmatic value, I argue that the author’s opinion of ADDIE is actually the thing that is too pre-determined and inflexible.

I see no harm in selecting one clear and concise model with a nifty acronym to use as a runway for takeoff into flight on the journey of gaining skills in instructional design. I learn by doing, not by reading overwhelming, circumlocutory texts describing innumerable theories and models. That being said, I am not in a position experienced enough to proclaim ADDIE as the holy grail of instructional design models, but with some flexibility and pragmatism, ADDIE or any other well-versed model which seems reasonable should do fine as a springboard. A basic model can be selected and then tailored to fit the particular needs and characteristics of learners within a certain context.

(Please excuse my self-motivated cynicism:)

It felt ironic to attempt to consume Thomas’s drudgerous and painstaking reading material about using learning theories and design models to create effective instruction while simultaneously questioning the author’s ability to design and format written content in a digestible way. Our busy world is increasingly inundated with information and new technologies. Learners and workers struggle to have time and focus. Pedagogy is negotiated in a fluxing maelstrom. Will the field of academic writing ever ascertain and prioritize how essential it is to use learning theory and design principles for communicating written words deliciously and efficiently? Will the intravenously-electronic-media-consuming children of today have the ability and time to absorb dry materials when they are adults? Is it even the responsibility of authors, educators, content creators and instructional designers to evolve, research, theorize, and make information ever-more-palatable, or rather, is it the responsibility of the learner to harness motivation, trudge around and exert all the necessary efforts to build skills, accomplish difficult tasks and gain heavy knowledge?

 

References

Bates, T. (2014, September 9). Is the ADDIE model appropriate for teaching in a digital age? [Blog post]

Thomas, P. Y. (2010). Learning and instructional systems design. In Towards developing a web-based blended learning environment at the University of Botswana. (Doctoral dissertation).

Assignment 1 – A Resource to Share

In the Master of Arts in Learning and Technology (MALAT) program at Royal Roads University, we are focusing our studies this week on debates—featuring readings which pick apart arguments that are not legitimately backed with relevant research (Etchells, 2017; Kirschner, 2017). Heated, polarizing discourse about heavily-charged topics, where each side is brimming with rationalizations and justifications defending an armored stance, require proper tools for sifting through the smoky warfare in search of truth.

The resource I chose to share provides a map to help on the path to discerning legitimate research. It is a webpage targeted to students which includes a succinct table detailing how to tell if your referenced information is “good” or not. It is geared toward K-12 students, but that does not mean it is below my intellect level for usefulness. On the contrary, it provides quick and easy comparisons for optimal judging of validity. The simplicity and clear layout are a breath of fresh air. Convoluted, vocab-ridden, metaphor-manic explanations intended for academic masters are not necessary to accomplish the goal in this particular case.

This Science Buddies webpage about referencing respectable information can enhance the education of MALAT students by reminding us how good information is credibly sourced, recent, unbiased, error-free, properly cited, and simple to find (Science Buddies, 2017). As a bonus, I am simultaneously reminded—indirectly through my personal appreciation of the page’s simplicity—of the goodness of clear communication.

In the most grueling toil of this course which goes by the name of Assignment 2, there was much diving through murky waters while searching for valid information on my chosen topic. Papers shadowed with bias, published scholarly journals full of language errors, and vast claims without citations to researched evidence are notable thorns in the side of good research. With the helpful guidance of the Science Buddies webpage, red-flags are erected for weeding out deviant information while beacons of truth are ablaze to show us the way:

https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science-fair-projects/science-fair/finding-information-for-your-research-paper#keyinfo

 

References

Etchells, P., et al. (January 6, 2017). Screen Time Guidelines should be built on evidence, not hype. The Guardian. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/science/head-quarters/2017/jan/06/screen-time-guidelines-need-to-be-built-on-evidence-not-hype

Kirschner, P. (2017). Stop propagating the learning styles myth. Computers & Education, 106, 166-171.

Science Buddies. (n.d.). Finding information for your research paper. Retrieved from http://website.ca/fullhttps://www.sciencebuddies.org/science-fair-projects/science-fair/finding-information-for-your-research-paper#keyinfo

Research and Scientific Evidence in Search of Truth

Krischner (2017) and Etchells (2017) attempt to dispel hyped-up myths which are not backed by legitimate research. Regardless of my own opinions of each of the authors’ topics, I agree with them both when they state the importance of scientific evidence when making massive claims which can affect many people.

It is an exercise in critical thinking and discernment to swim in the oceans of information available on this connected planet and distinguish what is true. This is an age where a great many individuals have access to technologies such as computers, printers, recording devices and the internet. Anyone with the common means, motivation, and know-how may use these tools to create content. Since the early advent of communications technologies such as the printing press and radio, our predecessors routinely faced a barrier of control by elitist gate-keepers in publishing, mass media, and political propaganda. Although hurdles to communications in those arenas still exist today in many ways, disseminating any subject matter across the internet in particular is now largely a free-for-all. It can be challenging to wade through the endless content available and find accurate and relevant information. Johnson & Christensen (2014) explain the importance of using discernment when seeking truths:

Proof exists in the realms of mathematics and deductive logic, but in science and research, the best we can do is to provide evidence. Sometimes the evidence is very convincing; at other times, it might not be. You must use your critical thinking skills to judge the available evidence on any given topic. These critical thinking skills will be helpful in your studies and professional work as long as you live. (Johnson & Christensen, 2014, p.4).

The American Psychological Association (2010) explains how strict ethical considerations and legal principles are used in scholarly research to achieve the ultimate goals of information accuracy, protecting research participants, and preserving intellectual property rights (p. 11). The rigorous standards of academic research serve to dispense findings which provide more merit, responsibility, reliability, and verifiability than common information such as what is readily available on the internet. Zarah (2017) states the important role research holds for civilization:

The human quest to seek knowledge, satisfy one’s sense of wonder, develop more abilities, connect with others, and understand society is integral to research. Perpetuating truths, as well as debunking lies and myths require inquisitive minds and priceless integrity. As the world continues to evolve, doing research becomes more important (para. 47).

Sound research and scientific evidence are essential tools in the mission to find, identify, create, and spread substantiated and truthful knowledge, theories, understandings, and information.

 

 

References

American Psychological Association. (2010). Publication manual of the American Psychological Association (6th ed.). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

Etchells, P., et al. (January 6, 2017). Screen Time Guidelines should be built on evidence, not hype. The Guardian.

Johnson, R.B., Christensen, L. (2014). Educational Research: Quantitative, Qualitative, and Mixed Approaches. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Kirschner, P. (2017). Stop propagating the learning styles myth. Computers & Education, 106, 166-171.

Zarah, L. (2017, July 3). 7 Reasons Why Research Is Important. Owlcation. Retrieved from https://owlcation.com/misc/Why-Research-is-Important-Within-and-Beyond-the-Academe

The First Steps of Research

Professor and Canada Research Chair Dr. George Veletsianos produced an audio podcast for Master of Arts in Learning and Technology students at Royal Roads University to answer students’ questions about research.

Veletsianos described his first steps when taking on a new research project. This involves stating the questions that need to be answered and then seeking out previous research and projects on the subject to find out what is already known (Veletsianos, 2017).

Veletsianos’ motivations for taking on the considerable task of research stem from new questions which arise from his past research, missing elements and unanswered questions that emerge, as well as from personal accounts heard and publicized stories of continuously resurfacing current societal issues (Veletsianos, 2017).

References

Veletsianos, G. (2017, August 10). George Veletsianos on Research [Audio podcast]. Retrieved from: https://moodle.royalroads.ca/moodle/mod/page/view.php?id=245247

Alternatives to Copying

Copyright manager for Royal Roads University Melanie Wrobel is educated as a librarian, not a lawyer. She can provide information but not legal advice (Wrobel, 2016). The cautionary disclaimer, coming from an individual who deals with copyright issues as a primary function of her job, suggests copyright law can be a complicated, evolving and intimidating subject.

Wrobel created an informative presentation which provides guidance on copyright and offers some helpful alternatives to using copyrighted materials.

Replacement options put forward include providing a link to material instead of copying it, using materials from the public domain, using resources that are open, using citations and paraphrasing, or simply purchasing the copyrighted resource legitimately (Wrobel, 2016).

References

Wrobel, M. (2016, June 13). A Guide to Copyright [Video file]. Retrieved from: https://moodle.royalroads.ca/moodle/mod/page/view.php?id=245370

THE QUEST FOR A QUESTION

I consider myself to be a hyper-motivated and enthusiastic learner. My desire to learn is fuelled by my interest in the specific subjects which I pursue.

There is such an incredibly incomprehensible amount of things to learn and do in our connected universe. Time is limited and precious, so it is impossible to do everything.

In order to justify investing cherished time into research, it is my belief there is one most important and completely non-negotiable must-have for creating a good research question:

The researcher possesses a deep curiosity, interest, enthusiasm, motivation, and/or inspiration for the topic. 

 

Academic Writing Resources

When searching for ingenuity to help with one’s academic writing, one should look no further than academia itself to provide these highly sought-after answers. Academic writing is written by academics for academics, fully academically within academia. Let us discover – directly from the proverbial source – exactly what is expected of us, as academics, whenever we partake in academic writing.

Simon Fraser University’s current (2017) slogan appearing on the header of their website is “engaging the world,” and how better to engage the planet than by openly sharing Academic Writing Resources with all the worldwide web? I choose to help SFU spread this wealth by generously gifting my find to you here today. Simply click on the above link from two sentences ago, and then you too shall be good to go. You’re welcome.

Hungry for more? Central European University displays a plethora of useful tips posted on their Online Writing Resources page. The beauty of this page is: instead of creating and then taking credit for all the posted resources, they link to a multitude of outside sources, mostly universities (very academic indeed) from all over the world. Much like looking at photographs and hearing stories from more-adventurous-than-me friends and family who travel a lot, I can vicariously experience the joys provided within CEU’s worldly links without having to discover it all for myself. Travel the Earth to find the best and the brightest academic writing resources from the world of academia… without leaving your home! ‘Tis very beneficial.

Although I would love to bestow more beneficial wisdom on my readers, I believe it is quite evident from this blog post that the author (myself) could use a plentiful amount of help when academic-ifying my thoughts into respectable and legitimate academic writing. Therefore, I shall leave you all now, and in doing so, I will become free to pursue academic excellence through our abundant, open and communal academic writing resources. May the blessings of academic writing shower you with fortunes and happiness throughout the rest of your days in this big world!

References

Simon Fraser University. (n.d.). Academic Writing Resources. Retrieved from

http://www.lib.sfu.ca/about/branches-depts/slc/writing

Central European University. (n.d.). Online Writing Resources. Retrieved from

https://caw.ceu.edu/online-writing-resources