- What was the most surprising thing that you learned by participating in the design thinking process and designing and developing your digital learning resource?
- Nothing really surprised me during the process I wouldn’t say, but I guess I didn’t really expect the responses I got, not anticipate embarking on the direction I ended up taking my design during the empathy phase. I thought i had a pretty good handle on what my colleagues would need, and what they were up against, but the degrees of technological and pedagogical aptitude varied quite dramatically. As a result, I had to scaffold instruction for the various instructional objectives I hoped to achieve with my digital learning tool(DLT).
- What suggestions and improvements did you receive? Did you get any feedback that you did not expect? What feedback needs further investigation?
- The initial feedback from my instructor was helpful, but some suggestions were not tenable due to the medium chosen. Google Classroom is a rigid tool, thatoffers some flexibility, but very little customiseability. This was coupled by the fact that Google Classroom itslef underwent a major design overhaul the weekend after I submitted my final tool. This meant many of the features and instructional modules were not where I had set them initially, and may not have even been found by the instructor, nor by my fellow cohorts evaluating my resource.
- Feedback from my colleagues cited my inclusion of useful resources, but without providing practical applications, they noted that the bias from the application provider they would be exposed to would be significant. I agree with this assessment, and had previously planned to address this issue with hands on activity suggestions, but in the time allotted for the whole activity, I did not have time to put this all together. It is good to see at least that my evantual intent was at least on the same page as my evaluator.
- Further feedback indicated that my modular instructions were at times too broad, and needed more focus. While I was aware of this in part during the design, my evaluator did orovide me with soem useful suggestions that I could apply to future iterations of this tool that would make it more user friendly, and objective focussed.
- What are the next steps you would like to take to build upon your digital learning resource?
- I would like to continue to add and develop resources and modules to it to make it a more functional DLT with a broader reach. Because I am in a position to continue to do so in my day to day practice, I expect that I will be able to do so.
- Building on the feedback from my evaluator, I plan to only put forth more clear and complete elements of this tool, to provide it as a more practical and user ready resource, that focuses learning a bit better.
Category: LRNT 527
My Design Plan Prototype – Unit 2 Activity 3
To make sure I am ticking off all the boxes, I am just going to leave the format of the activity here. to guide my discussion.
- Description: The school I work with is implementing a BYOD scheme for grade 10 and 11 next year. My didgital resource will help teachers manage this change by providing them with both digital resource training and pedagogical training.
- Learning Goals: I would like the users to achieve a consistent and common minimum comfort level with both digital resource usability and digital learning pedagogy to promote effective digital learning in the classroom.
- Intended Audience: The primary audience will be secondary school teachers at my school, but secondary beneficiatries will be the students who are partaking in the BYOD program, the design will help to ensure the smotthness of transition for them as well.
- Rationale: I have alredy identified that my users need more support with this transition than initially anticipated. The users have little to no background in effective digital pedagogy, and very limited technological experience period. I plan to use Google Classroom as hub for a variety of digital tools that will help familiarise the users with the medium that the school is asking us to use (GSuite for Education) and will also provide the ability to link other tools and tutorials to this centralised resource location.
- Tools: I will be using Google Classroom as my centralising hub, but within this will be a variety of links to other resources, including video tutorials and links to to other digital learning tools.
- Google Classroom was chosen because it in itself will be used by the student users to manage their learning , so by using it as the central hub of my digital tool, it forces the teacher users to also be familiar with it. While Google Classroom is limited in that it is not a complete LMS, it does offer a variety of flexibility within the context of the school, which has “gone Google” and is pusing teachers ans Students to be familiar withthe platform. provide a summary of the tools that you will use to develop your digital learning resource and clearly justify why you would like to use them.
- Assessment Plan: Some of the activities will able to be assessed by completion of the assignments themselves, for example: an assignment that requires students to demonstrate knowledge of pedagogical awareness, would ask them to design an activity using the digital tools they have been shown how to use. I have considered having the users also create and deliver a lesson to be taught to the other users, this would give them the opportunity to practice what they have learned, and it would also give the other users an opportunity sit on the side of the student learners, which should help them empathise with their end users. Ultimate satisfactory completion of the skills will be evaluated by me.
- Learning Theories & Instructional Design Principles Used: Digital learning in the k-12 sector requires knowledge of constructivist learning theory. This is the theory which this learning tool will hope to root its instruction in. By having users both create resources, and use resources created by other users, empathy will be kept front and center throughout the process, hopefully leading to a better overall user experience.
- Instructions for Use: The adult users will be required to work through a series of “assignments” that will be loaded on the Google Classroom site. These activities will include a variety of tutorials to support further learning, and learly and concisely outline instructions for how learners will use your digital learning resource.
- Plan for Use: The Google Classroom site will be public to all who have a Google account, and the appropriate access code, whoch will be provided by me.
Tool Choices for my Digital Learning Tool – Activity 2
My digital learning tool needs to be flexible as it will be utilised by edicators of various levels of ability and tech-savvyness – if that is even a word? Because I am in an educational setting, I will utlise Google Classroom to manage a variety of digital learnng resources, including both pedagogical and practical learning aids.
As far as a framework goes, I feel that the technological pedagogical and content knowledge (TPACK) framework is ideal because it is all encompassing. I need a tool that will not just highlight technological tools, but also help instil the pedagogical knowledge that is required for implementing technology, and not just means to figure out the various digital tools available. My users need to know how this technology is going to impact their practice, and how they can best maintain their effectiveness as digital educators.
“Teachers need to master more than the subject matter they teach; they must also have a deep understanding of the manner in which the subject matter (or the kinds of representations that can be constructed) can be changed by the
application of particular technologies” (2013).
I felt that the substitution, augmentation, modification and replacement (SAMR) framework was too specific to focussing on the using digital technology for the sake of using digital technology, or was too focussed on replacing “old school” technologies rather than charting a course that looked at how digital technology could be used alongside existing technology, and how it could grow and change with the existing educational platforms and mediums that have been around for centuries. TPACK I also felt would help my users better make the tranistion to digital teaching because it does embed pedagogy in the process rather that just showing off a bunch of flashy new digital tools that can be used for learning.
Koehler M. J., Mishra P., & Cain, W. (2013). What Is technological pedagogical content knowledge (TPACK)? Journal Of Education, 193(3), 13-19.
Creating Empathy in Design
For my digital learning tool, I plan to create some sort of library of resources to help my colleagues to navigate a shift toward teaching in a BYOD environment, and to also help our students navigate the same transition.
I understand the concept of empathy better when it comes to my colleagues, since I too will be making this transition along with them. According to Kouprie and Visser (2009) having an emotional/affective response to my colleagues’ emotional state, and being able to reflect on that by assuming a similar cognitive perspective seem to be the core mechanism of empathy. Since I am experiencing the exact same thing as my colleagues, empathising with them is more straight forward since I can inform my design based on my own experiences.
Where I think I will struggle more is with empathising with our students. Teeneagers today have grown up with technology, and I know that in Canada for the most part, technology is a large part of formal classroom based education. Students, in general, know how to use Google Apps for Education, Microsoft Office, and are familiar with many web 2.0 tools like Prezi and Mind Meister. In Colombia, this is not necessarily true. While most of these students have been exposed to all of these tools, very few have been shown how to use them, or had any significant amount of time spent using them as an educational tool in a classroom setting. Shifting to a device and student centred learning platform for them will be a big leap, and I am not sure how best to prepare them for it.
I plan to make a series of short video tutorials about how to use applications efficiently in a school setting, but I am not sure how best to address the training to help them to think differently, and for themselves: somethng they are not currently doing with any degree of success.
Part of the issue, I realise, is the ESL barrier. My students are at varying levels of English proficiency. They all speak it well, but I am never sure how much of what I say actually gets absorbed. For the most part I feel like Charlie Brown’s teacher “waw waw, waw waw waw wah.”
I know this because after I am done my increasingly brief instructions and ask “are there any questions?” (there never are) there is a calamity of Spanish discussions as the more able students regurgitate what I have just said in Spanish to the less capable students. I know that there is some empathetic insight to be gained here. I understand that language is part of the barrier to general understanding, and I can empathise with this on a personal level, because even though I have been here a year, my Spanish is pretty shoddy. So I can relate to what it means to not understand.
However, I could really use some proactive insight to move me forward regarding pratical ideas for designing solutions that are rooted in empathy. How do I enable my students to gain independence and confidence in their navigation of digital learning resources? Video tutorials are a start, but how do I ensure comprehension of text based digital resources without standing there and spoon-feeding them? This is ultimately my empathetic design challenge, and any advice or insight would be greatly welcomed and appreciated!
References
Kouprie, M., & Visser, F. S. (2009). A framework for empathy in design: Stepping into and out of the user’s life. Journal of Engineering Design, 20(5), 437-448.