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Understanding by Design

It was enlightening to attend this training since so many teams are currently developing courses using this framework.  I believe the approach is in sync with FLVS, as it strives to ensure the student is interacting with the key material at the lesson, module and course level.  The planning aspect helps all team members provide input into the framework the course is built upon, while still adhering to the necessary standards.  Many of the topics also rang true to sound instructional design principles.  One of the first discussions we had was the difference between knowledge and understanding.  This immediately reminded me of Bloom's taxonomy, which is IDS 101.  Another component was the need to align objectives, content and assessment.  Providing this clear line of sight makes it easier to evaluate the effectiveness of the course.  

After learning about the framework for UbD, it was nice to work with the Intro to IT team as they revisited their storyboard.  We were able to make great strides with that course, which had been treading water for quite a while.  

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Another great ambassador opportunity for me was to represent FLVS at The Cable Show, the U.S. cable industry's annual conference.  The show was very sizeable, with about 12k people in attendence.  We were in the Community Learning Center section of the industry exhibit with 4 classroom teachers, showcasing all the good that comes from cable’s high-speed access.  Most attendees either worked for a cable company or network.  We learned quickly that we needed something flashy to grab their attention since this wasn’t their primary business.  Conspiracy Code definitely fit the bill, allowing me to talk about our two courses in the game environment, plans for more, then the rest of our catalog and what FLVS offers.  The VIP tours included two founders from Comcast (who had terrific questions), state representatives, FCC staff and many others.  BrightHouse Networks’ CEO came in on his own and talked with me for about 15min.  I could see his wheels turning in regards to the CC product.  

As an aside, I developed the skill of being able to talk about CC and play the game on a 4’x5’ smartboard.  Dizzying at times, but very effective to wow an audience.  I’ve also got my elevator speech ready in 30sec, 1min and 2min increments as needed.  For these participants, I definitely needed to find a way to hook them and grab their attention.  Overall, I think we fit in well with the industry exhibit and gained some good exposure by being at the show.  

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Design Team F2F Meeting

I was excited to hear Joy was receptive to holding focus groups for the IDS and WDS teams back to back so we could have professional development time with both teams together.  It was a challenge, but worthwhile, to come up with a an agenda that focused on the following:

eliciting feedback on successes and challenges

sharing best practices

providing the opportunity for team-building

disseminating updates

After the meeting, it was great to hear how many people felt re-energized by the time together.  I think it helped many projects collect ideas to make their processes more efficient.  English 2 was immediately able to adapt a strategy Sarah shared around analyzing time and tasks, and ensuring team members were accountable for their work.  Additionally, I think allowing individuals to interact and learn more about the personalities of others will help provide a stronger relationship for future projects.

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Presentation on The Secret Handshake of Instructional Design.  

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Judy Brown's presentation from the Learning Solutions conference.  Many great details on how mobile technology is currently being used and implemented in learning.

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Learning Solutions Conference

It was invigorating to attend this conference for the second year in a row.  There were probably double the amount of attendees and many great topics presented.  Some of the common discussions were around:

SMEs

Mobile

Gaming

Social Learning

Semantic Web (Web 3.0)

Web 2.0, Action Script 3.0, HTML 5

Learning Theory and Models

ADDIE, Constructivism, Collaboration

One great thing the conference did was to have presenters meet in the hall at the end of the day to answer any follow-up questions folks had.  This is a brilliant idea more conferences should subscribe to.  

I brought back information on The Secret Handshake of Instructional Design to the team.  The session discussed the current role of the IDS and the different entry points into the profession.  We were able to have some interesting discussion as well as learn how everyone came into their current position.

The other item I shared with the team was ideas on how to create a game-like atmosphere in our courses.  We discussed principles of engagement and the various ways feedback can be presented.  The idea that failure is required is a challenge to the current view of presenting instruction. 

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Manager Skills for First-Time Supervisors

This face-to-face workshop was aimed at supporting new managers on the job. One of the first tasks was to take a leadership style survey, and I was not surprised to learn I have a people-focused style.  Many of the topics covered were items I was aware of, but it's always good to take a step back and get some perspective.  An interesting discussion the group had centered around productivity and building morale.  It was interesting to review data on what motivates employees versus what supervisors think motivates their staff.  Good wages was listed as one of the least effective motivators, while appreciation and achievement were listed as the best motivators.  This topic made for great discussion on the perspective of managers.  An additional benefit of the seminar was being able to talk with Syed Qadri. It was interesting to hear the successes and challenges with his team, which is different in size and focus from my team.  Comparing thoughts on how to best lead was very worthwhile.  

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This site had some great ideas for effective team meetings.  I wanted to change the format from being about information dissemination to a more collaborative discussion.  What I appreciated was that tackling each item would create results.  The following answers what I was hoping to address by reviewing the meeting format:

Provide an opportunity for everyone in the meeting to contribute to the meeting. This means that when there is an agenda item that calls to have the group generate ideas make sure everyone's ideas are heard. When you discuss an issue, everyone gets a say.

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To help meet my goal of implementing Web 2.0 tools, I tried to test and utilize various ones with the team.  When deciding on a book for the IDS book talk, I used fur.ly to easily send out a link to several suggestions.  The site operates like tinyurl, but allows you to aggregate multiple sites into one link.  Some of the ads made it questionable to use with students, but the tool is a great option for use by the team.  

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This was probably one of the most powerful sites I found when researching meeting formats.  The one item which spoke to me was that meetings should not be about updates.  On a couple occasions I took this advice to heart and spent time writing up notes to distribute, then contacted team members individually to discuss any concerns.  A key takeaway from this article is the following:

Since the point of a meeting is two-way communication, it's crucial to get honest input from everyone. Successful companies know that disagreement and debate are healthy signs of a passionate work force. "We require that people speak up and are challenged," says Gary Kelly, CEO of Southwest Airlines. No one should feel afraid to say what they really think, and no one person or group should dominate the discussion.

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One of my goals was to tap into the undocumented knowledge that lived with veteran IDS team members.  I came up with the idea of a FAQ site for design and development to serve as a repository for this tacit information.  It served to be an informal way to collect knowledge rather than formal documentation.  All team members were able to contribute to help build the site.  I used the wiki feature in Sharepoint as the foundation for the site.  I was able to tweak Sharepoint's code to allow for videos and Jings to be embedded.  As current issues arise, I try to capture the ideas and have them flow to the site.  It is still a work in progress, but has served to answer team members' questions many times.  

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Apple Visit

I was privileged to visit Apple Computers with a group of FLVS staff to talk about potential partnerships between our organizations.  The trip coincided with the release of the iPad, which made it a hot topic over the two days we were there.  The first thing which struck me was the reminder at how invested they have been in education.  As one of their four core markets, it was refreshing to realize working with FLVS was not a shift in their objectives or priorities.  

It was exciting to present on some of our latest and greatest courses to their folks.  Apple brought in a variety of staff to highlight items which were relevant to us.  The Podcast Producer application within Mac OS X Server (Snow Leopard) wowed us and got us thinking about many ways we could utilize this technology.  They also shared some lesser known accessibility features built-in to the OS.  I was able to easily create an Automator script to convert text to MP3.  The natural language voice has great potential for auditory learners.  

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FETC 2010

My first ambassador event of the year was to man the FLVS booth at FETC.  I worked alongside an IL and RL, which made it easy for us to steer questions to the right person.  It was a great mix of folks who knew and loved FLVS, those who were skeptical and others who were simply unaware.  Since the Algebra 1 iPhone app had just been released, that was a powerful tool to share with teachers.  They were impressed that it was a general tool to support student learning, not strictly aimed at FLVS students.  

Before I left I was able to help get setup for Julie's presentation.  I helped prep the room and pass out handouts to participants.  There were some technical issues getting her laptop projecting correctly and I was pleased I could assist.  It was a funny memory for me since providing tech support for my bosses at FETC '94 was my introduction to the conference.  

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LCMS Meetings

Although I have acted as an LMS administrator, I did not have any experience working with an LCMS prior to this project.  I came across this site which compares some of the key features of both systems.  

The reusability of content is a key component, and one that we will need to scrutinize in order to truly leverage use of the system.  It will require Curriculum Specialists working together to identify common components used in multiple courses.  This may initially be easy to find within subject areas, but could be challenging from a cross-curriculum viewpoint.

Defining what constitutes a learning object was a difficult, but necessary first step.  Until you know what makes up an LO, you cannot truly proceed in understanding the architecture of courses in the LCMS.  This journal article on reusable learning objects was helpful for me to clarify my vision and contribute to the meetings.  

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This site proved to be a great resource for myself as well as the team.  It aggregates a variety of blogs focused on instructional design, creating a wealth of information on trends and best practices.  Reading this site involved me in ongoing discussion on hot topics in the industry.  It also led me to the Usable Learning blog, which was timely since the author presented at the Learning Solutions conference I attended in March 2010.  

This site does a nice job of collecting upcoming (free) webinars.  I was able to share this with many team members to help them plan and meet their professional development goals.  

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Team Presentations

Two of my goals for the year were to increase cohesion among team members and share relevant information in the field of instructional design.  I attempted to address both of these topics by revamping the team meeting format.  I asked team members to identify one trend or best practice in the industry and present on it solo as with another person.  This shifted how information was disseminated, and let the team know everyone had a specialty or area of expertise.  Often times these presentations tied back to the person's current course project, which allowed them to highlight strategies being implemented.  I believe this approach was very successful and beneficial to the team as well as myself.

I chose to participate and used an approach I borrowed from a CS Manager meeting.  I setup The Great IDS Debate.  The team was divided into two and each group had to argue for or against the topics I shared.  This was challenging since individual's on the team may not personally agree with the approach, but it allowed equal weight to be given to both sides of the issue.  

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Elementary PE - Storyboarding

Attending the Elementary PE storyboarding session was a very eye-opening experience as a new person to Curriculum Services.  The openness and collaborative atmosphere allowed for creativity among the team.  The project SMEs came very prepared for the meeting, having fleshed out the scope and sequence beforehand.  Providing the team with this information, as well as related benchmarks, gave everyone the necessary information to brainstorm ideas.  It was challenging to storyboard the course for three grades simultaneously, but having a team there ensured the specifics in the benchmark wording was followed.  The timing of the session was helpful, allowing me to monitor the development progress moving forward.  Attending this session helped me appreciate the value of including the entire team early in the creative process.  Specific to my role, it was helpful to watch the IDS help lead the session and capture information from the team.