On problem I have is that the student workers in the High School library are often unwilling to clean-up the books and resources. However, this is not an instructional issue, instead it is a performance problem. One way to handle the situation would be incentives, all of the workers want to be able to get a meal off campus, or they want to leave campus for errands and our librarian has legitimate responsibilities at other campuses. One incentive would be that no one leaves unless the book carts are empty and returned.
From a business perspective, a former Nortel Networks executive, William Bezanson (2002) provides a definition linked to application usability and organizational results:
“A performance support system provides just-in-time, just enough training, information, tools, and help for users of a product or work environment, to enable optimum performance by those users when and where needed, thereby also enhancing the performance of the overall business.”
In Electronic Performance Support Systems, published in 1991, Gloria Gery defined EPSS as:
“an integrated electronic environment that is available to and easily accessible by each employee and is structured to provide immediate, individualized on-line access to the full range of information, software, guidance, advice and assistance, data, images, tools, and assessment and monitoring systems to permit job performance with minimal support and intervention by others.”
I like the William Bezanson definition, I like it most because he talks about “Just in time” training and information and I think that we could all use a lot more computer programs that helped us look like experts and produce expert products just in time. On problem that people have with EPSS is that they have little faith that a computer can teach you how to use the computer. They see the machine as daunting and fragile; however, when you use a EPSS it almost implies trial and error activities that have been terrifying for teachers and managers alike. You can definitely see more EPSS in the future, younger generations will equate them to video games and vReaders.
One problem is that students move from class to class and they are not approached holisticly, I might have a student that receives bad news in first period, but this does not reach the second period teacher and they treat the outbursts of behavior as “emerging.” It would be better if we had training on how to see students’ behaviors as cumulative and progressing; and included we could collaborate in teams for a certain set of students, we would all share the same students and we could discuss progressing problems, emerging positive changes, and patterns in learning. Also, the teachers all could look for ways to connect to the students and parents in a more effective and sincere way.
My grandmother taught me how to make “Aunt Nell’s Homemade Ketsup” and I have saught out my mom to get her to teach me how to make jelly and can. I wanted to learn these things because I knew that if I did not learn they would be lost to our family along with the family stories that are tied to these experiences. With my grandmother, it was a wonderful experience, she is a capable teacher and she wants to have the learner, grandchildren, participate as much as possible. Grandmother is slow, steady and intense, so I can still write about the experience and the recipe even three years later with vivid language and great detail. Mom does not like to share her kitchen space, so she has to not watch. Instead, she explains the recipe in detail oversees preparation and then leaves you to “independent study. She comes back to evaluate the finished product or answer a question, but it means that she will take back over and you must watch. Oddly both experiences were engaging, one left a clear memory of a collaborative effort and the other taught me the muscle memory of the activity. What I found in both cases was that the fact that my products were needed by the family and immediately relevant made the learning easier to assimilate; where as I have read and listened to lectures and not been able to apply the information a month, a week, even a day later.
Sunday, November 28, 2010
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
Section 3: Evaluating, Implementing and Managing Instructional Programs and Projects
Constructivist Evaluation (or Fourth Generation Evaluation)
This is a form of evaluation that suggests that all people need to be involved in instructional evaluation. Since, our experiences are assumed independent of any foundational truth, and our understanding of stimulus depends on prior knowledge and sophistication to use that knowledge, we must use a hermeneutic-dialecticism, a process of discovery and negotiation, to evaluate education. In other words, everyone sees the world as they see it. So, it is important for evaluators of education to include all the people who are touched by the education process. Then the group works out a system to determine the essential criteria and the standard to meet the criteria. This is followed by a report from the evaluator that inducts this meeting of stakeholders into further rounds of discussion. The benefit is that no one is left out, evulation is on-going, and the group is ultimately responisible to itself. The down side is that it adds hour of hard work to everyone’s schedule, and it leaves room for students and other to shut down since this is a confrontational debate. I might use this in parent/student/teacher conferences and I might use it departmentally, but sparingly.
Key Evaluation
This form of evaluation is centered on facilitating the client to develop the ideal for the instruction, thus allowing the evaluator to determine true merit, worth, and significance. Merit is define as the internal value that someone places on something, worth is defined oppositly as the value that is given by the community and significance is the intensity of merit and worth. So, a restaurant’s to-go service may have low merit for the employee’s and high worth to the customer, but the manager/owner ascribes the significance.
In Key evaluation the evaluator elicits (m/w/s) and the essential processes needed to function and then the evaluator devises the test and method of evaluation, carries out the methodology, and reports the results. This system shares many points ontologically and epstimologicly with fourth generation evaluations, but it differs in that the client is considered as the only necessary source of input and no consensus is necessary, though the process is ongoing. I would use this sort of evaluation measure first year of performance.
A recent technological innovation at the Riggs house was the inclusion of Netflix movies on the Wii. My wife and I decided to add the service to our household. It provided the relative advantages of on-demand movies and television, and it allowed us to lower spending in the household, since we downgraded cable. Unexpectedly, we have found that this practice also limits the amount of time our children watch television and cuts out commercials, definitely adds to the adoption. The compatibility was a plus, too! We already enjoyed movies and used Netflix, but the system was complex! We had to sync our wireless router and the Wii, we then took several days to receive the software, etc. Finally the screen is difficult to navigate and the movie selection is limited. Overall however the system is adaptable to all member of the household and everyone finds reasons to watch, so I would say Netflix on the Wii is defiantly institutionalized here.
This is a form of evaluation that suggests that all people need to be involved in instructional evaluation. Since, our experiences are assumed independent of any foundational truth, and our understanding of stimulus depends on prior knowledge and sophistication to use that knowledge, we must use a hermeneutic-dialecticism, a process of discovery and negotiation, to evaluate education. In other words, everyone sees the world as they see it. So, it is important for evaluators of education to include all the people who are touched by the education process. Then the group works out a system to determine the essential criteria and the standard to meet the criteria. This is followed by a report from the evaluator that inducts this meeting of stakeholders into further rounds of discussion. The benefit is that no one is left out, evulation is on-going, and the group is ultimately responisible to itself. The down side is that it adds hour of hard work to everyone’s schedule, and it leaves room for students and other to shut down since this is a confrontational debate. I might use this in parent/student/teacher conferences and I might use it departmentally, but sparingly.
Key Evaluation
This form of evaluation is centered on facilitating the client to develop the ideal for the instruction, thus allowing the evaluator to determine true merit, worth, and significance. Merit is define as the internal value that someone places on something, worth is defined oppositly as the value that is given by the community and significance is the intensity of merit and worth. So, a restaurant’s to-go service may have low merit for the employee’s and high worth to the customer, but the manager/owner ascribes the significance.
In Key evaluation the evaluator elicits (m/w/s) and the essential processes needed to function and then the evaluator devises the test and method of evaluation, carries out the methodology, and reports the results. This system shares many points ontologically and epstimologicly with fourth generation evaluations, but it differs in that the client is considered as the only necessary source of input and no consensus is necessary, though the process is ongoing. I would use this sort of evaluation measure first year of performance.
A recent technological innovation at the Riggs house was the inclusion of Netflix movies on the Wii. My wife and I decided to add the service to our household. It provided the relative advantages of on-demand movies and television, and it allowed us to lower spending in the household, since we downgraded cable. Unexpectedly, we have found that this practice also limits the amount of time our children watch television and cuts out commercials, definitely adds to the adoption. The compatibility was a plus, too! We already enjoyed movies and used Netflix, but the system was complex! We had to sync our wireless router and the Wii, we then took several days to receive the software, etc. Finally the screen is difficult to navigate and the movie selection is limited. Overall however the system is adaptable to all member of the household and everyone finds reasons to watch, so I would say Netflix on the Wii is defiantly institutionalized here.
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
Section 2: Theories and Models of Learning and Instruction.
I will want to teach my students how to read and analyze poems and poetry. I want incorporate Schema Theory and Situated Cognition to teach this skill set. Since, comprehension and analysis of poetry can happen on many levels schema theories ideas on narrated visuals, presentation of simple to complex ideas and students working on half-finished issues would allow us to build from a simple idea like identifying rhyme scheme to more complex systems of naming verse and meter. While situated cognition helps the students develop as a community, students who are ahead of our target can be challenged to teach and share with students under the target. Learning in the community can be powerful.
Neo, T., & Neo, M. (2009). Using Gagne's Instructional Design in a Computer Graphics Course: Malaysian Students' Perceptions and Attitudes. International Journal of Learning, 16(11), 373-386. Retrieved from Education Research Complete database. 
This is an incredibly helpful amount of research, I have had a couple of “Ah, Ha!” moments. I noted that motivation is a strong part of my philosophy of education, but I had not been able to articulate what I wanted to focus on. Now I have a few different ideas to pursue as I develop my classes and incorporate TEKS into the lesson. Also, I like the ideas in mathemagenics! Defiantly.
Saturday, November 13, 2010
Defining the Field
All of the definitions that the book talked about all hope to do the same thing: explain to our mother’s what we do, and explain to our father or spouse how we think we will make money doing it. I am not joking, talking about the “emerging field of Instructional Design and Technology” is so important, because unlike doctor, lawyer, and teacher; no one has any idea what an instructional designer or a educational technology specialist does- not to mention the fact that is smacks of A/V club sponsor.
Worse, though very few no what we are doing; every teacher needs help learning how to utilize modern instructional design and technology. So, what is it? Are we just the sorters of the media: librarians, overhead projector clerks, and laptop watchdogs? Are we (as popular in 1950s, 60s, and 70s) some subset of anthropologist studying the process that the class uses when they get new chalk and blackboards in the room? Don’t even think of handing Mom Instructional Technology: The Definitions and Domains of the Field, and not hearing about how your childhood friend is making a name for themselves as a podiatrist. No, we need a simple clear definition that reassures our loved ones and focuses us.
Instructional Design and Technology is studying how students learn, teachers teach, and what tools we can use to make the process as successful as possible. We can take our expertise into the classroom, the administration office, the district/regional/state level, or even out on the practice field. There will always be a need for people who study our educational system and how the tools we use can be best applied.
Instructional Design in Freshman English
The internet and the World Wide Web will not be leaving anytime soon, they will only become more attuned to our real world lives and gather more purpose. In K-12 we will see teachers cashing in on the use of social networks and personal communication devices to teach, because as current college students and high school students enter the work force they will continue to demand jobs that integrate their technologies. Already schools see the attractive benefits of issuing laptops to students; we can expect this to lead to textbooks being replaced with eBooks and instructional video games. Blogs and wikis will replace papers and hardcopies for my class; and this also will let parents have a new level of interaction at school.
Worse, though very few no what we are doing; every teacher needs help learning how to utilize modern instructional design and technology. So, what is it? Are we just the sorters of the media: librarians, overhead projector clerks, and laptop watchdogs? Are we (as popular in 1950s, 60s, and 70s) some subset of anthropologist studying the process that the class uses when they get new chalk and blackboards in the room? Don’t even think of handing Mom Instructional Technology: The Definitions and Domains of the Field, and not hearing about how your childhood friend is making a name for themselves as a podiatrist. No, we need a simple clear definition that reassures our loved ones and focuses us.
Instructional Design and Technology is studying how students learn, teachers teach, and what tools we can use to make the process as successful as possible. We can take our expertise into the classroom, the administration office, the district/regional/state level, or even out on the practice field. There will always be a need for people who study our educational system and how the tools we use can be best applied.
Instructional Design in Freshman English
The internet and the World Wide Web will not be leaving anytime soon, they will only become more attuned to our real world lives and gather more purpose. In K-12 we will see teachers cashing in on the use of social networks and personal communication devices to teach, because as current college students and high school students enter the work force they will continue to demand jobs that integrate their technologies. Already schools see the attractive benefits of issuing laptops to students; we can expect this to lead to textbooks being replaced with eBooks and instructional video games. Blogs and wikis will replace papers and hardcopies for my class; and this also will let parents have a new level of interaction at school.
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