Journal #3

I was struck by this week's readings from Hong, Clinton, and Reiber's "Desinging Creative Interactions." It reminded me of phrases we use in the K-12 arena like "teachable moments" and the project-based learning approach. Teachable moments refers to more spontaneous learning; that is, when a conversation or discussion lends itself to researching and learning new information that may not have been the teacher's original intention, it is considered to be a teachable moment. In my rather short teaching career, these teachable moments have been some of my favorite. The students are the most engaged and involved when it is something they really are curious about, not when it is a contrived, controlled learning environment. The same is true about project-based learning. This learning framework provides some freedom in students' learning. All students can be working on the same type of project, but they can take the project in a direction that most interests them. The Hong, Clinton, and Reiber article very much discusses this same idea in their discussion of the degree of interactions- from "reactive"where the user has very limited control of the learning environment, to "proactive" interactions that put the learner in control of their own learning.

When I think about my project in relation to these ideas, I very much want my project to be more of a "proactive" interaction between the user and the content. I'd love for it to be considered more of a teachable moment kind of instruction, rather than such a purposeful, contrived learning experience. Because I have decided to do video tutorials for teachers on how to create and update their teacher websites, I think it fits into these ideals. The videos will simply be the training for certain features of the program. As teachers encounter problems or have questions about how to do something on their site, they can refer to the videos and then work on their website as they wish. While it is not a part of this project (but is something I'm sure I'll use when I do my Internship either in the Spring or next Fall), I will couple these tutorials with one-on-one assistance. As teachers watch the videos and try their hand at some of the features presented, I will be available to come answer any questions and provide further assistance if needed. I know some members of my grade level have already asked me to present some information at our informal grade-level planning next week, so this will be a good jump start into that kind of learning.

I think this user-based control very much lends itself to more of a "proactive" interaction where teachers can control their own learning, and hopefully I will be able to expand this project into professional development opportunities that contain more of the project-based learning. In conclusion, it is my belief that true learning occurs when the learner is in-tune with the learning process, and when all learning is meaningful. In contrived learning experiences, this is often not the case, and thus, while the learner may "know" the information for a short period of time, they will soon after do what one of my undergrad professors called the "data dump," where information is quickly forgotten.

Hong, Y., Clinton, G., & Rieber, L.P. (2010)

Journal #2

Even though it's not required this week, while I have a moment, I thought I'd share my progress this week. First, I have firmly decided that I will move forward with my previous project idea: to create video tutorials for the OnMyCalendar site. I sent a survey to all the teachers in my school to gauge what types of tutorials would be most beneficial to them, and WOW! Some even said they need help logging in. This will be quite the challenge, but hopefully this will prove to be a useful project for the teachers at my school (and will look good in my portfolio when it comes time to interview for LSTC positions).

Also, I have found (and almost finished) my community service project. My boyfriend's father is a police officer for the city of Maumee in Ohio. Every year, he presents to a group of citizens about some aspect of the police force. This year, he is presenting on accident investigation. He originally called his son (my boyfriend) for help with video editing for the PowerPoint he needed to make for the presentation, and I jumped at the chance to help him! I am compiling his pictures, editing his videos, and putting it all together into a PowerPoint presentation. While I'd love to go a bit more advanced and put it into something like Prezi, I quickly realized that I had to tailor the project to my "client." He is not as technologically advanced as I consider myself to be, and I think Prezi might be too much of a jump for him. Great lesson to learn! Just as Moggridge (2007) mentioned in last week's reading, it's important to consider your people and even go deeper by shadowing them to get a better understanding of their needs. While I am not able to shadow my client, I am able to take my knowledge of his technology capabilities and use that in my creation of the project. Tonight, I finished phase 1 of the project, which included editing all of the videos and putting everything into a PowerPoint. I consider this my "prototype" of sorts. I'd like to make a prototype every day, as Moggridge (2007) suggests, but I'll have to settle for sending him the PowerPoint for him to make suggestions for modifications because of the distance. (See pictures of me working below.... one of all the CDs I had to go through, the other of the 2 computers I was going back-and-forth between!)

From this project, I really learned to consider the needs and capabilities of my client. I had to consider the technical abilities of my client, as well as what hardware/software/internet would be available to him. I got more practice with iMovie and video editing. Overall, it was a great project and learning experience, and it was beneficial to my client, as well!

I feel confident that I have a good start to the Studio class!

Moggridge, B. (2007). Designing interactions. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.