EDTECH 501 Reflection

As with  many moments in life, when you first start out you think it's going to take forever to get to the end.  Then when you are at the end, you marvel at how quickly the time has passed.  That is how I feel about this semester.  

As I reflect on the last 16 weeks I remember the anxiety of wondering if I'm ever going to master APA or be able to manage my time so I complete the assignments by the deadline.  I can also now reflect on how much I have learned, even though a lot of the time felt like playtime as we looked at different technologies.  

Coming from a business environment I found it fascinating learning what happens in a school environment and the challenges teachers face everyday to help future generations learn and be prepared for entering the workforce.  I have a brand new admiration for teachers and know that our children are in great hands.  I also appreciated observing the passion for education many of my classmates expressed.  I felt akin to them because even though I work in a business environment I have the same passion and struggle with the same issues.  Seeing that connection between an school environment and a business environment was the most beneficial and mind expanding aspect of this course for me.  

The biggest challenge I faced in this course was learning APA.  I hadn’t used it before so I struggled with understanding and applying it to my papers.  The resources presented to us in this class though helped me double check my referencing and hopefully as I progress in this degree I might feel more confident in referencing.   Other challenges were trying to balance work, life and assignments.  I had to travel for work a few times this semester, so completing some assignments were more of a challenge than others when I realized that Google Drive doesn't work on my company issued laptop.  Thankfully the second time I had to travel I had already completed most of my assignment for that week and when I returned home I was able to submit my assignment on time.

My favorite artifact was my HapYak video I authored even though I didn't end up using it as my submitted artifact for that week's assignment.  I ended up doing a few more videos and we recently showed them to our Talent Management Director who thought they were fantastic.  We are now going to look into possibly purchasing HapYak so we can present information to our employees in this light hearted format rather than via email.  Plus I liked it because it made me giggle.

This course has opened up my mind in regards to how we might be able to be more creative with inserting technology in our current learning and development curriculum.  We don't necessarily need to make huge investments in technology but by just being strategic and infusing technology into our programs we can make learning more interactive and engaging for our learners.

I thoroughly enjoyed this course and loved getting to know my classmates.

Enjoy your summer!

Course Syllabus

School/Business Evaluation Summary

Our last assignment for EDTECH 501 was to rate a school or business based on the Technology Maturity Model.  Because I'm not based in a school, the thought of trying to apply this to a business setting initially seemed overwhelming.  However, as I learned more about the Technology Maturity Model I realized, as with many concepts in this program, they also can be applied to a business setting.

Center Square is ranked overall in the Intelligent level of technology integration, mainly because technology is used as part of the day-to-day work of its employees.  While technology is accessible to all employees that doesn't always translate into utilization of the technology.  Training employees to better utilize and have adequate access to technology already within the company is a challenge that Center Square needs to address.
Because of Center Square's large employee population, innovative technologies cannot be implemented easily.    This creates a barrier for our employees who are trying to deliver innovative and creative solutions to our clients.

I found this project interesting and challenging as I initially thought Center Square would rank as Integrated.  However, after going through the matrix with some of my colleagues I realized that while we still have some way to go in our use of technology, we are more technologically integrated than I had thought.  We are lacking in areas of training and innovation, however, these areas we are actively addressing and hope to improve on in the coming years.  In five years time it would be helpful to perform this analysis again to see if our ranking has improved, especially in some of the behavioral areas.


School/Business Evaluation Summary
Maturity Benchmarks Survey

Digital Inequality

Digital Divide and Digital Inequality

Our assignment this week was to look at our school or workplace and identity three areas of digital divide and digital inequality.

Working at a company where everyone is issued a computer, it was a challenge to identify any digital divide, however, identifying digital inequality was quite easy.  We have just finished rolling out our annual compliance training globally so there were many examples fresh in my mind.  Having learners with slow internet connections, and accessing the online trainings via tablets really highlighted the digital inequality in our company.

So while we had been living with digital inequality in our workplace, we had not attached the label to the issues we faced and weren't aware of other possible factors that impact digital inequality.

This assignment has made me more aware of those factors and has prompted me to start  brainstorming with my colleagues on how we design our training initiatives and mitigate or reduce the digital inequality we have experienced recently.

The presentation below outlines the three areas of digital divide we experienced during our training roll out and constitutes a lessons learned document that we can use as part of our project debriefs.

Click here to access the presentation.

Tech Trends

Our assignment this week was to investigate a tech trend that was outlined in the Horizon Report.

I chose to focus on online learning, hybrid and collaborative learning, and looked at how the site HapYak (www.hapyak.com) can make online learning interactive and controllable by the learner.

HapYak enables you to add chapters, annotations and quizzes to make videos interactive and engaging.  The site also provides analytics about learner activity on each of these options.  

For my artifact I recorded a video using Camtasia to teach our corporate learners about the resources available to them, and how they can navigate to find the right resource for their professional development.  This was imported to YouTube and then using HapYak I defined chapters so learners can click on the chapters link to skip to a section if they don't wish to view the whole video.

Link to HapYak video: HapYak Interactive Video

I enjoyed using the HapYak site even though it did take me a few attempts to get my video to load and understand how it works (unfortunately there aren't any how-to videos on the site).  Once you have an understanding of how it works though it's very simple and easy to use.  Using this will make it easier for a learner to skip over sections they may already be familiar with, and to concentrate on those sections they want to learn more about.  In an online teaching environment where videos are used, this would be a great tool to incorporate into training programs.  I plan to look into this further and possibly use in some of our corporate online training courses.


Side note:  For the creation of my video I had originally looked at GoAnimate (www.goanimate.com).  Unfortunately with a free account they only allow you to create 30 second videos.  They are great though and a lot of fun to use.  If you have a situation where you just need a 30 second video then this is a great tool.  Click here to see my original video.

NMC Horizon Report: 2013 K-12 Edition

Our assignment this week was to read the 2013 New Media Consortium Horizon K-12 report and answer key questions about the listed trends and technologies.  Coming from a corporate learning background I found the application of technologies in an education environment to be comparable.  Many of the emerging technologies outlined are also being used in a corporate setting, so this report was thought-provoking.

While all of the emerging technologies presented were interesting, the one that resonated with me in a business environment is the use of mobile learning.  Because this technology is so accessible, designing and implementing resources that our employees can access while commuting or watching their kid's soccer game could be of substantial benefit to our company.  If we could work out how to develop our compliance training courses so they are accessible on mobile devices, or to develop an app which lets learners know about upcoming classes, it hopefully would increase engagement from our learners.

Click here to view my response to this report.

EDTECH Research

Our assignment this week was to write an instructional objective, conduct research and write an annotated bibliography to support this objective.  This was my first time writing an instructional objective in a formal manner as most of the time the objective of what I'm trying to teach is clear in my head and those I work with.  So this was a good exercise to really think about and articulate what it was we are trying to achieve.

Using Google Scholar to conduct the research was wonderful.  The interconnectivity with Google Drive is great and I can see if you are working in an academic setting this could become a favorite resource.  I also enjoyed delving into our own Albertson's library and looking for articles.

While the tools used to research were easy to use, deciding on which articles to use in this assignment was tough.  I decided to chose articles that represented the case for e-Learning in a corporate setting, but also highlighted the complexity of rolling out e-Learning in a global corporate environment.  Learning to work collaboratively with your IT and communication colleagues, and gaining management buy in to any training can be challenging and I found one particular article that resonated with me about the importance of these relationships.   This article I plan to share with my learning and development colleagues as something we can attain to.
Overall, I enjoyed this assignment and look forward to digging deeper into this subject.

Click here to view my EDTECH Research

RSS in Education

Our assignment for week 5 was to produce a tutorial about RSS and how you might use RSS in a learning environment.  Coming from a corporate environment I focused on how my team might be able to incorporate RSS as part of our learning programs and resources.

Developing the tutorial was a challenge as learning how to use Camtasia was not intuitive, so I’m thankful for the helpful tutorials TechSmith offers.  I also wanted to use some of the editing features a bit too much and had to tone it down so that whoever viewed my tutorial didn’t feel sick. 

This was a fun project, and one that challenged me to write out a script rather than doing things on the fly as I normally do when I conduct online training or develop eLearning.  I have a new appreciation for video editors, as working with Camtasia showed me how much is actually involved in producing even a short video.

I enjoyed this week’s assignment and hope to be able to use Camtasia again for other projects. 

Elements of Educational Technology

Elements of Educational Technology

The assignment this week was to read the definition of Educational Technology by the Association for Educational Communications and Technology (AECT).  Within this definition the AECT also outlined thirteen key elements that support this definition, of which we had to select three we felt were most important to this subject.  I found selecting just three elements challenging as all elements are important, so I decided to focus on those elements I believe are most important in a corporate setting, and specifically the corporate setting in which I work.  In my corporate world the elements of Use, Appropriate and Resources are of greatest importance at the moment.

Reading this paper confirmed to me that Educational Technology is a complex subject and it is always evolving.  Just when you think you have it defined another innovation will come along that redefines this subject.  I found it interesting to note this paper was drafted in 2004, and I wondered how the impact of social media will change the definition of Educational Technology in 2014 and beyond.

Welcome!

G'day, my name is Andrea Adera and this is my learning log for the Masters in Educational Technology degree at Boise State University.  The purpose of this log will be to share ideas, artifacts and record my experience as I progress through this program.  I look forward to learning new skills, discovering new ways to apply technology to education, and most of all getting to know my fellow classmates.

Originally from Australia, I'm now living in sunny south Texas and working for a global consulting firm as a Senior Learning and Development Specialist.  When I'm not working I like to cook and entertain friends.

I'm looking forward to reflecting on this log as I near the end of my degree to see all of the amazing things I have learned as part of this program.  I'm excited about the journey this degree will take me on and hope you will join me on the path every now and then.

Cheers