15/5 for week of 4/13

15/5 for week of 4/13

1.       I am the instruction designer; so I have been monitoring the course development and contributing content as needed.  This week I spent about 2 hours brainstorming and documenting potential activities that would support attitude domain learning and another hour and a half looking through and noting pages in the client’s assets for specific references to a few of our instruction points. 

At the beginning of the week, I met with our Project Leader to record some video vignettes to include in the course.  He had scripted out ideas for each and had sourced some adult students to role play high school students and a Teacher Candidate.  We spent a little less than an hour recording. 

I think that my content obligations are complete, but am remaining flexible and open if my teammates need more input from me.

2.       What did I do?    I also helped our Project Leader record small vignettes to be included in the course content.  Also, the Developer and Project Leader said that we needed more content for our module that focused on attitude learning domain.  They asked for the material by early in the weekend, so they could complete the course draft by Sunday night and send to the client for review.

What was important about what I did?  Did I meet my goals?  Video material is a good way to visually and audibly present information to the learner, helping to reduce cognitive load, providing the learner with a visual example to follow, and is more easy to recall than text.  So in contributing these files to our course, I have met this goal.  Also the attitude learning domain is better achieved with the learner experiencing something rather than reading, listening or watching a presentation.  Therefore I brainstormed activities that called for discussion between the TC/PIM pair, self-reflection or role-playing.  I hope that these ideas would simulate an experience and lead the pair to attitude shifts.  I outlined several ideas because I think that this kind of instruction benefits from multiple perspectives evaluating, filtering and creating the lesson.

When did I do this before?  Where could I use this again?  I could definitely source local people to create a setting for a picture or video development.  It turned out quite well.  As for the brainstorming, that is a method that I frequently use to address problems.  The only drawback to that method is that sometimes I need help in filter out which ideas are worth keeping. 

Do I see any patterns or relationships in what I did?  Brainstorming is not an especially efficient process.  I provided 5 activity ideas hoping that one or two would be considered good enough to include in the lesson module or at least starting points for further development.  But it is a good process for first draft idea generation.

How well did I do?  What worked?  What do I need to improve?  I did generate some ideas and intentionally did not filter them.  I looked to my teammates to help me sort out which of the ideas would be most valuable.  I am also scripting out some video ideas for a work project.  It definitely helps to have a plan of what to show, for how long, etc. 

What should I do next?  What’s my plan / design?  I am learning more every week how to better use my video editor.  When this course if finished, there are several free courses on the Adobe website.  Some are take-at-your-own-pace, some are MOOC formats.  Then of course there are tons of tutorial videos which is what I have been depending on so far.  I don’t know how to improve my brainstorming process, except to be open to other people’s opinions.

15/5 for week of 4/6

1.       I am the Instruction Designer; so I have been monitoring the course development and contributing as needed.  This week I tackled the task of cutting up the client’s video into segments that would fit into our online course.  The client’s video assets are VOB file format; I was surprised to find that this format is not workable in my video editor (Adobe Premier Pro), so I had to find a way to convert the file format to one that is accepted in that program.  At the time, I was not at all familiar with that process.  I spent about 3 hours researching conversion options.  The first converter that I downloaded did not work well; I wasted about an hour on that option.  My second choice worked fine and the conversion itself was quick—about 30 minutes total.

Once the files were converted, I cut the video into sections for the developer to use.  The sections were an introduction, Why Co-Teach, Implementing Co-Teaching, an introduction to the strategies and the seven strategies themselves.  That took me about an hour and a half.

Once the files were converted, I cut the video into sections for the developer to use.  The sections were an Introduction, Why Co-Teach, Implementing Co-Teaching, an introduction to the strategies and the seven strategies themselves.  That took me about an hour and a half.

I think that my obligations are complete, but am remaining flexible and open if my teammates need more input from me.

2.       What did I do?  My teammates and I decided that these video segments would be valuable in the online course, but in sections and not as a whole.  I got it completed in a reasonable timeframe so they could work with it.

What was important about what I did?  Did I meet my goals?  Videos are a great visual and audio presentation because it sets an example for the learner to easily remember and imitate.  However, my understanding was week because I underestimated the format discrepancy that my video editor was limited by.  After studying the conversion process, I understand the file formats a bit better and have a downloaded converter to use again.  I met my goals.

When did I do this before?  Where could I use this again?  This was my first encounter with file format conversion, but I’ve researched many software options on various topics.  I looked for reviews of the providers and found an article that highlighted their top ten favorite video converters and listed pros and cons for each.  I also looked into working with free vs paid providers and verified on the providers’ websites which ones converted VOB format.  So the process of specifying questions that I want answered and looking for a review article are pretty standard method for me and definitely are tools that I will go back to.  The video conversion is definitely a skill that I could employ anytime I have purchased video footage that I want edit.

Do I see any patterns or relationships in what I did?  My pattern is looking for an expert and finding out their opinion and going with that.  I find it difficult to try every option myself looking for the best fit.  That is a much quicker way for me to get my work done.

How well did I do?  What worked?  What do I need to improve?  I spent quite a lot of time looking into the video conversion process.  It turns out there are tons of options out there and I didn’t want to fool around with grade B processes.  So it was time consuming to do the research, but I think that trial and error is more time consuming and definitely more headache building.  I think I did ok on it and on the timing.

What should I do next?  What’s my plan / design?  I research video file formats this summer after the course is over and plan to make myself a cheat sheet---of what the various file formats are for, pros and cons of each.  I have in my mind that I would like to make an infographic and post it on LinkedIn.  At the very least, I will make a table with the information for myself.