RDobrzelewski EDT 5410 Class Blog

EDT 5410 Week 6 Google Docs Online Collaboration I chose to collaborate with a work colleague for the Google Docs Online Collaboration mini-project. We will offer training next month for the worldwide Fix Your Content Day with Blackboard Ally. It's an opportunity for us to work directly with faculty to highlight the importance of making content accessible for all students. We host a workshop where we explain what accessibility is, demonstrate features in Blackboard, and give them time to work on their courses. This project gave my co-worker and me a start on some initial brainstorming about what we need to prepare for that day. I have used Google Docs previously and have shared the document with others in link form. Our university is not what is referred to as a "Google school," and our IT Department strongly dislikes the use of it for security reasons. Due to this, I have not collaborated with someone on the same document in Google, though I have through MS Teams. Spoil...

By Renee Dobrzelewski EDT 5410 Week 6 Reflections The essence of Chp. 7 is that one way to develop better instructional designers is to ensure their education addresses learners' cognitive and emotional needs while examining well-designed instructional products through reflective activities. It also helps to encourage novice designers to really examine a problem and possibly shake things up to come up with creative solutions. Fortney also suggests academic projects should be constructed in a way that design learners have to work through constraints and ambiguity. Boling concurs with Fortney’s views but goes one step further to push the idea that ID practitioners should be helping the field evolve by documenting and sharing examples of design for others to observe. She also thinks practitioners should be interacting with academic instructional design programs through internship opportunities, and as guest speakers or visiting scholars. Fortney does challenge one of Boling’s assumpti...

  Take a Ride on the Orient Express This activity is designed for high school students in an English Literature class reading Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express . Students would create a literary journey map by plotting several important locations connected to the novel and adding brief descriptions that explain the significance of each place. The purpose of the activity is to help students analyze how setting and geography contribute to the plot and mood of the story. As they build their maps, students would consider how the train’s route, the locations it passes through, and its isolation after becoming stranded influence the events of the novel and the sense of suspense. Below is an example of the type of map students would be expected to create. Example Literary Journey Map: Murder on the Orient Express Click the markers to explore key locations and their significance to the story. ** Fun fact: In 1933, Agatha Christie's book started out as a serial called "Mur...

  by Renee Dobrzelewski EDU 5410 Week 5 Reflection What struck me most in these chapters was how firmly the authors seemed to define what counts as “true” instructional design. I understand the argument for a systematic approach. Instructional design should involve more than selecting a technology tool or making content visually appealing; it should be grounded in analysis, learning theory, clearly defined outcomes, development, implementation, and evaluation. Having a process helps ensure that instructional decisions are intentional rather than arbitrary. I have seen the results of inconsistent course layout and structure, and it makes for a confusing experience for the end user. At the same time, I found myself questioning how narrowly that definition should be applied. Branch, in particular, seemed to draw a fairly sharp distinction between instructional designers and educational technologists or others who perform only parts of the design process. That made me wonder whether so...

by Renee Dobrzelewski EDT 5410 Week 4 Podcast Assignment Listen to my podcast, Ed Tech Talks, where I explore the tools, ideas, and challenges shaping teaching and learning with technology. In the first episode, Why is there no perfect LMS , we discuss what institutions are looking for in a learning management system. Click the logo to be taken to the podcast

  by Renee Dobrzelewski EDT 5410 Week 4 Reflection My first thought when reading Wilson’s essay on guerrilla design was that not all change is appropriate simply for the sake of change. Instructional design, like so many systems, follows a systematic approach to educating learners through principles, theories, models, and practice. The “sacred cows” Wilson speaks against were developed over time to provide some consistency among designers and instructors, so I do not think they should automatically be discarded simply because they are traditional. That is not to say there is no merit in what Wilson proposes—designing with the intention of disrupting the status quo. He says one goal of guerrilla design is to contribute knowledge and understanding to the profession, and I can appreciate his argument that we should not do research only in areas considered “journal-worthy” while ignoring challenges educators encounter every day. Advocating for a wider variety of pedagogies to address t...

Let us begin with a nice cup of coffee. You can find one at the OG Water Street Coffee location, which I visited during my WMU undergrad years. Here's where you can find the coffee shop on a map: We'll finish up by looking at one of the world's best coffee baristas "pulling a shot" of espresso: