Week 6: Scope Creep

It was to be the social event of my lifetime and I actually had a ticket to the ball. When my mother died, I had the resources to taylor it to my size and a current style.

My stepsisters did not want me to go, but my stepmother agreed to it. It was a week to the ball and I was ready to work on my dress after I finished my chores each day, then my stepmother came with an extra list of chaores that needed to be finished before I could go to the ball. It boiled down to having the estate in immaculate condition, as well as, performing my regular choirs and helping my stepsisters prepare for the ball. With a song in my heart and a dance in my step, I was able to get all the chores finished, but was unable to find time for my dress. I did my very best to work hard and fast, but was unsuccessful.

(Side note: For those of you that were wondering, I could not think of a story from my own life, so, I used Cinderella's dilemna.)

If I had been in charge, the solution would have to be easy, I would have used money from my father's estate to purchase a dress. It would not need to be lavish, but enough to turn heads in appreciation and not revulsion. The other change I would make, and of course my personal favorite, is the task of delegation. I would be assigning my stepsisters some chores because one of the reasons is "to free themselves up to do other tasks" and this will give me some extra time to finish my dress in time if I am not able to buy the dress I want (Portny, Mantel, Meredith, Shafer, Sutton, & Kramer, 2008). Of course, if I were truly in charge of the estate I would not be in the istuation of worrying about tayloring my old dress and cleaning the whole house.

References

Portny, S. E., Mantel, S. J., Meredith, J. R., Shafer, S. M., Sutton, M. M., & Kramer, B. E. (2008). Project management: Planning, scheduling, and controlling projects. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Week 5: Estimating Costs and Allocating Resources

I am working on a project that involves creating a plan to create a program for a Masters of Divinity online for a well-established college used to traditional teaching. Looking at some of the other colleges/universities that have both traditional and online courses for Bible colleges and found two resources that use to house their online courses.

The other good point of these two websites is they give some of the colleges that they work with currently. They also show some information of what the site looks like and what students would be working with.

http://www2.knowledgeelements.com/index.php?id=96

http://cccdl.org/

Although it is a secular video site, www.youtube.com also contains information for Christian basis for students to see examples of sermons, interviews, and much more. It is a resource that can be used for many classes whether they are for a Bible college or a public college.

Communicating Effectively (Week 3)

Each person likes to hear information, communicate, or give news in their own way. Me I do better speaking with someone over the phone instead of face-to-face. Some people, like my grandfather, hate to talk on the telephone. Some express themselves better in a letter whether it is through the traditional post office or electronic.

In the example, we were given the same message in three different formats: e-mail, voice-mail, and face-to-face, and then decide if we could infer any difference between the three examples.

The following are my initial responses of each example:

Example

E-mail Correspondence: Jane seemed understanding of Mark's time, but persistant of completing a project. She showed desperation by giving other options, but did not give enough detail for Mark to not have to contact her. Creating an e-mail session that could be numerous.

Voice-mail Correspondence: Once again Jane was not very detailed in her request. She did not specifiy a report, just that she needed it. I heard a monotone voice that did not seem desperate to get the job done. You could sense some understanding of his time.

Face-to-face Corresponde: Starts out friendly, but I would not worry about putting it off since there seemed to be no urgency in her voice. Her change of voice made it less confrontational. Once again lack of details.

Since I had no tone of voice to hear, just words chosen, I felt the e-mail was more understanding and better conveyed the necessity. Body language and verbal tone can often be a hinderance in determining compassion or urgency. Saying the same phrase in three different tones will give you three different reactions.

A media that I viewed ("Practicioner Voices: Strategies of Working with Stakeholders") had interviewed Vince Budrovich and he gives the advice "Tailor your communication strategy to fit the specific needs of each stakeholder." One needs to take into consideration certain words can be offensive or thought of as rude to one person can be harmless to another.

There were two lessons I learned from this communication example.

1. Detail is very important, each one of the correspondences were written as if the recipient knew exactly what was being talked about. That is not always the case. If someone is working on several projects and/or several reports not getting a specific title or description can waste valuable time with more correspondence to figure out that information.

2. Perception can be the biggest problem for any type of communication. "To make sense out of a message, to determine the meaning to attribute to it, the receiver uses perception" and this perception is not always what the sender is hoping for (Waltman, 2010).


References

Waltman, J. (2010) Communication. Retrieved from http://www.referenceforbusiness.com/management/Bun-Comp/Communication.html

"Post-Mortem" of VBS Clowning (Week 2)

I have been doing church clowning since I was eight-years-old and I do not mean funny wig, red nose, and rosy cheeks. My mother was professionally trained as a clown and taught me, so every inch of me was covered with make-up, wig, and fabric.

Whenever I start a new church, I believe in getting involved so I know the people. Well, when I started, the first big event was Vacation Bible School (VBS) advertisement in a local parade. While it was being decided on what needed to be done, I mentioned my clowning ability and they asked me to be a clown for the parade. I enjoyed every minute of it, entertaining, joking, running around, and making a great memory.

A meeting for VBS came up and I attended to see what I could do. Well after discussing assigning, I spoke up that I had not been assigned anything. The pastor said that I had a calling for clowning (which could be taken different ways) and asked me to be a clown everyday of the week of VBS.

So, the planning begins.

I verified with my stakeholders (the pastor) if he wanted anything certain he required, trying to get some limitations as described by the text "Project Management: Planning, scheduling, and controlling projects." He simply said, "Do what you want?" Well, I went to my subject matter expert (my mother). We started going over options and I made a decision, that I believe was my first mistake, but got caught up in the excitement. I decided to do a different clown each day.

Mistake number two arose when my job asked me to work full-time that week instead of just part-time. I agreed, but thought I would still have no problems with VBS since it was in the evening.

So, I carefully planned out an outfit, wig and make-up for each day. Used my computer to see what the make-up would look like instead of applying it on my face. Made sure all the costumes fit and made sure wigs or hats covered my ears. i had each day in its own bag with a tag of what was needed from a different day and what gag props I would use that day.

One of the key enjoyments for me as a clown, and I think others enjoy, is getting to change my voice for the character I play. A very critical mistake I made was not trying a different voices before VBS started whether it was the week before or that day.

Two weeks after the parade, a symptom that I had been dealing with worsened and I ended up in the Emergency Room. I did not let it stop me, I continued with my routine and worked with the symptom every time it came. Unfortunately, fear did hinder me and I did not perform as well as I had in past times, even from the parade. In the multimedia "Practitioner Voices: Overcoming 'Scope Creep'," Dr. Reckom mentioned that one should build in resources ahead of time to help with unplanned circumstances. However, there are circumstances that cannot be planned or prepared for ahead of time.

At the end of the week, I had been thanked and complimented, but I finished not feeling I had given everything I had or could do. Time will tell if I made enough of an impression to be asked to clown again, but after this experience, I will try to remember the age old saying "too much of a good thing." For if I would have tried to do less, I would have felt I had done more for the children, which is what VBS is about.

References

Portny, S. E., Mantel, S. J., Meredith, J. R., Shafer, S. M., Sutton, M. M., & Kramer, B. E. (2008). Project management: Planning, scheduling, and controlling projects. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Week 1 Blog following

Notice that it seemed that there was no real place to leave a comment to say you are following, unless you comment on a past posting. So, if you follow me, you can comment on this post.

MaryLei

Converting to a Distance Learning Format

The scenario was: "A training manager has been frustrated with the quality of communication among trainees in his face-to-face training sessions and wants to try something new. With his supervisor’s permission, the trainer plans to convert all current training modules to a blended learning format, which would provide trainees and trainers the opportunity to interact with each other and learn the material in both a face-to-face and online environment. In addition, he is considering putting all of his training materials on a server so that the trainees have access to resources and assignments at all times."

I personalized it and created a scenario that showed how a repair shop in an auto dealership could use online course management system to better train their mechanics new and old.

Converting to a Distance Learning Format
The service department in Duluth, MN for a Ford dealership has hired a new
service manager, Jack Thomas, and he was placed in charge of training the mechanics
that are newly hired and continuous education for current employees. Using the former
training program of face-to-face learning, the manager did not like the quality of
communications among trainees. He went to the boss with the idea to change the training modules to a blended learning format by continuing the face-to-face training for hands-on learning and learner interaction, but also utilize an online environment to further learner and trainer interaction. This would give access to training materials, such as, videos, worksheets, web links, databases, assignments, etc. by using a server.

With the boss’s approval, Jack starts the preplanning stage for the program. The
main ideas he considers are online accessibilities for all employees and technology
capabilities. Jack has to reflect that “the issues to consider is how the choice of a
particular method can be used to involve the students in all the instructional settings” in order to effectively create a blended formula (Simonson, Smaldino, Albright, & Zvacek, 2009).

By using the online environment, Jack believed it would be a better way to give
the employees a chance to focus on what they need to know. He hoped to create video
tutorials of certain aspects of automotive repair, as well as access to extensive databases for different models of vehicles and repairs. With the idea that “instructors can rely on existing media to help enhance learning experiences” Jack hopes to use videos and, especially, databases that are already available on the internet, saving him time and money (Simonson et al., 2009). With this information, if the student did not feel confident about his in-class learning, he would have the resources to fall back on.

One major goal that Jack hopes to enact is assigning current employees to keep a
dialogue open with new employees. With the variance in work schedules, having the
online access would make it a more realistic goal and more of an encouragement for all learners to communicate online.

With his goals and ideas formed, Jack starts the process of developing, designing,
and deciding what would be best for the trainees.

References
Simonson, M., Smaldino, S., Albright, M., & Zvacek, S. (2009). Teaching and learning
at a distance: Foundations of distance education (4th ed.) Boston, MA: Pearson.

Where is Distance Learning Headed?

I am new to the distance learning “scene” and heard numerous possibilities for what is available now and in the future. In a multimedia presentation “Future of Distance Education,” George Siemens gives reasons that distance education will grow:

-Increase in online communication
-Practical experience with new tools
-Growing comfort with online discourse
-Ability to communicate with diverse and global groups.

With “social networking” on the rise and the U.S. Postal Service facing changes to practices, Postal Service’s Jordan Small has said “even if the economy recovers, the trend would not reverse as Americans increasingly turn to e-mail, online shopping and online bill payments”, online activity is accessible and strongly utilized (McConnell, 2009).

The problem arises than will education take on the concerns of the negative aspects of distance education or will it allow continual growth and wait to see what future technology will be? Schmidt & Gallegos covered in their article that one of the most important issues that was spoken of “interaction with instructor” and then it was “interaction with classmates” (Schmidt & Gallegos, 2001). Gambescia & Paolucci speak in their study that they “found a surprising lack of high visibility of online degree program offerings on university official websites, opting to use either a secondary link or have readers use a search feature” (Gambescia & Paolucci, 2009). These are just a few of the concerns that have been covered in articles of distance learning.

Although I cannot say with certainty what path will be chosen, I know that my plan is to always keep the problems of socialization, instructor interaction, and finding ways to help those who believe they are not motivated enough to participate in distance learning. To accomplish this, with any career that a person chooses, I would keep current with all aspects of the instructional design community and technological advances. Showing this commitment not only provides a more profitable learning experience for the learner, but a more profitable experience for me.

References

Gambescia, S., & Paolucci, R. (2009). Academic fidelity and integrity as attributes of university online degree program offerings. Online Journal of Distance Learning Administration, 12(1). Retrieved from http://www.westga.edu/~distance/ojdla/spring121/gambescia121.html

McConnell, D. (July 31, 2009). U.S. Postal Service weighs service cuts. Archived at CNN’s articles at http://articles.cnn.com/2009-07-31/us/postal.cuts_1_postal-service-first-class-mail-post-offices?_s=PM:US

Schmidt, E., & Gallegos, A. (2001). Distance learning: Issues and concerns of distance learners. Journal of Industrial Technology, 17(3). Retrieved from http://atmae.org/jit/Articles/schmidt041801.pdf

Distance Learning Week 5 Assignment

With my course project choice being to help the people in the mentorship program I proposed for Christian Youth, I thought it best to look at online Bible classes. Using a basic Google search I found numerous classes to take, but decided to focus on free ones that ended in ".org" instead of the others. It was a way to limit and I have always considered a little more trustworthy.

The Online Bible course I chose was Jordan Park which is a course offered by Jordan Park Church of Christ in Huntsville, Alabama (I have never been there and have no affiliation with the church.)

Before I start my critique of the course, I would like to say "Thank you" to the church for offering a service that is helpful to many people.

It was obvious that this was not an elaborate, highly-backed project. It was simple text, simple script, and simple tools, which for a basic learner can be very important. However, I am not a basic learner, and I am definitely not one who likes to just read text, especially online. There were no graphics, no images, no animation, just text. It was appreciated that the text was different depending on the importance, but it was still just text. I could tell that they were hoping to reach an audience through the Internet, but looking at our course text "Teaching and Learning at a Distance," I get the sense of "'Dumping' a Face-to-Face Course onto the Web." I could easily see this information as a sermon or a pamphlet or a Bible Tract.

The one redeeming factor of the course was the end quizzes. It gave you fill-in-the-blank, true/false, and multiple choice (with more than one possible answer). Now I am not a fan of quizzes, but the thing that helped was the fill-in-the-blank was not from text on the site. You had to find references in the Bible and fill-in-the-blank from the verses in the Bible.

I will admit that this is not the best online course, but it has potential.

References
Simonson, M., Smaldino, S., Albright, M., & Zvacek, S. (2009). Teaching and learning at a distance: Foundations of distance education (4th ed.) Boston, MA: Pearson.

Selecting Distance Learning Technologies

Example 2: Interactive Tours

A high school history teacher, located on the west coast of the United States, wants to showcase to her students new exhibits being held at two prominent New York City museums. The teacher wants her students to take a "tour" of the museums and be able to interact with the museum curators, as well as see the art work on display. Afterward, the teacher would like to choose two pieces of artwork from each exhibit and have the students participate in a group critique of the individual work of art. As a novice of distance learning and distance learning technologies, the teacher turned to the school district’s instructional designer for assistance. In the role of the instructional designer, what distance learning technologies would you suggest the teacher use to provide the best learning experience for her students?


In the multimedia program “The Technology of Distance Education” it listed and defined five pieces of technology that could be used for distance education:

1. Podcasts
2. Discussion Technologies
3. Blogs
4. Concept Maps
5. Media Sharing Sites

I believe for this particular example, three of the technologies would be needed: podcasts, discussion, and media sharing. The media sharing would not be sites, but the ability to share media on the Course Management System (CMS) that was chosen by the teacher. The teacher needed three main functions, touring the museum with curator assistance, view pictures of the artwork, and discuss/critique the artwork chosen.

There would be two options for using the podcast, using still pictures in a slideshow format or a video-recording of the museum. Each were defined in the definitions from the multimedia program.

Discussion area could be used to speak with the curator and/or hold the critique session with the students. The other option for the curator would be having a chat session during the tour of the museum, and if that is too confusing or distracting, using a podcast will be able to record an audio of the curator giving the tour.

To view the critiqued pieces of art for all students, the media sharing feature of a CMS would help to have a more accessible and closer view of the artwork then what would be available on the podcast for the tour.

There were two CMSs that I looked at for this example and feel that would help to supply the teacher with her/his needs, Moodle (moodle.org) and Haiku Learning (www.haikulearning.com). One of the major differences between Moodle and Haiku is that with Moodle you would need to download software to operate and a lot of people (with good reason) are leery of that procedure. According to Mcafee Security, “malware has exploded this year [2009], with almost as much unique malware in the first half of 2009 as in all of 2008” (retrieved from http://us.mcafee.com/en-us/local/docs/Mapping_Mal_Web.pdf ). The plus side for Moodle is that it is more of a global CMS reaching “210 countries” and “78 languages” (retrieved from moodle.org).

Moodle has been applauded by its users for numerous reasons. Thomas Robb, a faculty member at Kyoto (Japan) Sangyo University, spoke praise in his article “Moodle: A Virtual Learning Environment for the Rest of Us” with the following accolades, “After having taught online courses for a number of years using WebCT and Blackboard, I fell in love with Moodle at first sight… [t]he best feature of Moodle is that it can easily have every feature you want as long as there is someone around willing to program it.” (Retrieved from http://www.tesl-ej.org/wordpress/issues/volume8/ej30/ej30m2/ ).

Although Haiku Learning is not as well-known as Moodle, it still has had success for the educational community. I will admit that going to the source is kind of biased, but it is easier to find the success and people usually go into more detail. For example, in an interview with Ann Hostetler, who teaches at Goshen College in Indiana, she was asked “how Haiku LMS has affected her teaching.” She responded “I have found Haiku to be a flexible, user-friendly, and invaluable tool for organizing resources for my students. With Haiku, I can put files, web links, course information, images, videos, and mp3 files all in one organized, accessible space” (retrieved from http://www.haikulearning.com/interview/ann-hostetler ).

With two user-friendly CMSs to choose from, creating a course to help students learn more about the art in New York will not only be easy for the teacher but the student as well.

Defining Distance Learning

Before starting the course “Distance Learning”, I defined it as basically teacher and student were not in the same location and time, but they were on the same “page.” It helped that I had witness or experienced different types of distance learning. By mail, by video camera conference, by Internet, etc. After our required reading for this week and multimedia, I was not surprised that although it was more eloquent, the definition was not much different. In the multimedia “Distance Education The Next Generation” Dr. Simonson defined distance education as “formal education in which the learning group (teacher, students, resources) are separated by geography and, sometimes, by time.”

Although I was surprised in our reading “Teaching and Learning at a Distance”, how far back in time “Correspondence Study” went, I was not surprised at the consideration of postal mail as distance learning. Unfortunately the reason I know of this as a possibility is due to all of the scams that have been used any many comedic routines, scams that are now used on the Internet every minute of every day. Even with the scams that have overwhelmed the idea of distant learning, there is still a need and desire for those wanting to learn but no resources to accomplish it.

Each medium that was used in the past and present to maintain distance education can be utilized for the future. Regular postal mail has a continued potential for the areas of the globe who do not have access to modern technology or even electricity.

If you look at the mind-map I created. I have distance learning broken down into 5 categories. Now you may see the category of animal and be a little confused since we are to be creating where we believe distant learning is heading. Granted animals (like the ones I listed) were mostly use for the dispersal of news or information or course materials; however, if you look at the fifth animal I list (“Purple Dinosaur”) animals have often been considered teaching tools. Not only to have the animals to watch in their daily habitats, I was proud to be one of the students to take home the rat that my 6th grade class studied, but they are important to a mental comprehension and pacification. In the article “Pets-The Furry Mind-Body Healers” (retrieved from http://www.suite101.com/content/pets---the-furry-mind-body-healers-a267588), research has found that “it has been found that when pets are in a house with children between one and six years of age, the kids often develop improved social skills and better coordination.” In the third part of the article “Evolution of Distance Education: Implications for Instructional Design on the Potential of the Web” speaks of a concern “about social development that may exceed classroom-based instruction.”



I believe that the opportunities are endless with the technology and resources we have available to us, but there is that fear in the back of my mind that started from personal experience, will isolation become an even bigger problem as distance learning increases in popularity, efficiency, and possibilities.

Project #1 has completed

It doesn't look beautiful, but the cats are enjoying it. They have a place to scratch, a place to hide and toys to play with.

Project #1 continued

It has been a busy week, so did not get to work on the project for awhile. Went rummage saling and found a rug:



I attached some catnip to the back and then attached it to the spool. I also got a fishing pole and will work on attaching that somehow.

Cable Spool into a Kitty Tower-Project #1

Bought a Big Cable Spool at a rummage sale for a dollar and decided I wanted to make it into a cat tower, especially since they are so expensive. So, I sanded it down, cleaned it up and brought it in the house.




I was given a suggestion at the rummage sale and so I cut out a piece so the cats could go inside the spool.



There was a hole in the top of the spool leading to the inside and so I dangled a string with a bead on it.



Of course my other cat wanted to enjoy it too and attacked the bead from the top.

So, the plan is to turn this spool into a Kitty Tower using only products that are around the house (this includes parental home as well) or available at rummage sales. Stay tuned for the process. Any suggestions will be taken under consideration.