Scope Creep -EDUC 6145 Week 6

When I was coaching the local high school boys soccer team, one of the traditions was to host an Alumni Game. One of the alumni was very gratuitous and would donate $2,000 every year I was the coach. The cost to put on the game as it was prior to my arrival was about $300. So I felt the need to make it more extravagant. I was the Project Manager, but without as much power as a traditional PM. The Booster Club, Alumni Group, Parents, Players, and Athletic Director were very involved. So my idea was to make $1,000 of it a scholarship, and use the other $1,000 to do exciting things for the game. Of course I had to okay it through our donor, and then all the other channels that had their eyes on the money going elsewhere. So I had to play politician to make everyone happy. Yet, the game money was subject to crazy ideas.

The donor, a Vegas club GM, was just happy to help and said whatever I decided was fine. So to make him feel like he was a part of the process, even though he's thousands of miles away, I included his sign-off on each part of the process. The Scope Creep came when I asked for suggestions from him and the booster club. We already committed to a trophy, MVP award for the game, catered food buffet, and free jerseys for all participants. Then suggestions like money to the winning team, a dinner the night before for all players and families at an expensive restaurant, plaques to players who made all-district or better, and [my personal favorite] give the money to the football team. I was in a predicament because I needed all of the team members to help out and contribute, but needed to stay focused on realistic ideas. The toughest part is explaining to an unreasonable request why their idea was nixed and other ideas were accepted.

In the end, I was able to reason with people and explain that I would be the one doing all the leg-work with the approval of our donor. Few people tried to argue with the logic, and things ran smoothly. During the event we did find out that some ideas that sounded great in theory did not work in reality. For example; We wanted each participant to fill out a biography on themselves to be read before the first game. When all 46 participants had their 2 minute biographies lined up, we cut it to the basics to save time. Even a 1 minute description was beyond too long. It was painfully dull and long. So after the event the team agreed that there should just be a recognition of players who made all-district or better.

In the future, if I was a PM will the control a typical PM gets I would have changed a few aspects of how we prepared for the event. I would allow for a brief brainstorming session before we got started and prepared a report for the following meeting. This way I wouldn't have every parent/player/alumni coming up to me with ridiculous suggestions. I would also be more clear when assigning and describing roles of team members. At the time people were scrambling to get things completed, now they would each have a part and focus on that. Other minor issues would allow it to run smoother and more efficiently. Last, and most importantly: I would expect more from the AD and powers above my pay-grade. I got very little help from them, and they went underutilized. I am looking forward to coaching again and putting on more events like the Alumni Game.

EDUC 6145 Blog Assignment

Even though this isn't graded, I took some time to review some Cost Estimation software. 

EDUC 6145 Week 3

The Art of Effective Communication

Walden University – EDUC 6145

This is a common issue with communication. Like the video Communicating with Stakeholders told us this week: 93% of communicating is not the words you deliver (Laureate, 2013). Using email is quick and effective. It cuts down costs for paper, or for having the group all meet at once. It allows for people from different continents to communicate instantly. However, it loses spirit, tone, attitude, and other non-verbals that may help communicate effectively. The answering machine does better with tone, spirit, and attitude but still misses out on the other visual cues. Face to face communication is best, but is not always available. For example, my building uses email religiously because we may be in the same building but we have different responsibilities at different times. For different messages each can be utilized effectively.

Email

I read the email as a favor I would be doing for Jane. It was somewhat whiny and comes off as long winded. She went out of her way to write redundant sentences to feign sincerity. She could have just wrote: “Mark I need that report. I know your busy, but I am stalled until I get them.” She didn't because that sounds impolite.

Voicemail

She sounded sincere and it didn't sound like I was doing her a favor. It sounds more like she was extending me a courtesy to warn me about a missing report I should have already completed. The sentences were word for word as the email, but this sounded more natural. I would feel more compelled to work on the report if I was Mark.

Face-to-Face

She looked desperate for me to just do my end of the work. I actually think Mark should be embarrassed she had to ask. I also think it would be harder to ignore or forget her request if she asked in person. An email can easily be disregarded, but the more personal the modality the harder to forget.

I learned that for small informal messages that are low on the priority list; Email is a fine way to easily communicate. Yet, the more important the message, the more personal the modality has to be. If I was Carlos from Case Study 29, I would have communicated more through face-to-face modality than he did. He made it easy for people to ignore/forget what he requested because he used email. To see someone is person and get cues back from them assuring they understood makes it almost impossible to have a miscommunication. In the future I will use this idea to motivate underproducing team members.

References

Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer). (n.d.). Communicating with Stakeholders. [Multimedia]. Retrieved from http://laureate.ecollege.com Laureatte Education, (n.d.) 2013. 

EDUC 6145 Week 2

I once was put in charge of teaching my coworkers at my school how to use different delivery methods using technology. I was to show the basics of PowerPoint, Prezi, and Smart Software. I met with some of my stakeholders in a face to face meeting. The meeting lasted 3 minutes because they were all called to a discipline issue. The next meeting I set up was with less than 10% of my target audience. The reasoning was different, but most forgot or had another meeting to attend. I started to do more work thinking I wasn't grabbing their interest. I made an interactive PDF attached to the email I sent out, and even went door to door to make sure people were checking their emails. I was so excited I decided to make an online module using PDFs as my delivery method. In my haste I did not collaborate with anyone, and assumed everyone knew how to navigate my module. Looking back I feel ridiculous and ashamed that I tried to force feed people in the manner I did.

I had a version of the ADDIE process, that more resembled the DIE method [Development, Implementation, Evaluation]. To my credit, I did work hard on the modules. They would have worked if I would have done better on the other areas. I also tried my best to communicate with my target audience and did an effective job of making everyone check their emails. Outside of those two things, I did almost everything else wrong.

I did not involve all of the stakeholders. I should have included the department heads, and our district's IT guy. Our IT guy would have informed me that all of the school's computer's Adobe programs were out of date. He would have known that nobody would be able to view my modules. He probably would have updated the program in minutes to put on on track. The department heads would have informed me that Math and Language Arts have already chosen different methods months ago. They would not be interested in my project. They would also have enlightened me to the special education initiative to finish all IEP, IAT, and 504 meetings before state testing. That meant that many of the teachers would be unavailable during their prep period, which is when I scheduled meetings. So excluding all of those people took away around 92% of my target audience. So the few teachers I did help were very appreciative. However, I never got to the evaluation part due to a lack of motivation. What did it matter what 6 people thought, I was frustrated.

Had I done more Analysis I would have learned a lot more and saved time and effort. In this week's video they had an appropriate quote: “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” I would have been able to “sell” my project better to the stakeholders. I don't think I made it clear exactly how this project was helping my target audience. Also including stakeholders more would have given me better ideas for my modules or other possible delivery methods. My biggest resources is the other veteran teachers around me that could have easily helped. I guess it was foolish to not include them, but at the time I didn't know better.

I am going to try another project this fall, and feel confident I will do much better. Already I have asked others to join the team and work on the analysis part of the ADDIE process. I have met with them and have pages of data that put us on track. We are now in the Design portion, and have a great couple of presentations we are altering daily to make better. We have included our IT guy, administrators, department heads, secretaries, teachers, and even the director of curriculum for our district. I am glad to have these classes to help.

Week 8 - The Future of Distance Learning

Distance Learning is the new wave in education and training. With the invention of the Internet, our society has become smarter. We are able to reference millions of pages of information without ever leaving home. One day there will be people who have never gone to the library to research a topic. These people will have to explain the Dewey Decimal System, calling a house and asking to speak with someone, the Yellow Pages, cursive, and how to fold a map as if they were teaching ancient history.

In the immediate future, we will witness a steady growth in online learning. When I decided on my colleges, location and distance from home was crucial. Recently, location is not a factor since students can access classes remotely. Possibly in twenty plus years we will see universities that are strictly online. A five-star recruit in basketball can attend the University of North Carolina's online program and play. He may never step foot on campus for anything but practice, but remain an eligible student-athlete.

The public perceptions on distance learning is changing due to experience. The online classes are working to always improve and produce great returns. Also, with more people learning from a distance, they are able to experience a positive educational setting and relay the message to others. Personally, I have discussed my online learning experience with many family and friends. I was able to explain the positives and answer questions. It is human nature to fear what you do not know and avoid it. To spread the ideas that online learning is an equivalent to the traditional classroom and expel rumors is how I could be a positive force. In my profession, I can become the dean of our Online Academy and use my knowledge gained from this class to make it better.

I am grateful that I have learned so much about a method that will become very popular in the future. I can be the expert at my school on the subject and help students have a positive learning experience.

There are several main issues the ID needs to think about. First and foremost is time; Second, and sometimes more important, is money. The first things to consider is what resources do you have for an online course and how much money do you need to spend to set the program up. If the budget is minimal, there is a ceiling you will reach for success before you even get started. Do you pay these workers for the amount of time they will spend outside of work? Are the resources and assignments just digital copies the students can access or are they modules working off a CMS? The face-to-face aspect during work, and there needs to be more workers to pick up the slack created by having these trainees learning? There are many different aspects that need to be looked at when starting an online learning classroom.

The original program consisted of a face-to-face training that could have aspects transferred to the online module. This program sounds like it would be Distributed Learning instead of Distance Learning. Distributed Learning is associated with face-to-face instruction that incorporates some type of technology-based learning experience (Simonson, Smaldino, Albright, & Zvacek (2012). pg 197) Therefore, discussions can be both online and in person, video, audio, and other aspects can also be a part of both types of classroom. This would just enhance the experience for these learners to promote more synthesis of the material. The adaptation of face-to-face to online requires inventiveness and innovation on the part of the professor (Simonson, et al. (2012). pg 216)

The trainer/ID will now have to worry less about being a classroom manager, and become a student-based manager. For example: He might have had intervals in the classroom for how long he would give the students to learn. Then create a formative assessment to measure their understanding. Now, he no longer has to worry about time as tightly as he has in the past. He is a manager or deadlines and student activities. His focus is changing to make sure his learners are understanding the concepts and the class pays off for the company. He still as a similar amount of worries, but the shift it towards technology and the learner. This should produce better results per time used by using problem-based learning, collaboration, and student-led discussions (Simonson, et al. (2012). pg 204)

To encourage students to collaborate online is probably the hardest job the trainer has once the course is up and running. Communication is an important component of ensuring successful distance learning experiences (Simonson, et al. (2012). pg 205) The trainer can require interaction similar to Walden University, and also break projects/assignments/applications into pieces. Each piece has a separate deadline that allows for peer feedback as well as the trainer's feedback. This requires the learner to interact with their peers and gives their group a more diverse set of ideas.

References

Simonson, M., Smaldino, S., Albright, M., & Zvacek, S. (2012). Teaching and Learning at a Distance: Foundations of Distance Education (5th ed.) Boston, MA: Pearson.

EDUC 6135 - Week 5 Assignment

Open Yale Courses

http://oyc.yale.edu/

History

Early Middle Ages

I never knew open courses existed for such reputable schools the likes of Yale and Harvard. So instantly I gravitated to the Yale History department. Since I teach the Middle Ages I naturally decided on that subject. Going into the process, I was going back and forth on what I was going to encounter. On the one hand, anything for free will not be exactly as advertised. There has to be some sort of catch for them to make money on this endeavor. On the other hand, this is Yale not some scam company. What I received was a little of column A and a little of column B. Yes, it is Yale and has some of the greatest thinkers I will view lecturing. No, it isn't a scam; but it also isn't the effort I expected out of Yale.

The website looks very basic at first glance, and that is typically a good thing. They incorporated multimedia and worksheets to gain attention and further the lessons. However, the videos are 30-40 minute lectures. I remember from Dr. Simonson in Week 2's resources: “The universities would try to videotape lectures and lessons to place onto a DVD for reproduction in the distance learning process. This was a failure because it was not equivalent to a classroom setting. Having an identical setting is a fantasy.” (Laureate, 2013) So I was disappointed and feel robbed of the advertised Yale Online learning experience.

Does the course appear to be carefully pre-planned and designed for a distance learning environment? How so?

It does not. It appears to be a website for lectures and minimal additional resources. Our text calls it shovelware, and it is when an institution shovels the course online for the sake of saying they offer online courses, but they do not think much about the process. (Simonson, M., Smaldino, S., Albright, M., & Zvacek, S., 2012) They do not allow for collaboration, quick feedback, or any type of communication.

Does the course follow the recommendations for online instruction as listed in your course textbook?

There does not seem to be any summative or formative assessments. It may only be 22 lectures with a reading list that makes Johnny 5 nervous. There is an option to take a survey on the course, but that appears to just be an informal evaluation of the course itself. The kiss of death for distance learning courses is the lack of student participation. (Simonson, M., Smaldino, S., Albright, M., & Zvacek, S., 2012) This Yale course seems to have very little, if any, student participation.

Did the course designer implement course activities that maximize active learning for the students?

Simply put; No. The key to using quality instructional materials is that the appropriate media is selected. (Simonson, M., Smaldino, S., Albright, M., & Zvacek, S., 2012) It seems the only activities they list are pages in a workbook the learner has to purchase. An example of a vague assignment they list is :

I think the media isn't appropriate for online learning, but they did not strive to place their best product into this open course. I doubt there are many people looking forward to watching 11 hours of lecturing and an additional 1,000 of reading and only complete workbook assignments. Overall, this course might be a good addition as a supplemental resource in my class once in a great while. As an online course, this rates amongst the worst. In Yale's defense, they cannot give their top dollar product's equivalent out for free. They are a business and I am sure that their paid online courses are top notch.

References

Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer). (n.d.). Theory and Distance Learning [Video]. Retrieved from http://laureate.ecollege.com Laureatte Education, (n.d.)

Simonson, M., Smaldino, S., Albright, M., & Zvacek, S. (2012). Teaching and learning at a distance: Foundations of distance education (5th ed.) Boston, MA: Pearson.