Driving Innovation and Reflection: A Journey Through Tools, Teamwork, and Learning Design

 

Personal Growth

This week, I explored two innovative tools: Genially and Microsoft Sway, both of which are pivotal in shaping my instructional design and project management journey.

  • Genially: An interactive content creation platform ideal for gamified designs and engaging presentations. I worked through Genially tutorials to create a sample presentation and familiarize myself with its interface. Its affordability and interactivity make it a viable alternative to Adobe Captivate, which has a steep learning curve and a high cost.

  • Microsoft Sway: A dynamic storytelling tool perfect for visually stunning proposals. I completed a LinkedIn Learning course on Sway and earned a certificate. This effort culminated in several presentations, which I shared with professionals for feedback.

Go to this Sway


These tools align with my goals of creative excellence and continuous growth.

Technologies Explored

As part of my project management responsibilities:

  • I introduced Genially and Sway to the team as potential tools for our deliverables. The team has decided to use Sway for the proposal, while further exploring Genially for designing an eLearning game.

  • I explored Trello, a project management platform, but ultimately opted for Google Docs and Slides due to their simplicity and collaborative comment features.

Project Management

In my role as project manager, I:

  • Emailed team members about responsibilities, deliverables, and goals.

  • Collaborated with the team to review storyboards, ensuring alignment with learner objectives. I also answered questions and supported members in accomplishing tasks.

  • Troubleshot and organized tasks to maintain steady progress toward our completion date.

  • Integrated insights from Quinn’s readings into our process, such as emphasizing reflection opportunities and aligning learning experiences with real needs (p. 77).

  • Created a checklist to evaluate critical learning design elements (intro, models, examples, practice, closing), ensuring essential criteria are met.

Reading Reflections

Clark N. Quinn's Learning Science for Instructional Designers continues to deepen my understanding of creating meaningful learning experiences.

Chapter 6: Going Meta
This chapter emphasized “meta-learning,” or learning to learn, as a vital skill (p. 77). By helping learners monitor, evaluate, and regulate their learning, instructional designers can foster self-improvement and ownership. Key points included:

  • Meta-cognitive regulation: Planning, monitoring, and evaluating learning processes (p. 81).

  • The distinction between self-directed and self-regulated learning was insightful, highlighting how we can guide learners to internalize effective strategies (p. 81).

  • Reflection is crucial, whether individual or collaborative, as it enables learners to evaluate their approaches and outcomes, making adjustments for future success (p. 85).

Chapter 7: Implications
This chapter provided a roadmap for designing learner-focused experiences, emphasizing the sequence and purpose of each design element:





  • Objectives and Practice: Start with clear objectives and develop practice assessments to build retention and competence (p. 87).

  • Examples and Context: Use narrative examples that are engaging and relevant to promote understanding and transfer (p. 91).

  • Practice and Feedback: Practice should be spaced, varied, and accompanied by constructive feedback that aligns with real-world application (p. 92).

  • Closing: End with cognitive and emotional closure, acknowledging effort and providing clear next steps (p. 94).

Finally, the emphasis on motivation (p. 88), from emotional hooks to addressing WIIFM ("What’s in it for me?"), reinforced the importance of designing experiences that resonate both cognitively and emotionally.

This week’s experiences highlighted the importance of personal growth, strategic use of technology, and informed instructional design practices. From exploring Genially and Sway to leading my team with Quinn-inspired strategies, I’ve gained confidence in balancing creativity, leadership, and technical skills. These efforts not only support my immediate goals but also contribute to my long-term aspirations as an instructional designer.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

LESS IS MORE

Image
Applying the Coherence Principle Adding Extra Material Can Hurt Learning I have decided to record notes from the chapters because it helps me with creating eLearning courses. It is also a great way for me to review important materials.  Here are my journal notes from chapter 8 Overview: Keep the lesson uncluttered Avoid adding any material that does not support the instructional goal Weeding refers to the need to uproot any words, graphics, or sounds that are not central to the instructional goal of the lesson Adding interesting but unnecessary material to e-learning can harm the learning process. Diving Deeper: Principle 1: Avoid e-Lessons with Extraneous Words The coherence principle recommends that you should avoid adding extraneous words to lessons. Subject-matter experts often like to incorporate considerable amounts of technical information that expands on the basics. We recommend against extraneous words added for interest, for elaboration, or for technical depth. Example s...
Read more

What's New

 What's New? For this week, I will share what I did on my instructional design journey for this class. At the beginning of the week, I had some challenges downloading Adobe Captivate and spent a couple of days troubleshooting and fixing some computer issues to download the software. After a couple of days, I got my computer up-to-date so I could record videos and download new software. Troubleshooting was very interesting, and I learned a lot. It can be frustrating when technology malfunctions, but diagnosing and solving the issue is quite exciting. I’m glad that I was able to fix my computer and download the information that I need for this class and work. I have also been working on LinkedIn and connecting with Instructional Designers along with reading information about networking and learning about different instructional design principles. I’m also taking a course online for Adobe Captivate to make sure that I understand it better and can incorporate Adobe Captivate effectivel...
Read more

Where are the Pictures?

Image
There are over 7,000 languages spoken by humans daily. Some of these are well-known languages such as English, French, Chinese, Spanish, and Korean. All languages are made up of pictures, text, symbols, or graphics. Using language to communicate is essential for learning and instruction. “Words allow us to communicate effectively, and printed words in electronic form and spoken words recorded in electronic form allow us to communicate effectively across miles and years using computer technology. Therefore, it makes sense to use words when we provide training or instruction (Clark and Mayer, 2016).  Using pictures and words to deliver instruction is an effective way to deliver learning instruction. The first part of teaching children to read is letting them know it’s okay to look at the pictures. Once they have learned their letters and the letter sounds and can practice decoding words, the pictures are often removed for better decoding skills. Pictures are reintroduced once the stu...
Read more