Happenings...

April & May Contributions

  • Storyboarded, programmed, and revised introductory video to training system using Adobe Captivate (v.2)
  • Recoded training system splash page using xhtml and css to incorporate organizing panels, pop-ups (About This System, Technical Requirements), and introductory panel
  • Composed and revised final presentation using Apple's Keynote, incorported team member content and handled all technical aspects prior to and during the presentation
  • Implemented SME recommendations for 'Escape From a Mine Fire' scenario
  • Developed and implemented professional miner certification method for all scenarios
  • Developed style sheet modifications for evolving training system skin changes
  • Conducted one-to-one usability review with Hoop Magic Immersion team and implemented system changes accordingly
  • Cross-referenced learning objectives with instructional strategies for 'Arrive on Section' and 'Escape From a Mine Fire' scenarios
  • Added Sago fatalgram to 'Escape From a Mine Fire' scenario
  • Coded Javascript audio player for use with the discussion sequence of the 'End of Shift Duties' scenario
  • Participated in 'Tweek Week' task accomplishment
  • Helped build final design document
  • Maintained team website (uploading and linking to essential documents)

Tuesday, May 15th, 2007

We're done! We've reached the conclusion of the 2006/2007 immersion program as well our graduate studies. This past Thursday we presented our final project to MSHA as well as a nice crowd of observers including faculty, past and future immersion students, and even family members.

The system we developed all year and are now handing over to MSHA is the result of a lot of time and energy of nearly a dozen people. Of course that includes our team, Dr. Dabbagh, Jerry Vance, Sharon Cook, Sharon Casto and Courtney Cox. On reflection, I feel as though our combined efforts have created a training system that meets the expectations that MSHA had at the outset of the year. Time will be the determining factor as to whether it is as effective as intended.

Time should not be the only determining factor when evaluating the effectiveness of such a system. That fact leads into the following - which is my critical review of the key issue with the training system.

As instructional design students and practitioners, we are are aware of the critical importance of evaluating instruction by actually observing the target audience using a particular system. We have not been able to do so with our system. While we have had MSHA professionals (some of whom are previous mine supervisors) help to shape our design (and qualify the content), we have not had a single mine supervisor (the target audience) look at what we have developed. This is the single largest drawback to the what we have created. We have no idea what feedback we would get from this audience and no real gauge to even guess. This fact, while somewhat out of the the immersion team's realm of responsibility, is one we should not have compromised on. Our months of work could be useless because of this omission. Granted, we have made this argument to MSHA previously. Even last year's team had this same concern. I sincerely hope, that any future immersion project involving this same content will have stipulations attached to insure access to the target population. The fact that our system is highly accessible and in presentable form would greatly aid in getting it in front of actual mine supervisors.

Friday, May 11th, 2007

This year, our team followed a modified version of the ADDIE model known as the Integrative Learning Design Framework for Online Learning (ILDF). This framework is comprised of three phases, Exploration, Enactment and Evaluation. True to the iterative nature of the ILDF, we found our project constantly evolving through all of the phases at numerous point during the semester.

Near the conclusion of our project we sought to learn how usable our training system was. As we have been developing the system for several months, we had most likely become accustomed to the look and feel of the user-interface. We needed fresh eyes to run through the system and help indicate problem areas that we might not have anticipated when building the initial version. To achieve this, we conducted one-to-one interviews with the other immersion team to gain a fresh perspective.

As a team, we evaluated the results of our one-to-one interviews and explored how best to incorporate their suggestions to make the system more user-friendly. We were iterating through the ILDF.

As it turned out, we were already aware of most of the usability concerns that the other immersion team indicated to us. Most of these were limitations of the technology underpinning of our system. Those were added to a list of recommendations that we will pass on to those in charge of that system. We did, however, enact some slight changes (those that were feasible this late in the semester) to our system. We feel our system will be more user-friendly as a result.

Friday, April 27th, 2007

The end is near. As of yesterday, only two weeks remain in my graduate program. At this late point, the immersion project is absorbing most of my waking thoughts. The entire year we've been focused solely on instructional design type considerations relating to first A, D, and D parts of the ADDIE model. While we are still cleaning up those final details and as our work will soon be handed to MSHA we are reaching the part of any project where we must prepare to implement it. Allison and Rashmi kindly took the time to enter our project into GMU's annual Innovations contest so we set up a booth, explained our project to anyone who would listen, and schmoozed the judges. We ended up tying for First Place in the "Most Effective Corporate/Community Interaction" category! Our prize is in the mail and should be a grand total of $37 each (after taxes). A good time was had by all who presented at the booth as we entertained the crowd with coal mining themed music and a automatically transistioning Keynote playing behind us.

So, I guess we sold our project to at least one crowd. The more important sell is going to be to the miners. MSHA has a serious problem (how to get more miners prepared to be mine supervisors) and we think we've built training tools to help. Now we have to get people to actually use the training. Part of that will be just getting the training into the hands of those that manage training of miners but there also needs to be a bit of advertising to get people excited about it. I am currently developing a movie to introduce our system to first time users (I'll be using Captivate, by the way). If done correctly, perhaps this short movie can also serve as an advertising tool - like a movie trailer of sorts.

Ultimately, implementation of the system is up to MSHA, however we as IDers need to recognize the difficulties they (and anyone attempting to roll-out something like this) face and build tools to help them.

ID+SCORM Conference - April 5th & 6th

Well we're back from from our trip to Provo (actually we've been back for a few weeks now but I'm a little slow on updating this site). Despite a few baggage problems, I would say our trip was a success. I have to admit to being a little nervous prior to giving our presentation which was scheduled during the first round of breakout sessions on the first day. I thought our presentation was going to reveal to the audience how much we really didnt understand about SCORM (the conference topic). In fact, our lack of understanding was really the point of our presentation - that we, as instructional designers, had been given a SCORM compliant LCMS to use but not any actual SCORM training which resulted in broken learning objects. Now, this might not make sense if you dont have at least a vague notion of what SCORM is but basically what I'm trying to say is that I thought we were going to be telling a room full of SCORM experts and proponents how much we disliked using their ideas. It would be like a lone Boston fan cheering against Mariano Rivera amid a sea of New York fans on the upper deck of Yankee Stadium during the final out of a pennant clinching game. Ok, maybe thats a little too dramatic. I was nervous though.

My worries were unnecessary however. The conference crowd was some parts SCORM proponents but there was also a huge crowd of instructional designers that have had many challenges when dealing with SCORM, just as we did. Our presentation helped give the conference a balanced perspective and connected with the practitioners in the crowd. I began to realize that even though we are just grad students working on our first instructional design (ID) problem we are really in the same heap as everyone else (props to the GMU Immersion Program). I came away with an understanding that the ID community is relatively small and still in its infancy in terms of the use of technology. It was motivating to listen to the other presentations and see how people were pushing the field forward. Regardless of their feelings towards SCORM, the community I witnessed was intent on improving learning wherever and however they saw a chance. If SCORM helped them, great, if not then fine.

Favorite conference session: "Learning Communities vs. Learning Objects?" - I like a lively debate. Also, did the teleconferencing setup remind anyone of Apple's 1984 commercial?

Anyways, we were in Provo for less than 55 hours with most of that swallowed by the conference. A few of us ventured up a nearby mountain to check out the BYU "Y" during some free time. Photos from the hike and around town here.

February & March Contributions

  • Developed "Escape from a Mine Fire" scecario as well as a design matrix aligning instructional strategies
  • Created "Congratulations" page template and applied it to each scenario
  • Collaborated closely with LCMS developer to find solutions to content and interface problems
  • Coded interactive UI for displaying JTAs using mootools accordions
  • Performed content clean-up prior to each SME evaluation by deploying inline style sheets
  • Defined primary challenges of our project in terms of SCORM and our LCMS for conference.
  • Converted presenation to Keynote for ID+SCORM conference
  • Maintained team webpage (February)
  • Provided status reports at the conclusion of each work week for presentation to MSHA (March)

Wednesday, March 28, 2007

Next week my immersion team is headed to Provo, UT. We're attending the ID+SCORM conference at BYU. SCORM is a learning object standard developed by the DoD. Our team is presenting on Thursday and attending sessions Friday. Maybe, if we play our cards right, we'll get a chance to catch the end of the snow-tubing season.

Friday, March 23, 2007

Change of plans. I had too much trouble determining a more focused paper topic inside the Web 2.0 education domain. My paper would have been without much research to back it up too since there is a relatively small sample of research on the topic currently.

My new topic, Intelligent Tutor Systems (ITS), is engaging and thankfully more deeply researched. Automated feedback is the basic idea behind ITS. I recommend looking here and here for a good overview. My own synopsis is that an ITS is a marriage of artificial intelligence and learning pedagogies delivered via computer based training. A simple example is a learner sitting at a computer answering algebra questions. If the student answers incorrectly at a particular question, the ITS analyzes the answer and makes inferences as to where the student is having difficulty (i.e. some algebraic component such as simplifying or absolute values). Based on those inferences, the ITS formulates additional instruction for the student in a manner that will provide an increasing focus on the problem area(s) until mastered.

It is a fairly easy assumption, in my mind anyway, to think this is the future of grade school. Not all subject areas lend themselves to the ITS model but I think we'll see at least math goes this route in the not-to-distant future. Feel free to argue that with me.

My paper is almost complete. I'll post it here soon.

Friday, February 23, 2007

As previously mentioned, I am working on researching Web 2.0 technologies and how they can be implemented in the classroom. Admittedly, its a pretty broad subject and also one without a lot of prior scholarly research to pull from. I'm hoping as I continue gathering research I'll be able to narrow my topic.. anyone out there with a suggestion should feel free to pass it along.

If you're curious about what Web 2.0 means check out this video. Its strangely motivating for a informative video produced by an anthropoly professor and I watch it whenever I need a research pick-me-up.

Friday, February 9, 2007

Ok... so I spoke too soon. In my last post I mentioned my team's relatively straight-forward path to completing this year's goals. All of that changed last week when we were visiting by several SMEs from MSHA. It was scheduled visit for them to review the training we built last semester. We were expecting some changes for sure but in reality we got a new direction on more than a few items. So, while some of our previous work will go the way of the trash can, we can reuse much of our old content. It will just be reorganized and added to. The new additions (new scenarios custom built for us by the MSHA SMEs) will be much more relevant to our training goals. The NIOSH materials we used to develop our original training was dated and was in need of a refresh.

The SMEs have given us a new direction and new content to work with. While this was somewhat unexpected, it is clear to all of us that the training we are developing will greatly benefit from infusion of this new material. Check out our meeting minutes for more details on how we will infuse the new material with last semester's completed work.

Monday, January 29, 2007

Guess what? Semester #3 is already underway.

This semester, if all goes to plan, my immersion team will complete the remainder of the six training duties for our client, MSHA. In addition, each of us will research an important topic from the instructional design field. I've chosen to explore Web 2.0 technologies and how they can be implemented in the classroom. I will also be taking two traditional graduate courses.. check out my course listing for more details.

Fall 2006 Course Review

  • EDIT730: This course aligned (purposely) with our immersion project and guided much of our design document. I enjoyed getting a chance to watch the other team's projects evolve along with ours.
  • EDIT732: I may have cringed at first thought of this class, a theory course in contructivist learning theory. However, the constant chances to apply the theories turned out to be very engaging. Despite the obvious focus of this class, I now have a much better understanding of the overall instructional design field.
  • EDIT797: When a performance gap exists there are options available beyond training. Performance support systems might better match the learning outcome. As someone highly interested in user interfaces, this is another field I might be able to find a career in.

Friday, December 15, 2006

Semester #2 is over! This was the first of two semesters that I am working for the MSHA immersion team. With one semester down and one to go, I feel we've already accomplished a lot.

I'm especially pround of the final presentation. Of course, I'm slightly biased because I had a central role in putting it together. Anyhow, I feel that it really encapsulates all the work that Team MSHA has done this semester. Looking back through it, a week after presenting to Bob Glatter of MSHA, I can see that most of our efforts this semester went into infrastructure. We did develop some training material but the majority of our concentration was focused on:

  • Understanding the charge of our work
  • Learning the LCMS (Workforce Connections) that holds our training
  • Fitting our design approach into a deliverable format
  • Designing and building the layout/navigation

Next semester we can really focus on the instructional aspects of the project as we now have a solid foundation to structure and deliver it.

December Contributions:

  • Finalized Roof Fall Entrapment scenario.
  • Built end-of-semester presentation(.pdf) using Apple's Keynote.
  • Contributed Needs Analysis portion of the final design document.
  • Managed and updated the team website.

November Contributions:

  • Developed Roof Fall Entrapment scenario.
  • Negotiated skin details for our Workforce Connections instance in meeting with MSHA officials.
  • Reviewed media for possible placement in scenarios and other locations inside training.
  • Organized team contributions to the Needs Analysis and created slideshow.
  • Managed and updated the team website.

Wednesday, November 17, 2006

In case your calendar isn't up to snuff, I'd like to remind you that yesterday was World Usability Day. Approximately one dozen people around the world celebrated this momentous holiday... and I was one of them! To commemorate this year's holiday, I attended a panel discussion presented by DC's chapter of usability professionals.

This year's focus was usability in healthcare. The panelists, professionals from various medical agencies and corporations, spoke about the need and challenge of addressing usability across healthcare. The two-hour discussion was highly relevant to the medical documentation project I'm undertaking for EDIT732. Dr. James Walker of Geisinger Health System provided a lot of insight into electronic health records (EHRs) and the strong role usability plays in their ultimate effectiveness. My project aims to create a personal system for managing and learning about the content stored in one's digital health records.

I'm very lucky to have had the opportunity to attend this discussion and I wish to thank UPA DC-Metro for hosting all of this for free. Though some of the information learned tonight could have been culled from the web, it was nice to catch real people's emotions about usability and to hear what people are really working on out there in the real world.

October Contributions:

  • Gathered miner training resources and Subject Matter Expert testimonies at MSHA's 2006 TRAM conference.
  • Helped shape team website by creating and evaluating paper-based prototypes.
  • Contributed to initial development of the team website into the ModX content management system.
  • Matched several portions of the pre-shift JTA for to existing NIOSH scenarios for future development.
  • Recorded and posted minutes for each team meeting to the team website.

Sunday, October 22, 2006

So its been awhile since an update. There's a good reason for that though! Team MSHA (thats my immersion team) has been traveling 'round the globe in search of mine supervisor training knowledge. We found plenty during our visits to the Cumberland Mine in Waynesburg, PA and MSHA's Mining Academy in Beckley, WV.

The coal mine tour, of course, helped us gain some real perspective on the mining process. I think we also developed some additional respect for the miners we hope to be serving at the conclusion of this project. Everyone knows mining is a dangerous profession but when you see the sign hanging over the entrance to mine reading "Safety First, you've got people at home that care for your well-being" it really rings true. There was a time in certain places in this country when the only job in town was mining so most people didn't have much of a choice but to go underground and try to make a living. If you are a miner in this day in age, you are of a special breed.

Our next stop was MSHA's annual TRAM conference. We spread out and attended various sessions related to any and all things you could imagine regarding training miners. We were also able to meet with lots of experts from MSHA, private mines, and a few mining schools as well. They provided some much needed feedback and direction regarding last year's prototype.

So what now? Well, we've taken a week to digest all this material and I think we have a solid direction for the road ahead. More on that soon.

September Contributions:

  • Served as team facilitator by providing discussion agendas and guiding meetings.
  • Spearheaded several attempts to install Workforce Connections onto the immersion server. Unfortunately, Raymond and I were unable to completely install the software as desired. As a result we will be using the DOL server instance only.
  • Collaborated to form project vision regarding the idea for dual training modes (JTA vs. Scenario views).
  • Organized raw materials library into more specific content areas.

Friday, September 29, 2006

A common complaint of last year's MSHA immersion team was that they did not get to interview subject matter experts (SMEs) until midway through their second semester. I can understand how that would have negatively affected project develepment. This year, things are different. Mike Rutledge from the State of West Virginia as well as Don Conrad and Paul Bizich of MSHA visited us during these past two weeks. The information they have provided was invaluable to our understanding of mining as a whole and, more specifically, they helped us understand what MSHA really would like from us.

Friday, September 14, 2006

More progress. The most important leap this week was the realization that the existing website was not working for us. Last year's team extensively documented every bit of work they did and we are supremely appreciative for that. However, our primary focus this year is to develop six learning duties to a state of final completion. In order to really focus on the progress of each duty we feel a redesign of the project documents is essential to help us keep track of our work. We've come up with a design that, I think, will really help us focus on the end goal - the six duties. We will implement this new design into the server sometime next week following our Workforce Connections training.

The end of the week was less about MSHA and more about us. We were fortunate to have a Myers-Briggs specialist come to GMU and explain our personalty types to us. Turns out I'm on the line between INTP and INFP. The P really explains my lack of planning and more ready-for-anything attitude. I think that trait will be slightly difficult for my team members to deal with though I will attempt to work towards J. Next week brings us Workforce Connections training. I am looking forward to digging into it.

Friday, September 8, 2006

2 down, 28 to go!

I'm two weeks into the first of two semesters here in Fairfax. So far things are going well. First and foremost, my immersion team has been briefed about the work in front of us. We will be picking up the reigns from last year's MSHA team. The Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) is a government organization (part of the Department of Labor) who are interested in training miners to become mine supervisors. It seems there is a shortage of supervisors and the current supervisors periodically need to attend refresher sessions. Last years immersion team produced an extensive framework as well as some prototypes. Their exisiting background work will be utilized by our team to develop training modules for MSHA to distribute during training sessions.

Our team certainly has a lot of work in front of us. Speaking of our team, I should explain that I am one of five that comprises the MSHA team. The other team members are Abi, Allison, Tangie and Rashmi. The immersion experience here at GMU focuses a lot of attention on team building and understanding exercises at the outset of the project. Coming from a corporate situation, this was a new experience for me. I can honestly say that I think it has been time well spent. Based on the work we have produced so far, I think we do just fine with the MSHA project.

In addition to the immersion project, I am also taking three traditional style courses. I am especially interested in the Performanced-based design course. It really is about "the right training at the right time == profit." Seems so simple but I think its more of an artform than most people realize.

So, that in a nutshell, is what my life will be revolving around for the next 28 weeks! I'm excited and feel challenged... I can't ask for more than that.

August Contributions:

  • Shared role in defining my immersion team's vision, goals, and norms.

Monday, July 24, 2006

So I suppose I should give a little background for those in the dark...
I've added a little side note detailing the purpose of this site.

Monday, July 17, 2006

Well, here it is... the fabled first post. Welcome to my graduate portfolio. At this point, it should be obvious that this site is still a work in progress. Hopefully, this will start looking a little more polished sometime next week.