EdTec 544: Design Concept
The Design Concept in 544 was an assignment I particularly appreciated if not completely enjoyed. I say this because it, more than most other projects, required of me an all around achievement, making use of not only the theories of course design learned in class, but also technical skills like effective graphic design and web page creation. While the project ultimately gave me a great sense of accomplishment and I take great pride in what I accomplished, it was a demanding and taxing task. Perhaps there is something to be learned from that relationship.
In addition to being among the most satisfying of assignments, the Design Concept is one of only two projects in my portfolio that were completed within a group and not individually. For this assignment my group consisted of myself, another male educator and a female full-time student. Our assignment was to design a course that would expose to K-12 teachers the promise of not just using, but actually creating video content for their curriculum. Aside from being something that I'm already involved in as a K-12 educator, the topic was something that I am personally interested in. Therefore, it was not difficult for me to get highly involved in the project.
To accomplish the task before us we decided to divide our course into three different sections that we could all work on individually and assimilate at the end. My assigned section was the Introduction, in which the teachers would be exposed to instructional videos from different online sources and perform a Webquest to see how different pedagogical strategies can be used with different instructional videos. My partners were both assigned their own sections, but it was important for us to keep in continual communication since each of our respective sections were dependent upon the sections of the others.
At first we didn't do such a good job of communicating and our own work began to overlap. We needed to regroup and further clarify the boundaries of each other's sections to make sure that we were in fact doing the work that the others understood us to do. This was an important step for me to realize, as it clarified from the very outset what the expectations of my group members were for me and what my expectations were for them.
Even after settling on what I was supposed to accomplish, it became clear that I wasn't fully comprehending what our learners would be going through. I knew that my section needed to increase their value for the workshop they were about to attend, I also knew that I wanted to use a Webquest to accomplish this, but I was having difficulty figuring out where to go without actually knowing what the Webquest would be asking of its users. Therefore it became necessary for me to stop my progress for the time being and create in full the actual Webquest that my fictional learners would be doing in the workshop. Once I had done this step, it became much easier for me to progress with the lesson and understand where my learners would be in terms of accomplishments they could achieve.
Ultimately the project turned out very well and our group was able to maintain the necessary communication needed to bring the entire lesson together at the end. Without the changes and adjustments we made as a group and I made as an individual though, it would have been much more difficult to accomplish the assignment and very probably would have resulted in a less than ideal end result.
By analyzing our work patterns and making adjustments to clarify individual roles and responsibilities my group was able to make and sustain a plan for successful completion of our Design Concept.
