Opening Class Session - Good Start

Learning Community

The students in this course are very diverse and come from varied sociocultural backgrounds. I was please to see that there are some older students in this class. Many adult learners have a wealth of work/life experiences and prior knowledge which often enrich and deepens the learning experience in a traditional class setting (Knowles, 1973).

An end of the semester, a final project is due in this course. I am glad that the instructor offered students the option to work in pairs or as a group. Collaborative learning is a great way to promote deep engagement with the course content material and student-student interaction.

Trust and positive interdependence are two elements which the instructor hopes will develop between class members. To achieve the above goals, he encouraged students to work in groups, dialogue with each other on a consistent basis via email, BlackBoard, or blogging.

Technology Integration

In today's globalized world, digital acuity, awareness, and accessibility are essential for connecting with other individuals on both an intimate level (email) as well as on a large scale basis (social networks; blogging, and wiki construction). In this course, we will use Evernote as the cloud-based 2.0 platform for publicly sharing course content materials; posting completed hand-out materials from the assigned learning activities; and class PowerPoint presentations. Lastly, students are expected to post weekly reflections at their chosen blog site. Blogging is an excellent mechanism for promoting active/collaborative learning, authentic exchange of ideas, and ongoing peer-peer interactions (King & Cox, 2011). In this course, we are using Black Board for the course learning management system with functional features to email, construct internal blogs, and post modular summaries.

Course Content

• Two questions opened the learning activity in this week's class session: What is instructional design? and What is instructional development?
• Both questions led to students drawing upon their prior academic knowledge as well as their professional and personal experiences in order to articulate their understanding of the two concepts. 
• The instructor used a PowerPoint (PP) presentation to introduce new  conceptual information and ideas to students as well as to review key IDDE theoretical frameworks, such as the ADDIE and Dick and Carey models. PP is a great way to capture and hold students attention. The visual images in alignment with the brief bulleted talking points helps students to retain important course content. Lastly, all module course materials will be available for download via Evernote. 

Final Impression

Overall, IDE 632 seems like it is going to be a fun and engaging class. The required assignments build incrementally on one another; thus, minimizing the chance/risk for students to feel stressed and overwhelmed. The reading assignments seem very manageable, although slightly dry. The students in the course seem very welcoming and approach. I am looking forward to a great semester.

Check this out - What does an Instructional Designer do?

URL Address: http://youtu.be/f2q-SYS2Kbc

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References

King, K.P, & Cox, T.D. (2011). The professor's guide to taming technology. (Ed.). Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing, INC.

Knowles, M (1973). The adult learner: A neglected species. Houston, TX: Gulf Publishing Company.

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Images

Learning community.[Web Graphic]. Retrieved from http://www.phf.org/Picture%20Library/Grouplearningtogether.png


(2013, 05). Technology integration. [Web Graphic]. Retrieved from http://www.marcishepard.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/tech-integration-Blooms.jpg