Missing the Boat?

I just wonder if I'm wandering around in my own little boat, missing the big picture of the grad school experience.

I sent out an email to the 7 people who are taking the same two classes I'm taking a couple of weeks after school started. I suggested we might want to exchange contact information, in case we wanted to discuss things pertinent to one class or the other. I included my IM info, as well as email and Twitter. I guess I honestly thought we would create some kind of network since we are all distance students.

Of the seven, two replied. One said, "Great idea!" but didn't give any contact info. The other provided contact information, and we've exchanged a couple of emails. I'm so accustomed to engaging with others through the 'Net that I'm surprised at the lack of response. Maybe it's just that the others don't want to add anything else to their undoubtedly already full plates. Maybe they don't live online like I do. Maybe I'm just sailing around all by myself.

When I see the interaction going on in other distance ed classes, though, I'm envious. I would really like to have some kind of interaction with my classmates, even if it's just an informal introduction and the occasional session of commiseration. I would love to be able to chat with them (and the professors?) someplace like TappedIn, to be able to get a sense of where we are and where we are going with the instruction. I just feel a bit isolated right now: wading through the pages of the text, completing the prescribed exercises, me and my laptop ("Fred"), alone in the big world of Education.

One of the courses is listing "discussions" as an element of the assignments for upcoming lessons. Hopefully I'll feel a bit less lonely, less like the "new kid" in a school where everyone knows everyone else except for me.

Oh well, back to sorting out ISD models and Flash tutorials. Come on, Fred, we've got work to do.
(Photo from leighblackall's Flickr photostream, accessed via Creative Commons)

re-ASSURE-ing

This is fascinating! I've been out of the loop so long from education classes that I had no idea there were various "models" for designing your teaching. My biggest question at this point is, "How do I feel about all this, and how can I start to utilize it?"

While I'm still a bit intimidated by Dick & Carey, I feel like there might be a gestalt out there that I might be able to glimpse. Teaching Technology has caused me to move away from formal, structured planning because so much of what my students need is "just in time" learning. Especially in the Fall, when I have the slower readers, trying to anticipate their needs well ahead of time is difficult for me. Each year I write myself notes on my lesson plans: Slow down here, Use this app here, and so forth. And each year I not only need to incorporate the previous year's suggestion, but have tons more for myself. Would it help me be a better teacher if I tried to use one of the models to organize my teaching? Perhaps.

So how do I learn more? The Internet has many sites that demonstrate application of this week's models (Heinich, Molenda, Russell and Smaldino's ASSURE model, and Gerlach and Ely's model), and we're supposed to start thinking of lessons we can create using each of the models. I want this to be an authentic experience for me, so I'm going to dig a bit more and try to see ways in which I can actually use these models!
______
And then there's the new Office 2007 work. Wow! At first I thought it was all just bells and whistles, but this week's assignment included formatting papers for APA and MLA, and Word 2007 rocks. How I wish this tool had been available when I was writing English papers!

Of course this call into question what we need to be focusing on in the classroom. It's just like the debate over teaching DOS - do the kids really need to know about the fundamental structures when the software takes care of doing all the labor for them? I think the answer is a resounding, "Yes!" How many times have I been able to sort out why some Windows app wasn't working properly because I knew "how the computer was thinking"? The same goes for teaching MLA in the classroom: just because the software will take care of the formatting for you, you still need to know if it's doing things the right way. How many professors are going to deduct points from a paper because the computer didn't handle the formatting correctly? And how will the student respond to the deduction? I can hear it now..."The computer made me do it!"

Memories of Instructional Design

What a surprise and shock it was to discover that the text we are using for ISD is a later edition of the same text my husband used 15 years ago when he was taking a course in Instructional Design! Guess it just goes to show that the model is a valid one and likely to be around for a while.

I'm new to all this, and more than a little befuddled by it all right now. Do I plan my instruction? Yes. Have I heard of "ADDIE" before? Nope. And yet the ADDIE model seems to fit so neatly with a writing model I learned in a Technical Writing course several years ago. Dr. Michael Gos taught a very simple model for writing: PRIO. Determine your Purpose, identify your Readers, gather your Information and then Organize your writing. Clear, direct, and an invaluable model for my style of writing.

PRIO fits well with ADDIE - Analysis, Design, Development, Implementation and Evaluation. I can almost grok that. Then I look at the Dick and Carey model, and I get nervous. I remember the long hours Husband spent, trying to align his instruction with the model. We labored together on his final project, in the days before rubrics were common, trying to make certain he had addressed each aspect of the model. I don't remember his grade, but I do know he passed the class.

Deep breath. I've recreated the graphic of the DCC model here, and I've printed it out and posted it above my desk. Just keep plugging, and this too shall make sense. (I hope!)