Competencies Table:
This is a table of papers & projects (artifacts) categorized by the competencies they fulfill.
Click on an artifact to view it a new tab. For the Detailed View, click here.
| EDCI Course # | Synthesize Knowledge | Create Knowledge | Communicate Knowledge | Think Critically and Reflectively | Engage in Professional Development | Participate Actively in the Profession, Contributions to the Field | Apply Instructional Design Principles | Solve Instructional Problems with Technology and Media |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 513 | ||||||||
| 528 | ||||||||
| 531 | ||||||||
| 566 | Digital Job Aid Project: Email Etiquette | Moosh Digital Story | ||||||
| 566 | Digital Job Aid Email Etiquette: How to Write Business Emails Purdue University EDCI 566 H5P Drag and Drop Chess Board - created by Avi Megiddo | |||||||
| 568 | ||||||||
| 569 | E-learning Final Project: English Park, ESL Level 1 | E-learning Final Project: English Park, ESL Level 1 | ||||||
| 572 | ||||||||
| 577 | ||||||||
| 672 | ||||||||
| H5P Drag and Drop Chess Board - created by Avi Megiddo |
Detailed View:
This chart includes the embedded artifacts & their narratives
| Competencies | Sub-competencies | Artifacts (Sample Relevant Assignments) | Narratives (about how artifacts demonstrate each competency) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1: Synthesize Knowledge | Demonstrates ability to read and understand educational literature related to Educational Technology | EDCI 51300 -- Individual Paper
| My first class in the LDT program was EDCI 51300 (Foundations of Learning Design). My final paper was about affordances of Google resources in ESL classes. Affordances in this context means the ways in which a utility can be utilized to accomplish a goal. Van Lier (2000) gave a concrete example: In the forest, a leaf can offer very different affordances to different organisms. It can offer crawling on for a tree frog, cutting for an ant, food for a caterpillar, shade for a spider, medicine for a shaman, and so on. In all cases, the leaf is the same: its properties do not change; it is just that different properties are perceived and acted upon by different organisms (p. 252). I did a lot of research through the Purdue library site, and found support for many of my approaches, as well as many ideas for new affordances to try. Google Drive facilitates formative evaluations much more than traditional paper assignments do. This is because both the teacher and the student have access to the work anywhere anytime. Shared documents enable collaboration and feedback so well that the teacher becomes more of a coach on submitted work, instead of just an evaluator. My research also led me to the pedagogical approach of social constructivism. I wrote about how instructors and instructional designers can use Google resources to implement cloud-based collaboration on documents. This approach is based on the idea that learning is socially situated, and draws on Vygotsky’s idea of the zone of proximal development; for each individual, the difference between what she/he can do without help vs. with help from a teacher, other peers, or technological tools. An activity such as synchronous writing through Google Docs broadens this zone and what students are capable of constructing. |
| Demonstrates ability to describe fundamental theories of human learning | EDCI 53100 – Final Paper
| For this sub-competency, I have selected my final paper from EDCI 531, the learning theories and psychology of learning course. While I was learning Korean, I found that drawing the meanings of basic Korean words using the word’s Korean characters was a very useful mnemonic device. As we know, adult brains are less “plastic” and therefore less able to retain new knowledge. The paper I wrote included a literature review of research methods used to study human learning and mnemonic devices. Most of the research methods included teaching words in a novel language to subjects of various ages. The control groups were not presented with visual mnemonics, and in some cases were not presented with mnemonics at all. | |
| Applies knowledge of human learning, diversity, and effective pedagogy to solution of problems | EDCI 56900 Final Project - "English Park" E-learning Digital Prototype | For the 569 e-learning course, I created a beginner-level ESL module called English Park. It consists of a set of lesson and interactive self-scoring exercises. I used a combination of technologies to create my module. I used PowerPoint to create my main menu, pages, and navigation buttons. I used the H5P WordPress Plugin to create my activities and assessments. H5P is an open-source project, and all my interaction was created with it. iSpring Converter Pro is a commercial product which I used both to embed my H5P iFrames, and to convert my ppt to HTML5. I used Bitmoji to create my help character images. I used a Google Chrome add-on called Loom to do my screen recordings for the submodule onramp videos and how-to help videos. I recorded the audio simultaneously with a digital voice recorder, and edited it with open source software called Audacity. I cropped and combined the screen recordings and audio using Camtasia. Finally, I used Amazon Cloudfront to host my module. I used black and white minimal images to reduce cognitive load. I added positive reinforcement images and videos to increase motivation. | |
| 2: Create Knowledge | Demonstrates ability to describe common research methods in Educational Technology | EDCI 51300 -- Individual Paper
| In my research for the 513 final paper, I read several studies about student collaboration and peer feedback. Liang (2010) studied 12 university sophomore English composition students at a major university in Taiwan engage in synchronous book review (collaboration) and research paper (peer-response) tasks in groups of four. Liang found that in both tasks, students discussed the content of their writing more than the meaning of the texts. There was an interesting finding related to how peer feedback is received in regular vs. collaborative writing. Students incorporated peer revisions more when the work was collaborative; they weren’t as receptive when the revisions were suggested by a peer who hadn’t engaged in the initial writing. This could be explained by perceptions of ownership, as they relate to simply sharing versus actually collaborating. |
| Demonstrates ability to read and evaluate Educational Technology research | EDCI 51300 -- Individual Paper
| Also from my research for the 513 final paper, Sun and Yang (2015) conducted a case study of 14 mostly third and fourth-year high-intermediate and advanced English-speaking undergraduates in Taiwan, engaging them in a service-learning project. They found that the service-learning project and sharing was well received by EFL students. What remains unknown is whether completing asynchronous video projects helps students improve live speaking skills like eye contact and gestures (Sun & Yang, 2015). A weak point in this study regarded student privacy. A class-only Facebook group was established for students to share their YouTube videos, and this is where they commented on each other’s videos. While this group was private and accessible by classmates only, each student had to invite at least three international students on campus to view the videos and leave comments. This allowed them to view the potentially negative comments made about the video production. It might have been better to create yet another Facebook group for the international students to view the videos without the private class comments. | |
| Applies research findings to the solution of common problems in Educational Technology | EDCI 51300 -- Individual Paper
| Several methods and practices I reviewed in this paper involved sharing content with people outside of the classroom; some written, some involving students’ names, voices and faces. This brings up issues of privacy, scrutiny of student work and how to choose audiences to promote learning gains. Speaking to a diverse audience of users worldwide (albeit asynchronous and perhaps audio-only) can be intimidating. In Sun and Yang (2015), most of the students were uneasy about being in a semi-public video with their real name. There is safety and privacy in uploading one’s work to a private folder that is shared exclusively between a student and their teacher. On the other hand, there is a more realistic nature to public class folders accessible by fellow classmates, and the challenge of creating something you can “put your name on.” Google Drive and YouTube have customizable privacy options and settings. I believe the more teachers are aware of the benefits and drawbacks of public vs. private student work, the better their decisions will be in maximizing desired learning outcomes. References Liang, M. Y. (2010). Using synchronous online peer response groups in EFL writing: Revision-related discourse. Language Learning & Technology, 14(1), 45-64. Sun, Y. C., & Yang, F. Y. (2015). I help, therefore, I learn: service learning on Web 2.0 in an EFL speaking class. Computer Assisted Language Learning,28(3), 202-219. |
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| 3: Communicate Knowledge | Communicates effectively in oral and written formats | EDCI 67200 – Scott Allen Case Study | The EDCI 67200 course (Advanced Practices in Learning Systems Design) involved rigorous case study analyses. I felt like a lawyer or detective while researching and writing my solution ideas. Communicating stakeholder concerns, challenges, constraints, priorities and solutions with detail and clarity is not easy. I have chosen the Scott Allen Case Study as my artifact. One particular area of growth for me was learning to take the time to prioritize (put in order of importance) case-specific constraints and solutions. It’s easy to write about constraints and what needs to be done, but it’s hard to sort them and explain why a certain intervention step should be first, second, last, etc. |
| Effectively communicates content through the design anddeliveryof teaching/learning activities that integrate content and pedagogy | EDCI 56900 - Paper Prototype | For EDCI 56900 (the e-learning course) we were required to complete a paper prototype assignment in which we justified how and why we made our e-learning module design decisions. I chose to create a module for teaching beginner-level ESL. One of my submodules involved learning modes of transportation nouns. Learners were presented with black and white silhouette images of a car, truck, bicycle, etc., then the written word (one letter at a time, with a typing sound), and finally the spoken word. I mitigated cognitive load by eliminating color and other visual details, presenting the words letter by letter, and temporally separating the written and spoken word. While I would have liked more time for formative evaluation, my initial observations of the effectiveness of this pedagogical approach were promising. Luckily, given my new job, I will have a chance to revisit this project and get some young ESL students to interact with the content. | |
| Demonstrates the ability to adapt instruction and assessment techniques to the needs of diverse learners | EDCI 56900 Final Project - "English Park" E-learning Digital Prototype | Also from EDCI 56900, my final project was English Park, an e-learning module for beginner ESL students. I realized I needed to cater to learners of various ages and computer fluency. My adaptations included allowing both keyboard and mouse navigation within the interactive exercises. While there were software limitations, I tried to make fonts as clear and large as possible. For the typing activities, instead of requiring learners to finish a whole set, I provided immediate feedback. The tasks were difficult enough that younger learners might have become discouraged or given up before getting results. Meanwhile, immediate feedback did not provide an easy solution of guess and check. |
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| 4: Think Critically and Reflectively | Develops a personal vision of inclusive educational practice | EDCI 51300 – Initial/Revised Ed Tech Definitions | In EDCI 51300 we had to write and initial and revised definition of Learning Design and Technology. The initial definition was written individually, and then the class brainstormed a group definition at the end of the course. My initial definition was: Learning Design and Technology is the study, creation, application and evaluation of technology used to design, manage and evaluate learning environments, with the goal of facilitating and/or motivating learning, retention, engagement, communication, performance, outcomes and clarity. The field evolves with advances in, and availability and adoption of new technology in industry and educational institutions. The class collaborated and compromised on this definition at course end: Learning Design and Technology is the field of practice of ethically using pedagogy, appropriate technology, and technology-enhanced environments to effectively and creatively improve learning and human performance outcomes that are culturally and financially acceptable. The field is continuously evolving and includes analysis, design, application, evaluation and ongoing research to facilitate learning for students of all ages across a wide range of educational, governmental, military, and business settings. Some key differences are the words "ethically", "appropriate", "creatively”, and "culturally and financially acceptable". I feel that the combined class definition provides a more inclusive vision of what educational technology development should be. |
| Describes the relationship between Educational Technology and the broader field of Education | The philosophy and values behind what good educational technology is is largely independent of the technology, as the consensus class definition above shows. From this assignment and others, I have learned that it is not just about the choice of software, or getting it to work. So much of the learning design work is about knowing the learners and the stakeholders, and adapting to their needs. Also, I have learned how critical evaluations are, in terms of front-end analysis, formative, and summative evaluations. | ||
| Critically evaluates theory and practice | EDCI 67200 – Beth Owens Case Study | I have chosen the Beth Owens Case Study from EDCI 67200 for this subcompetency. In this case study, IDer Beth Owens is tasked with improving and expanding a university culinary arts program. Citing Reigeluth (1997), I wrote about the metaphor of the real world as a house, and different theories as looking into that house through different windows. To better understand the house, we must look into it from the perspective of different theories. This is much like how we can view the brain/mind as an elephant, and various fields that study the brain/mind as blind people, each of whom is touching a different part of the elephant. They must communicate and depend on each other to better understand the beast. In practice, there are many “beasts” to understand. In this case, the beast is the service-oriented school. Beth needs to analyze the current state of the culinary arts program, and make recommendations on how to improve and expand the program and its enrollment. Speaking with the stakeholders (including Dean Jacobs, Chef Reiner, current and past students, and other service program leaders) will help her get a clear picture of the situation from multiple perspectives. Reference: Reigeluth, C. M. (1997). Instructional theory, practitioner needs, and new directions: Some reflections. Educational Technology, 37(1), 42-47. |
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| 5: Engage in Professional Development | Demonstrates the disposition for life-long learning and continuous professional development | EDCI 67200 – Reflection on Developing Expertise | In EDCI 67200 (Advance Practices in Learning Systems Design), we concluded the course by writing a reflection on developing expertise. This was based on the Ertmer & Stepich 2005 Educational Technology article “instructional Design Expertise: How Will We Know It When We See It?”. This required taking a deep dive back into all of the case studies, and evaluating our responses in terms of two main categories of criteria: problem finding and problem solving. We evaluated our expertise in problem solving according to subcategories that helped us determine whether we approached and solved the cases as experts or novices. Among the subcategories were “synthesize vs. summarize”, “principles vs. features”, and “reflective vs. reflexive”. We evaluated our problem solving expertise according to subcategories such as “considerations of implications” and “flexible vs. rigid”. Both problem finding and problem solving expertise were measured by how well we found “relationship among issues”. This meant finding root causes for the symptoms we had identified, and treating the root cause rather than each symptom on its own. I am now more experienced with this more expert approach to dealing with problems in my workplace and daily life. It’s hard to be objective and candid when evaluating ourselves, but it is a critical skill in being able to grow from a novice to an expert; in any domain, not just writing case studies. Reference: Ertmer, P. A. & Stepich, D. A. (2005). Instructional design expertise: How will we know it when we see it?. Educational technology: The magazine for managers of change in education, (6), 38-43. |
| 6: Participate Actively in the Profession | Identifies and participates in communities of practice within the field of Learning Design and Technology | Membership in Professional Communities or Associations; Contribution to the field. H5P Drag and Drop Chess Board - created by Avi Megiddo | I think a good example of my participation in the profession of learning design and technology in my H5P.org membership. H5P is an open source community driven project. Their goal is to facilitate richer online experiences, and help everyone to create, share and reuse interactive content. They have a growing list of content types for interaction such as drag and drop, interactive video, fill in the blank, and so on. It is quite easy to create HTML5 content, which is critical as Flash is being phased out. I found out about H5P.org and the H5P WordPress plugin in my last course about applications of Hypermedia. Since then I have used the plugin quite a lot to create interactive modules for LDT courses, for my students, and for fun! Here are some more of my H5P creations. I have made contributions to the bug report and feature request forums, and I have shared some of my creations with the H5P community. One of those contributions was a drag and drop chessboard starting position setup activity. I was delighted and honored when they asked to post my work on their website. I plan to continue both creating free HTML5 elearning content with H5P, and helping them make this platform more widely known and used by educators and students. |
| 7: Apply Instructional Design Principles | Identifies and analyzes learning and performance problems | EDCI 52800 Solution and Evaluation Proposal | In EDCI 528, We learned how to take a formal approach to identifying performance problems in an organization, devising interventions, and creating an evaluation plan to assess how well those interventions were implemented. I have chosen the Solutions and Evaluation Proposal as my artifact for this competency. It’s easy to make a list of everything that is wrong with an organization’s performance. It’s hard to then separate symptoms from causes, and then group and prioritize those causes in preparation for an intervention. I chose to write about a Korean university’s faculty performance, specifically regarding government mandates regarding attendance, asynchronous learning and new grading protocols. As a former faculty member, I recall many meetings, water cooler talks and complaints about these mandates. Some of the problems that I identified included failure to use and edit the new Smart Attendance system and software, failure to adapt to the new grading protocol, and failure to use Blackboard effectively to create more blended classrooms. Some of the interventions that I used included designating academic department representatives to be in charge of sharing best practices, and creating job aids to help with the transitions to new protocol. These are based on instructional strategies of conducting needs assessments, social constructivism and scaffolding. Kirkpatrick's model helped me ensure I was assessing broadly, not just reactions/complaints, but also quantitative things like disparities between attendance taken by hand that that which was generated by the software, or the number of times an instructor actually took his/her class to the computer lab. Writing this paper required me to step outside and assume the role of a human performance consultant. It’s a challenge to take an objective view and consider all stakeholders. |
| Design, plans, and develops instructional interventions using appropriate strategies and techniques | EDCI 52800 Solution and Evaluation Proposal | The book for the EDCI 528 course, Training Ain't Performance, Stolovitch and Keeps provided a framework and many useful worksheets for designing and developing interventions. For starters, asking the right questions regarding performers, incentives, consequences, knowledge, and skills, and then dividing interventions into performance, environment and emotional. I found these worksheets to be extremely useful, and I plan to use them in future performance consultations. |
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| Develops an evaluation plan for a project based on stated goals and recognized standards | EDCI 52800 -- HPT Solutions & Evaluation Plan EDCI 52800 Solution and Evaluation Proposal | EDCI 528 is a course about Human Performance Technology. In this course, we had to create an intervention for improving the performance of an organization familiar to us, and a plan to evaluate whether or not our proposal was successful. I chose to write about a Korean university’s faculty and how they respond to government mandates. I had to identify gaps between actual and desired states, and devise a plan for performance, environment and emotional interventions. I then detailed how I would evaluate success in achieving performance goals using Kirkpatrick’s Four Levels of Evaluation. I feel this and other courses in the program have helped me identify and categorize performance issues, and create realistic and measurable goals to improve them. References Kirkpatrick, J. K. D. (2006). Evaluating Training Programs. Berrett-Koehler Publishers. Stolovitch, H. D., & Keeps, E. J. (2004). Training ain't performance. American Society for Training and Development |
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| 8: Solve Instructional Problems with Technology and Media | Plans and designs effective learning environments and experiences supported by technology | EDCI 56900 - Paper Prototype EDCI 56900 Final Project - "English Park" E-learning Digital Prototype | Plans and designs effective learning environments and experiences supported by technology In EDCI 569, I planned and designed a digital park for beginner-level English learners. I used a combination of technologies to create my module. I used PowerPoint to create my main menu, pages, and navigation buttons. I used the H5P WordPress Plugin to create my activities and assessments. H5P is an open-source project, and all my interaction was created with it. iSpring Converter Pro is a commercial product which I used both to embed my H5P iFrames, and to convert my ppt to HTML5. I used Bitmoji to create my help character images. I used a Google Chrome add-on called Loom to do my screen recordings for the submodule onramp videos and how-to help videos. I recorded the audio simultaneously with a digital voice recorder, and edited it with open source software called Audacity. I cropped and combined the screen recordings and audio using Camtasia. Finally, I used Amazon Cloudfront to host my module. While I haven’t done extensive testing yet, my new job gives me a chance to get kids in the target audience demographic in front of my module. I have seen some promising signs of 5 year-old Polish students navigating the exercises. More to come on this! |
| Applies technology to facilitate a variety of effective assessment and evaluation strategies | My H5P WordPress Plugin Sandbox: Avi Megiddo's H5P Wordpress Plugin Sandbox | H5P facilitates the creation of dozens of interactive content types to build activities and assessments. I utilized the drag and drop of objects, fill-in-the-blank by dragging text and fill-in-the-blank by to create my module. The integrated module can be found here, and some other sample activities can be found here in my sandbox: Avi Megiddo's H5P Wordpress Plugin Sandbox When it comes to feedback-type evaluations by learners, I prefer Google Forms, as it very intuitive to build, robust in its survey question types, and creates beautiful summary charts. |
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| Demonstrates understanding of social, ethical, legal, and human issues surrounding LDT issues and practice | EDCI 57300 – Practicum Final Report | I’d like to use my EDCI 57300 – Practicum Final Report to create a narrative for this subcompetency, but I will only have that at the end of this semester. In the meantime, I’ll describe some of the human issues I have tried to accommodate in my designing English Park. First, there is the legal issue of copyrights. There is so much media available online, and most of it is not public domain. Luckily, there are sites like Pixabay. From their site, “Pixabay is a vibrant community of creatives, sharing copyright free images and videos. All contents are released under Creative Commons CC0, which makes them safe to use without asking for permission or giving credit to the artist - even for commercial purposes.” (retrieved from http://pixabay.com). I have, and will continue to make use of public domain content for my ID work. Some of my classmates in the LDT program know much more about human issues and UDL than I do, but I have become more sensitive to such issues as deaf learners, learners, keyboard-only navigators (no mouse), and younger (illiterate) learners in need of audio instruction. In making English Park, I tried to add audio and visual instruction where possible. It is tricky to juggle accessibility, age-appropriateness, and cognitive load to make a learning application suitable to most learners. It’s tough to simulate social interaction online. It lacks the personal touch of an in-person teacher. That is why I took time to record my own voice giving instruction, using a higher-end digital voice recorder. I cleaned up the audio with Audacity software, to make the online experience as close (aurally) to hearing me if I were speaking in class. I hesitated to show video of myself, as that might distract and cause cognitive overload. Ethical issues can arise from appropriateness of subject matter. As IDers, we have to consider the age of our learners, and what content may not be suitable/appropriate for them. I chose images which are “G-Rated” and subject matter devoid of religious or other controversial/divisive content. |