Synthesize

My white paper!

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Architecture of Space

My favorite place to inhabit or work is my living room. I am easily over stimulated and distracted by noise and the general public. Therefore coffee shops and even libraries do not lend a conducive environment for me. After capturing images of the things that make this space special to me I realized that they all contributed to a single feeling. Comfort. When I work, or am creating, I tend to get overwhelmed easily. All of these elements play their own role in keeping me cool, calm and collected.

Some of the things that help keep me calm include my slippers and readily available tea. My coffee table is an unusual shape and sits very low to the ground. It is great for crafts or just resting my feet. Then there is my Netflix. I like background noise when I work but not necessarily music. I find that when I listen to music it consumes too much of my brain for me to be productive or creative. So I have a favorite show that I have seen hundreds of times, that I just play while I work. I have seen it enough times that I no longer need to pay attention and my brain relates happiness to its sound and presence.

The living room itself is meant for another purpose than my workspace. It is a common area for the household to relax. This may be why I was attracted to this space for working. I related the space with peace and serenity. This space is engaging by its interesting, non white, walls and minimal decor. It is equipped with the necessary technologies needed for relaxing (tv and Xbox). It has two giant windows that give the space life and energy. Lighting is limited which sets a calm, not over exposed, mood. The furniture is soft and engulfs you when you occupy it. There are blankets available for its inhabitants as well as the therapeutic presence of my cat Zedd.

The article taught me that the environment is truly what the inhabitants make it. For an environment to be useful or conducive to its inhabitants it needs to incorporate what they are using it for and how they are doing those things. This pertains to my space because I made my space work for me. I may use my coffee table for more than just a surface to set my cup on.

How I relate this to my professional may be a bit abstract. A lot of times I actually have to take a step back and realize that 90% is actually virtual and only 10% is my desk or physical workspace. I can apply my coffee table theory to software and tools I use. Just because the tool was designed for one thing does not mean I can not use it to solve other problems. This assignment has made me realize how important those elements at home are to my mental state when working or creating. I am hoping to find a few ways to incorporate those comforts at work. Obviously I cannot play Netflix at work but I could maybe bring in a nice lamp for my desk to set a more peaceful mood. I would like to get a small stool to go under my desk so that I can elevate my feet once in a while. I realize that I crave working at home because I am comfortable and do my best work that way. Comfort is key to my creativity.

How Do I Love Thee: Play

Activity: LearnWorld

Participants: Teachers, Deans, Principals, Administrative

- Just like in Sims, participants will have some kind of visual representation of what they do. ie: Teacher Avatars have an blue diamond over their heads. Deans may have orange.

Location: VIrtual

Objective: Network, Learn, Ask Questions

Groups: There are several club houses in the central town in LearnWorld. Each belonging to a profession or possibly by projects/initiatives or needs. Anybody is welcome into any club. This would be a great place to have virtual roundtables. Players can simply click on another player to read their short profile and then choose to interact with them via messaging.

Optional: Some players may choose to also use microphones and have live conversations with other players. This may be the best method for roundtables or interactions involving more than one person.

Extra: LearnWorld also provides customized environments where players can participate in simulations based on real life examples and potential problems they may run into.

The cognitive tool of play is the ability to unleash the mind allowing the freedom to explore and in engage in physical, social and emotional activities or topics.

Ever played Sims? What if there was a system like Sims, World of Warcraft or Second Life that pertained to your professional life? Where your Avatar could practice scenarios, problem solving, ask questions to your peers and collaborate. You could meet peers that work across the state, country or world.

The LearnWorld environment would be available year round but I would like to setup “Town Hall Meetings” or “Meet & Greets” several times a year virtually. Different sessions would have to be held to accommodate the different time zones. These sessions would be available to Deans, Principals, Teachers and some administrative positions such as Training, Curriculum and Ed Tech. This promotes cross department and cross position understanding and creates a community in which we help drive change and effectiveness.

I thought of this activity because it would fill a current gap I see in my own organization. My audience is teachers and yet I never get to meet them or learn about their processes and their needs. My job requires me to not only create consumable courses to train them but also to deliver that training in a way that meets their needs and availability. I think that nearly all of the administrative positions in my organization could really benefit from an experience like this. Also deans and principles.

I created this activity in the attempt to be different. Get out of the box. I was slightly inspired by my embodiment thinking assignment from a week or two ago. But I also really relate to the benefits in which this exercise/introduction/tool, whatever we want to call it, in that I am more confident online. When you give me a virtual environment it strips away all the social hangups that prevent me from networking, sharing and collaborating. I feel more free to ask questions and ask those questions to peers or positions I feel that I can’t normally. Teachers can ask questions to their supervisors that they normally feel they can’t, don’t have time for or do not have the appropriate situation in which to ask. This tool could truly open up the communication and community that many organizations are hungry for.

How Do I Love Thee: Modeling & Dimensional Thinking

Modeling is the ability to analyze, abstract and understand the smallest components to the big picture of a subject.

found this activity to be quite overwhelming at first. Not only to look at something like my topic; Adult Learning with an emphasis on Training in dimensions but then to have to make it actually useful to someone. I came across the idea of Return On Investment. The corporate reasoning and arbitrary number that us trainers must use to receive sponsorship. Unfortunately in the world of business everything must be represented by a number as its benefit to the company. This becomes really difficult in the world of training when we deal with so many unpredictable factors. I asked myself; What is the difference between education and training? Most training is compliance driven. Legally companies must educate their employees on certain subjects in order to protect themselves from possible lawsuits later. This is can be great in teaching these employees specific things to know or do. If you think back to high school or college, as a student you were taught theory and concepts so that you could develop, adapt, and customize the information. We lose sight of that in training due to the compliance. What ever happened to soft skills.

In the 1980’s we determined that you could be an absolute genius but if you didn’t have the social skills to communicate and collaborate you would not do as well in the workforce. These are prized skills that we have somewhat neglected the development of. Employers just hope that the people they are hiring have a decent set of soft skills because we have lost sight of how valuable these skills truly are and no longer take the time and spend the resources to invest in their development. So at the true reasoning for investing in soft skills training we have the benefits it will provide the company. Training on soft skills will improve the functionality of teams, group and individual production, the community/communication within the organization and the culture the business has. Some of the most desired soft skills for employees include; time management, flexibility, ability to adapt, work under pressure, communicating, problem solving, using feedback to grow, working well with a team and overall confidence in their tasks and abilities. Once we have trained it is important to measure the results. Not only to report the much desired numbers to “suits” but also to determine possible ways to grow or improve the training and to check employee satisfaction. Before we train and measure we must determine factors that influence soft skills such as; generation or age, experiences, education, socioeconomic status, race/culture, culture within the organization and individual personality types. Knowing about these factors will help develop, deliver and measure the training. At the end of it all we have our ROI. I think this graph could be helpful in trying to obtain buy in for the development and implementation of the training. It may also be helpful to visualize the idea as more than a number. That soft skills training is the ultimate investment in employees. This kind of education helps grow the employee not just in their position but in their own possibilities.

The Creative “I” — Variations on a Theme

"Unleash my Creativity"

[Verse 1:]

I sit here debating how to write this song

The act of creating, It is never right or wrong

If connecting the dots was easy, it would not be so rare

Being exposed to the world, I have magic too, the lies disappear

We try to twist the knob, the knob, the knob

I try to twist the knob, knob

Try to twist the knob-knob

Give me the past and I’ll unleash my creativity

The knob, the knob, the knob

Experiences my mind's made up of (Past ideas I’ll build upon)

Let your mind flow, make it new, new (stand apart from the crowd)

Experiences my mind's made up of (Past ideas I’ll build upon)

Let your mind flow, make it new, new (stand apart from the crowd)

(C-R-E-A-T-I-V-E) Let your mind flow

(C-R-E-A-T-I-V-E) Open your mind up, make it think, think

(C-R-E-A-T-I-V-E) To make a big Wow

(C-R-E-A-T-I-V-E) Open your mind up, find the art and design

[Verse 2:]

I’ve heard the same old story “creativity’s for geeks”

Although sir, if you practice so, the creative mind you will feed

One event like the next, then suddenly like Fleming I see

Anything can be art, experiences are just the seed

We try to twist the knob, the knob, the knob

I try to twist the knob, knob

Try to twist the knob-knob

Give me the past and I’ll unleash my creativity

The knob, the knob, the knob

Experiences my mind's made up of (Past ideas I’ll build upon)

Let your mind flow, make it new, new (stand apart from the crowd)

Experiences my mind's made up of (Past ideas I’ll build upon)

Let your mind flow, make it new, new (stand apart from the crowd)

(C-R-E-A-T-I-V-E) Let your mind flow

(C-R-E-A-T-I-V-E) Open your mind up, make it think, think

(C-R-E-A-T-I-V-E) To make a big Wow

(C-R-E-A-T-I-V-E) Open your mind up, find the art and design

[Bridge:]

New, new

New, new now

Ooh-ooh-ooh-hoo

Ooh-ooh-ooh-hoo

Ooh-ooh-ooh-hoo

Ooh-ooh

We try to twist the knob, knob, knob

I try to twist the knob, knob

Try to twist the knob-knob

Give me the past and I’ll unleash my creativity

The knob, the knob, the knob

Experiences my mind's made up of (Past ideas I’ll build upon)

Let your mind flow, make it new, new (stand apart from the crowd)

Experiences my mind's made up of (Past ideas I’ll build upon)

Let your mind flow, make it new, new (stand apart from the crowd)

(C-R-E-A-T-I-V-E) Let your mind flow

(C-R-E-A-T-I-V-E) Open your mind up, make it think, think

(C-R-E-A-T-I-V-E) To make a big Wow

(C-R-E-A-T-I-V-E) Open your mind up, find the art and design

I have always thought of myself as a creative person but have always struggled to define my own process. At the beginning of this course I thought of this as a weakness. However through the assignments and readings I have learned that it’s pretty common struggle. Creativity is hard not only incredibly difficult to measure it is hard to define to begin with. I have learned that creativity is the process of connecting the dots between experiences and ideas. I have also come to learn that creativity is like muscle. The more you engage it and use it the easier it becomes to access it. All of these new realizations have more than anything helped me cut myself some slack. I was putting so much pressure on my creative muscle and expected it to be sharp and with it after not engaging it for some time. I have started to define that being creative is my process. It is a lump sum of organized chaos that incorporates inspiration, need, experiences, resources and ideas.

How Do I Love Thee: Embodied Thinking

Embodied thinking is when your brain no longer has to make conscious decisions to do an action or feel an emotion.

I chose this embodiment because I was recently inspired by a Youtube video “Controlling vs "Being" Your Video Game Avatar”. It talked about the increased complexity of Avatars in gaming and how based on decision making situations and the level of personalization that the gamer actually feels empathy for their Avatar. This is great for the gaming industry obviously because it really draws in the player and they become attached or addicted and fully invested into the game. When I was purposed this assignment it made me think about how I could apply Avatars to e-learning or training. Often times training deals with choices or decision making that the trainee must deal with later, and it is highly likely that as humans emotion would/could and does influence these choices and decisions. It is fairly common to come across situation based or scenario based e-learning and training. We learn and retain things better when we can relate them to real life situations. As an Avatar we can become more attached to the situation and engage emotion in the training that may help us in applying what we learn in an emotional situation.

It wasn't until I was faced with the task to visually represent this transitional process that I thought about comparing the traditional learning with this new Avatar based learning and how it may be affecting or stimulating the brain differently. I started researching the brain and which lobes are stimulated when learning. The following information is slightly skewed for the training content I provide as well as the common method of delivery, as my learners are not often engaging in math or learning language. One of the big areas in learning is the frontal lobe controlling; problem solving,  memory, judgment and impulse. The temporal lobe; organizing information, has controls in memory retrieval, visual memory and factual memories. With Avatar based learning my theory is that we are stimulating all the same parts of the brain as traditional learning as well as engaging the emotional parts of the brain including the: Amygdala, Lateral Orbitofrontal lobe, and possibly more of the Hippocampus with creates concepts and organizes experiences into them. In the image above you will see Blue areas which indicate the emotional parts of the brain we could be stimulating with Avatar based training. There is a Red area that indicates areas of the brain stimulated by traditional learning. You may notice that there is no Red area and that the majority of the highlighted brain is Purple. This is due to the overlap with the Blue emotional area of Avatar based training.

This affects the way I think about, create and produce training. It seems like if I can engage more of my learners brain that there would be a higher chance of increased retention of the information I am providing them but also the chance of them actually enjoying training.

How Do I Love Thee: Abstracting

Chaos

Restless, Stressful

Moving, Asking, Needing

Taker of time and energy

Workday

Abstracting means to remove and acknowledge the different  elements that make up a person, place, thing, situation or feeling. I struggled a bit at first with abstracting. It mainly had to do with the past few assignments. I was having a hard time figuring out a topic that didn’t feel stagnant or overused. With a little guidance I realized the interesting and unpredictable environment I expect my learners to consume my courses in. It is a bit of a shame that teachers do not get the same thoughtfulness that they put into the testing environment for their own students. They have to deal with a severe lack of time, silence and sometimes means of consuming curriculum. Understanding this changes everything. This is something that I need to keep at the front of my mind when not only creating the learning but when meeting with SME’s (subject matter experts) when they come to me with boring, elaborate, 40 minute long PowerPoints. Do I have all the answers? Not at all. Do I think I will be able to come up with a solution that solves this problem completely? I know I won’t. But if I can do my part and advocate for my learners. Be dedicated to their time and their learning like they are for their own students, then I am doing my due diligence.

In my visual representation of abstracting a teachers environment I tried to include the most identifiable elements. One being the children. Teachers not only have to Teach, engage and instruct, they must also keep their children safe and help shape their personalities and social skills. Talk about responsibility. The other big element is time. Time is something I am constantly battling for in my job as an Instructional Designer. SME’s want to cram a ton of content and may not be concerned with the amount of time it takes up. However, teachers do not get normal breaks or average working hours. Most days it is nearly impossible to consume an online module for training purposes, let alone one that takes half to most of an hour. It is imperative that I fight to keep training short for consumption and retention. Some other factors I acknowledge include internet access, as it is how we deliver our training. It is entirely possible that our teacher may have a poor connection at home and cannot connect.

I chose to do a Cinquain Poem. In my poem I wanted to focus on the chaos teachers must deal with.  Noisy and stressful. Children can be suckers of time and energy and that is a normal workday for a teacher. I am not blaming the children. It is in the nature and excitement of being an adolescent. But there is little to no way around it which is why it is so important for me to advocate for my learners and build training that fits their environment and availability.