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.  

The Creative “I” — Defining Creativity

• What do you do for a living?
• Do you consider yourself creative?
• How would you define creativity?
• Can you talk about your creative process?
• What does creativity mean to you?
• How does creativity affect your life

It was no problem deciding who I wanted to interview for this assignment. It just so happens that I am going to marry the most creative person I know. My fiancé Chris Bursley is a talent musician, teacher and composer. Chris defined creativity as “coming up with a non conventional solution to solve a problem” and “thinking outside of the box while using materials in a unique way”. When it came to defining his creative process he struggled. He said that often gets asked that questions and finds it difficult to answer. Personally speaking, Chris’ personality type is unorganized and off the cuff. He said that rather than having a conventional organized process he really use more of a prep method. By becoming aware of trends, music theory and styles he can be more flexible with the process. He finds that sometimes having a plan can sometimes stifle his creativity. Another great thing Chris said was “Creativity isn’t always about making something new”. Chris enjoys “reusing something that already exists and changing the way we look at it or hear it”. When I asked Chris what creativity means to him he replied “Creativity is my form of expression. It is a release, a rush and very exciting.” The last question I asked Chris was; How does creativity affect your life? His reply was sharply “a pain in the butt!” I asked him if he ever feels pressure to be creative or have a stunning creation and he simply replied “Nope.” Chris ended with “Creativity is a huge source of pride for me. Sometimes I get the best ideas in the most inconvenient places and have to hope I can remember it later, sometimes it ends up being a lost idea. If it weren't for the idea of creativity...I don’t know what I would do.”

I think what I took away most from mostly the interview and somewhat of the reading is a better personal definition and understanding of creativity. I view creativity as a muscle. Being creative is being able to access or engage that muscle to be innovative. The more we practice engaging that muscle the more efficient we will become in accessing our creative juices and producing a quality product. I was so happy to learn that Chris had a non process for his creative process. I too often go in without a plan. I do find that it holds me back and prevents me from exploring different avenues. I also find being creative can be exhausting. Unfortunately depending on my job at the time or the project I am working on, how creative I am and how I execute the performance of that muscle is directly related to my livelihood. I need to learn how to not only more easily access my creative muscle to utilize its talents but I also need to disassociate the pressure somehow. The pressure is stifling and stressful. I have learned a few things in this class already that have helped me such as the perceiving assignment. I now know how to take some time to look at what was and then redefine it in my own way.

How Do I Love Thee: Patterning

Because of these patterns learners do not usually have the hurtle of learning how to navigate the module. In some ways it helps to provide familiarity to the learner but in other ways this creates stagnate design. 

After breaking down the key parts of an e-learning course I could more easily invent my own pattern. I was inspired by my phone. Apps are very popular currently. Most everyone is familiar with this pattern. I thought that this pattern would be easy enough for the user to navigate and yet reinvent how the learning is consumed.

Patterning is the ability to apply memories and past experiences to form a conclusion of repetition or relation. 
The original pattern I analyzed is the common elements contained in an e-learning course. Almost all courses are delivered in a rectangular form. They have some element of "next" and "back/previous", rather it be arrows or text buttons. The navigation of the curriculum follows that path; forward and back. Most of the courses either have a title bar that is consistent throughout the course or a title slide and sometimes both. It is very common to have audio and to have that button be located on a stable bar so that the user can access it from any place within the course. Lastly I recognized the exit button. Old reliable located usually in the top right and commonly red. The great thing about these patterns is the familiarity they provide for a learner, even if the learner has never taken the course before. They have seen these elements in usually the same locations in the prior experiences. The hindering aspect of these patterns is the stagnancy it creates in the design.

I decided to use the pattern commonly used for Apps. Most frequently thought of for Apple devices but widely used amongst other technologies. I believe that this pattern could have originated from a game such as the match game or how a deck of cards or blocks could have been laid out from our childhood.
With these new technologies learners have become again familiar with the way these patterns work and how to navigate them. Using this simple pattern can also lend for an un-linear learning experience. When a learner feels in control they are more likely to have increased engagement and retention. This pattern is not usually used in e-learning because the designers of the curriculum create the content to be consumed in a linear way. They fear that the learner will not see all the content being provided to them. However in the pattern I am presenting, each square(app) of content is easily accessed and will fade slightly after the user has viewed it. The other benefit to this pattern is depending on the content a learner could more easily return to the content and use it as a reference. Whereas when the content is locked down the user most click through to get to the information they wish to reference. I am a strong believer in keeping e-learning courses fresh, modern and updated. I believe that the pattern I presented not only lends several advantages to the learner but to the designer/maintainer of the curriculum. As a maintainer of content myself, I can't express enough the ease that this pattern would lend. When updating the content I could simply just address the block of content that has changed and not have to worry about the rest of it. There are benefits and disadvantages to patterns in adult learning or training. Although it utilizes familiarity with the learner it also produces redundancy.  

How Do I Love Thee: Perceiving

My personal definition of perceiving is when a person consciously analyzes an artifact (person, place or thing) beyond their own initial recognition of the object.

At first I really struggled with this assignment. I could not wrap my mind around viewing an artifact, image, taste, scent etc of my chosen topic; Adult Learning with an emphasis on Training. I very quickly felt regretful of choosing that topic. After thinking about all the e-learning modules I have taken, seen and made I was overwhelmed by the presence of the arrow. A simple shape that stands for so many things. The arrow is everywhere! Not only is this object an image but it represents how the curriculum is designed and how it will be consumed. I started thinking about how the arrow made the curriculum overwhelmingly linear. In my opinion the arrow makes the learning very  controlled and stiff. When I imagine the future of e-learning I envision something more adventurous and engaging to the learner. In a perfect world all e-learning would be adaptive to each individual. But we are a bit aways from that technology yet. Still setting the bar high I imagine a learning environment where the learner feels in control of their learning and can interact with it as they wish. A module that expresses freedom and fluency with the curriculum. I believe that any learner no matter their age, attain and retain content better when they feel empowered. To truly learn the student must make the decision to learn. When and if e-learning can be delivered in such a way that rewards the learner for their actions, the more likely it is that they will complete the curriculum and be able to apply it to their own experiences.

I started to think about how long we have used the arrow in self driven curriculum. In a way it feels like we (instructional designers) cannot let go of the wheel. We are basically back-seat drivers. We try to lock down our modules so that they are viewed as we created them. We need to break out of the “arrow-shell”. The easiest way to apply this to adult learning or training in the aspect of e-learning is to use a different image, shape or object as the form of navigation. Just by revamping this simple component immensely adds a uniqueness or freshness to the course. This small innovation can go a very long way with the learner. How many of us have taken a training module that dated back to the 80’s? I know I have, and as a learner I wondered why I was learning curriculum the company didn’t believe was important enough to keep updated.

The next option is to design the course in such a way that the user does not need navigation to obtain all of the information being presented. This is tricky design wise and technology wise, but in my opinion not impossible. It may not work for every type of content or audience, but we can certainly start small to work towards the bigger picture.

Sunglasses!

Topic

The topic I choose to focus on for this class is adult learning with an emphasis in training.

Veja Du

                                         What am I?