My Experiences at AECT 2014

As I mentioned in a previous post, I have been spending the last several days at the AECT 2014 International Convention. This year was an outstanding experience, and I was surprised by the sense of mission, vision, energy, and excitement among the faculty and the organization's leadership. It was an outstanding experience.

I will highlight some of my experiences below. I also tweeted throughout the conference, and you can review my AECT 2014 tweets here.

The conference hotel was the Hyatt Regency in Jacksonville, Florida. A very nice place.

I roomed with my great friend Dr. Greg Francom. We had a great time, and I appreciate his kindness and friendship. Here he is by the river just outside the hotel.

Me just outside the hotel.

Beth Oyarzun and Sheri Anderson, finalists in the Pacificorp Design and Development Competition. I had the privilege of serving as their mentor for the competition. They did an excellent job.

All of the finalists in the Pacificorp Design and Development Competition.

My shoes during one of the presentations.

Keynote presentation by Dr. Johannes Cronjes. Some of his writing has had a great influence on my thinking in instructional design, and I enjoyed hearing from him. (That is him in the top-left of the picture. My good friend Mike Rook is on the bottom-right interacting with Dr. Cronjes' highly interactive keynote presentation). 

I participated in a discussion on the future of instructional design programs. I presented my thoughts, which I blogged about earlier here. It was really fun interacting with the other presenters, and I enjoyed sharing my thoughts.

I ran into Caglar Yildirim who was presenting a poster on teaching 21st Century skills (which I call the skills of knowledge work) using a marshmallow challenge. I liked how he visualized some of these skills in this image.

I ran into my scholarly hero Dr. David Merrill. It was great to see him and chat with him for a few minutes. He remains very active in the field, and I hope to emulate his creativity, courage, and drive as a scholar. A good man.

I attended a presentation by Dr. Charles Reigeluth on the 6 core changes that must take place for a paradigmatic shift in K12 (and I believe also in higher education) education. He is certainly a visionary leader and I appreciated the presentation. I later won a copy of his new book Reinventing Schools at a raffle. I've skimmed it and have enjoyed it thus far.

Conversation with Anthony Pina

Last night I had a brief conversation with Anthony Pina, the Dean of Online Education at Sullivan University. He shared several insights related to administration of online education in higher ed. It was an illuminating conversation, and I will certainly begin learning more about this area.

Again, this was a great conference experience, and I am excited to be a member of this association. I plan on continuing my involvement and appreciate the many wonderful opportunities AECT has given me as first as a graduate student and now as a scholar and educator.

My Plans at the AECT 2014 International Convention

I will be attending the AECT 2014 International Convention this coming week in Jacksonville, Florida. I have attended AECT's conference many times in the past (I blog about my 2012 experience here) and have always enjoyed seeing friends and associates at the conference.

For this year's convention, I will be participating in a panel discussion on the future of instructional design programs with several excellent researchers. It should be an interesting experience, and I hope to contribute to the discussion.

I was also asked by a group in AECT to serve as a mentor for two doctoral students, Beth Oyarzun and and Sheri Anderson, who are competing in AECT's Pacificorp Design and Development Competition.  They have worked very hard and have moved through the first two phases of the competition and are now finalists competing against two other teams. It should be an exciting event!

What I Will Focus On
My interests over the last 2 years have broadened (see side-thoughts below), and I hope to attend sessions about leadership, community of practice, performance support, and mobile learning. I definitely look forward to attending the conference and am excited to be in beautiful Jacksonville!

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A side-thought on scholarly activity: In the research world, it appears that many (most?) scholars seem to dive very deep into one specific area and research that area to provide new knowledge. I have been doing this for the past few years in the realm of instructional theory, particularly the practical application of Merrill's First Principles of Instruction. And while my interest in this area continues, I have found that I am fascinated with understanding the bigger picture, the system in which instruction and learning takes place. I've broadened my interests to include human performance technology, leadership, management and organizational and individual psychology. I have read dozens of books in these areas over the last couple of years (see my Books I Read section), and I find it to be very fulfilling.

Another side-thought: I have found that the knowledge I gained in my Masters and PhD programs - systems thinking, systematic thinking, design thinking, research, etc. - has given me a foundation or a structure into which I can organize and apply much of the new knowledge I am gaining. There is a certain capacity that is built through the difficulty and rewards of rigorous graduate work that enables an individual to acquire and organize knowledge in very meaningful ways. I am therefore exceedingly grateful for my doctoral experience and am excited to continue to learn, grow, develop, and improve.

AECT 2012: Summary of my Conference Experiences

#AECT

This is my summary post for the he AECT 2012 International Convention. I had an outstanding experience and in previous posts I blogged some of what I learned throughout the week. If you missed the conference, these links share my experiences.

I feel like I met my goals for the conference - I met some great new people, got oriented to what is going on in the research, and got to interact with old friends. Below is a summarizing list of the blog posts that I wrote about the conference this year. Thanks AECT for a great conference!

Before the Conference
Here are a few posts before the conference and during the drive from Columbus to Louisville.

• AECT 2012 International Convention - Looking Forward!
• Traveling to AECT 2012
• The Galt House Hotel and Suites

At the Conference

• Day 1: Ontology, TCL, and Opening Social
• Day 2: Part 1 - Microscenarios
• Day 2: Part 2 - Problems With Sampling in EdTech Research
• Day 2: Part 3 - The Future of the Field of Educational Technology
• Day 3: Part 1 - Sharing Your Work as an Academic
• Day 3: Part 2 - Invisible Forces That Influence Instructional Design
• Day 3: Part 3 - EdTech Dojo Podcast

Day 3 AECT 2012: Part 3 - EdTech Dojo Podcast of Conference Experience

This post is part of a Multiple Part Series on the 2012 AECT Convention.

#AECT 2012

Last night I recorded a podcast with my brother J. Clark Gardner for the EdTech Dojo on my conference experience here at the 2012 AECT Conference. In this podcast I reflect on the experience and talk about some of the interesting presentations.

click here to listen to podcast

Day 3 AECT 2012: Part 2 - Invisible Forces That Influence Instructional Design

This post is part of a Multiple Part Series on the 2012 AECT Convention.

#AECT 2012

 

This afternoon I did a poster presentation, along with some of my colleagues at Franklin University, on the invisible forces that seem to influence and affect instructional design.

 Dr. Eunice Luyegu and me (Dr. Joel Gardner)

In our poster, we assert that there are three types of tools that instructional designers use: (1) Technologies or physical tools, (2) Processes or how to build the instruction, and (3) Theory or what the instruction should be like. Here is the image we used to demonstrate this:

We also noted that there are many forces that influence our design work. We developed 6 categories for these influence types, based on a review of several models. The image below shares these.

We present this idea as a way to really think about design in a different way. We tend to think about our own special little processes and tools in instructional design, however there are so many things that influence our work, and we need to be sure we align what we do with all of those influences.

We had a lot of interesting feedback and ideas, including a suggestion to develop the concepts into a book of some kind, which could be a lot of fun.

Day 3 AECT 2012: Part 1 - Sharing Your Work as an Academic

This post is part of a Multiple Part Series on the 2012 AECT Convention.

#AECT 2012

Impacts and Dissemination of Scholarship
The first presentation I attended was given by Patrick Lowenthal, who presented on how to effectively share knowledge in higher education. I found that he provided some very powerful methods for sharing knowledge and getting scholarly work out there. Here is a summary of what he presented (not a comprehensive summary, but several of the main points). This, in my opinion, should be viewed as an additional set of strategies that supplement the traditional (and still important) methods of publishing, presenting, and teaching.

Put your stuff online! This is the basic habit - get your work out there to spread what you are doing to the rest of the world.
Track how people are using your work. Set up Google Alerts for your writing topics, your paper titles, your own name, etc. This will help you discover how people find you so that you can more effectively share your work in the future.
Publish some in open access journals. This get your name out there more because the work is openly available. Some open access journals even allow you to see how many people are looking at your work.
Share your work using social media. Some site include the following:

• Academia.edu
• Mendeley.com

 Pick a social network or two to share your work on. This helps push your content and you work to others and gets your name out there even more. I personally use LinkedIn and Twitter. I also share on Google + whenever I have something new I have written.

Share pre-publication drafts of your work. This helps get your work out there and helps you to connect more with the people that are doing work in your area. (I've done this on my blog for some of my articles, for example this one).

Review work of other people. This helps build the community and helps you to build a network with others who are doing similar work. You could easily do book reviews on Amazon.com.

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Again, this is a non-comprehensive summary of the presentation, but the ideas are powerful and really help to promote scholarly work in meaningful, interesting ways. Great presentation.

Day 2 AECT 2012: Part 3 - The Future of the Field of Educational Technology

This post is part of a Multiple Part Series on the 2012 AECT Convention.

#AECT 2012

The Future of Our Field
What is the future of the field of educational technology? Of education in general? Higher education has clearly undergone rapid transformation over the past 10 years- how will it transform over the coming years?

The panel: Patricia Young, Andy Gibbons, Elizabeth Boling, Ana Donaldson, David Wiley

In this panel session, several leading scholars discussed their take on (1) what changes will occur and (2)what changes should occur in the field. Note: This post will be a little different because I am going to basically share my notes (slightly edited) on what was said during the session.

Anna Donaldson

• Learning Design is another way of looking at design. We should consider thinking deeply about our learners' experience instead of the processes we use as designers.
• Our designs are often seen another resource for learning and not just the only source of learning.
• Learning analytics will likely have a powerful impact on the field. Understanding and using them will help us know how to interact with our students.
• We should really rethink how we think. We are stuck in what we think we know.

Andy Gibbons

• The economics of instructional design. Instructional designers should be aware of their value added. Decisions made by designers are tradeoffs that eventually have to do with economics, and we should think of what we do in terms of economics. 
• We must view design in terms of constraints. We often think there is some kind of ideal, but this is not necessarily true. We are working under actual constraints that change how we approach our work.
• Ask the question: what is going to be important in the future? What represents progress in the field of instructional design? Potential answers, potential opportunities:
• Intelligent Tutors.
• Data mining for educational purposes.
• Bayesian statistics - Book to read: "The Theory That Would Not Die."
• Corporate universities are nearly as many as educational universities. (We seem to be totally unaware of this presence.)
• There seems to be a change in the business approach of education. What used to be the public schools only is now taken over by many different types of institutions, and these will potentiall totally take over many aspects of higher education.
• Themes that should be included in our thinking about instructional design: portability, pallatability, accessibility, efficiency, scalability, sustainability, generativity, adaptivity, manufacturability, cost, actionable knowledge, popularity, coalition support

David Wiley

• Problem: The demand for higher education will increase exponentially (times 10) over the coming 15 years. We have demand for higher education but we do not have a plan in place to handle the demands that will inevitably come in the future. We don't really talk about these things very much, as a field.
• Openess
• Open Content - take instructional content and make it available to anyone. Allow people to use it, tweak it, localize it.
• Open Research - We should make the research that we perform totally available to others in an open way. Taxpayers pay for the research (through NSF for example) and then have to pay more to read the article. Doesn't make sense...
• Open Data - We should be showing the products of our work to each other. We should allow others to use our data in meaningful ways.
• Open Teaching - We should make our teaching available to anyone who would like to learn.
• Analytics will allow us to improve our instruction, and using open content allows us to change whatever we want to change.

Openness + Analytics 

= 

Chocolate + Peanut Butter

• Credentialing. We should allow people to credential others in meaningful ways (such as open badges).
• Our designs don't have any kind of quality that is independent from the interaction with learners.
• Science vs. Arts. We might have some kind of science envy. There is an art to what we do, and we don't talk about that very much. We should consider that important aspect of the work of designers.

Elizabeth Boling

•  Our field could potentially just dribble away if we are not willing to take a look at how the world and how learning is changing. We could potentially just go away and become obsolete.
• We often confuse values with scholarship. We confuse theory with design philosophy. For example: learning design and instructional design are mainly a difference in design philosophy.
• Questions we should be asking ourselves about our field:
• Why do other sectors in the world adopt technology faster than we do
• Why is human performance seen as different than Instructional Design and Learning Design?
• Why don't we guarantee our work? How do we get away with consulting people on how to design without a guarantee that it will improve learning?
• Why can't we guarantee our tools?
• Why don't we show each other our work?
• We have theories that do not really reflect our practice. How we practice should inform our theories, not the other way around.

Patricia Young

• Situating learning in the context of culture. What do kids do in their daily lives? We should localize our instruction to needs of particular groups.
• Culture influences how people learn and perform in e-learning environments.
• We should explore culture's impact on learning. What does it mean to move away from westernized thinking? How do you move more toward this culture-specific application? To design for aboriginals? or for Caucasian mountain dwellers?
• We should include a course on instructional design, technology, and culture.
• If we ignore culture, we will have poor ramifications.

Day 2 AECT 2012: Part 2 - Problems with Sampling in EdTech Research

This post is part of a Multiple Part Series on the 2012 AECT Convention.

#AECT 2012

Went to a presentation by Patrick Lowenthal on some of the issues that we come across in higher education research. He discussed a few interesting key points:

• We assume that we know what the research shows. For example: "Most of the research in _____ is quantitative in nature." Unfortunately, this is often just an assumption and it may not be totally accurate. A systematic review often reveals that our assumptions are incorrect.
• We often have issues with our research because we do convenience sampling. For example, the research done in some forms of online interaction nearly all focused on classes in education-related fields in higher education. This tends to skew our view of what education is like. Anyone going into education most likely had a nice educational experience, so they might approach their learning in different ways. 

Patrick asks a key question:

These kinds of ideas are appropriate and important for researchers. We base our assumptions about instructional design on the models research we are exposed to. And we base our work on those assumptions. This is a pretty scary proposition, and it implies that we often do this in other areas of life. I have my assumptions on how things work - instructional design, business, higher education, nutrition, etc. - but these are only based on what I know, on what I think based on my limited experiences and exposure to the environment. By gaining knowledge of what is actually there and identifying my own assumptions, I could potentially increase my personal ability to be effective at what I do.

This is related to something my philosopher friend at Franklin University continually hammers on. We live, believe and behave based on our assumptions about life.  However, he argues that most people usually do not base their assumptions on evidence or logic, and this can have disastrous consequences. I hope to write more on this when I have a little time.

Day 2 AECT 2012: Part 1 - Microscenarios

This post is part of a Multiple Part Series on the 2012 AECT Convention.

#AECT 2012

9:15- 10:15 Scenario-based and Standardized Patient Simulations in Nursing Education
The first session I attended was about how to create simulations for nursing students. Catherine Maney of Northern Illinois University presented on how she created simulated live scenarios of mental health patients. The scenario she described was interesting - a bipolar patient in a manic state. I was impressed with the process they used for creating the scenario case:

I like the methodical nature of this task or case creation process, particularly the step of having another faculty member review the scenario. A great way to formatively evaluate a learning scenario.

They used a live actress for the simulation. After following the scenario-creating process, they

1. ran the simulation with 2 nursing students as the learners
2. filmed the students in the simulation as they worked through the process of calming the patient, gathering vital signs, deescalating patient's manic behavior, and administering medication.
3. debriefed the students on how it went by reviewing the video at key points.
4. had the students self-evaluate their work by asking what they did well, how they might improve.

The presenter mentioned that they also use these recorded scenarios as a way to present examples to later students in the course. This makes sense to me since students, particularly novices, benefit greatly from worked examples of how to approach a particular task. A very good presentation on an application of task-centered instruction, in my opinion.

The second presentation in this session was given by John Jeon and Terry Tao of University of Wisconsin-Extension. They described how they are developing an online scenario-based training.

The presenters described how they worked developed an idea of using what they call microscenarios. They basically broke these scenarios (cases) that they were using previously into pieces and developed an online strategy and technology for delivering and applying that knowledge.

Here are a couple of interesting graphics from the presentation:

Day 1 AECT 2012: Ontology, TCL, and Opening Social

This post is part of a Multiple Part Series on the 2012 AECT Convention.

#AECT 2012

It is the end of my first day at the AECT 2012 International Convention. I've enjoyed the presentations and interactions thus far, despite the fact that I helped give one of the presentations... Here are some of my experiences at the conference today.

10:00 - 11:30 IDT Professors Forum
This morning I attended the IDT Professors forum. We talked about how our foundational beliefs about reality, what knowledge is, and how people learn have a profound influence on the way we teach and design instruction. The presenters shared the slide below:

Ontological Perspectives Comparison Table

It was a good discussion - got me thinking about my own underlying beliefs and how they influence my approach to teaching and design.

1:00 - 2:00 Co-presented with Greg Francom - What is Task-Centered Learning?
Dr. Greg Francom and I presented on a paper that we wrote on what task-centered learning (TCL) is. The purpose of the paper was to identify the common elements of several similar models of instruction. We also differentiated TCL from Problem-based Learning (PBL) and showed some of the fundamental differences in the underlying assumptions and applications of each theory.

Fundamental Components of Task-Centered Learning: 

• Learning Tasks
• Activation of Prior Knowledge
• Demonstration/Modeling
• Application
• Integration/Exploration

One will note that these principles align quite well with Dr. Merrill's First Principles of Instruction.

Greg during our TCL Presentation

One interesting discussion with the participants revolved around the question of whether or not we should try to synthesize theories together into a coherent framework. There were 2 camps - one thought we should, the other that we shouldn't. In my mind, I think that we should try to make coherence out of the theories and principles that have been discovered and researched by putting them together into a coherent, usable structure. However, this is not to say that we should try to combine everything that has ever been studied into one great ultimate theory of instruction; rather, we should clarify what works when and provide a structure that allows a person to use that knowledge in meaningful, contextualized ways.

Evening Social
After an interesting keynote address, I spent a couple of hours at the Evening Social event. Talked with lots of old friends, colleagues, and professors. It is always fun to get together with my particular brand of nerd (no offense, my fellow-edtech nerds) and talk instructional design and technology. Talked briefly with Dr. Merrill, who has been a great mentor and leader in the field.

Drs. Preston Parker, Joel Gardner, David Merrill, Greg Francom, and Max Cropper

The Galt House Hotel and Suites

This post is part of a Multiple Part Series on the 2012 AECT Convention.

#AECT 2012

For this year's AECT Convention, I am staying at the Galt House Hotel and Suites, sharing a room with my good friend John Jeon. A very nice hotel and we are in the same building as the convention, which is a lot nicer than walking a mile or two (like I did at the last conference).

Some photos:

Me in hotel room (yes, that is an ATARI shirt)

  

The hotel room

View of Ohio River from hotel room

View of downtown Louisville from hotel room

The Roommate
John finally arrived late this evening after a cancelled and rerouted flight. John and I have worked together on multiple research projects, written an article together and have been good friends for years, so it was really fun to see him again.

John Jeon

Traveling to AECT 2012

This post is part of a Multiple Part Series on the 2012 AECT Convention.

#AECT 2012

Traveling to Louisville
Instead of flying, I drove to this conference. Louisville is only a 3.5 hour drive away, so I drove my beloved 1994 Toyota pickup down.(You can see the route I took by reading my previous post).

While on the drive, I listened to a great book entitled "The Power of Habit," a great book that summarizes some of the research on habit formation. If I have time, I may write a quick post about the book.

The Drive:
It was generally dreary weather on the drive down; still, Ohio and Kentucky are beautiful states, and I really enjoyed the scenic, relaxing drive. I've posted some photos of the drive below (though these are not necessarily of the best quality... remember, they were taken in the rain as I drove.)

Driving Through Cincinnati

Through the Kentucky Hills

Approaching Louisville

I am excited to be here - Louisville is a great town and I am glad to be able to reconnect with friends and colleagues. I am looking forward to a great AECT Conference!

AECT 2012 International Convention - Looking Forward!

This post is part of a Multiple Part Series on the 2012 AECT Convention.

#AECT 2012

In a week I will attend the Association for Educational Communications and Technology (AECT)  Annual Convention in Louisville, Kentucky. I attend AECT's convention every year and enjoyed attending in Louisville a few years ago.

I am looking forward to another outstanding experience, this year. In the past, I have enjoyed the following things about AECT's convention:

• The people at AECT are open, friendly, and willing to share ideas and research. This was particularly welcoming to me when I first attended as a graduate student, and I appreciate being able to approach people that I respect in an environment that is open and somewhat relaxed.
• The research and technologies that are discussed are often very timely, interesting, and useful. I find that working at the daily grind sometimes keeps me away from what is new in the field, and AECT's convention is a great way to familiarize myself with what is currently happening in the field.
• Many of my good friends and colleagues attend AECT regularly, and I find that the convention is a great place to reconnect with them and see how they are doing. I plan on meeting many friends at the convention and hope it will be a good way to create new opportunities for future research, work, and collaboration.

Travel to Louisville
I grew up in the western United States of America where the states are giant compared to states closer to the east coast. When I think of driving to another state, I think that it will naturally take at least a day to make the journey, but it surprisingly only takes 3 hours and 25 minutes to drive from Columbus, Ohio to Louisville, Kentucky. I'll be staying with my good friend at the Galt House Hotel and I look forward to spending time with him.


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Reporting on the Conference
As with previous conferences I have attended, (for example the 2012 ISPI International Conference) I plan to write a daily report on what I learn, along with reflections on whether I find it useful or worthwhile. I am looking forward to the experience!