My name is Rob Peeler and the video above (or photo if you’re on mobile) is my wife and I doing what we love — visiting Disney World and enjoying the magic (if you watch the video, you’ll see us on the rollercoaster!). 

When I’m not having fun in amusement parks, I’m having fun in the LDT program or at work. I’m currently in the master’s program for LDT. With only one class left after this course, I’m nearing the end of the program.

I currently work in the communications and marketing office within the Penn State College of Health and Human Development where I work on digital communications. This includes managing a social media team, supervising interns, web development, training, writing articles and web content, analyzing various digital metrics (i.e., Google and social media analytics) and just about anything else related to communications within the college. Prior to this role, I work in communications within the Rock Ethics Institute at Penn State and before that I taught standardized prep test course (GRE, GMAT, LSAT, SAT), trained faculty members to teach/present, and managed faculty members. Oh, and I have a degree in computer engineering from Penn State that I haven’t directly used.

All of this experience, both work and life, brought me to this program. My main interest lies in how we communicate learning tools to higher education students, staff, and faculty. I’m curious about whether or not certain theoretical design decisions match actual experience for the users/learners. I’m also interested in figuring out how we can better leverage concepts from LDT to help us communicate/market course programs to prospective students.

On the standard definition of teaching side of things, I’m mainly interested in workforce development. Last semester I participated in an independent study course where I developed a Canvas course for our 40+ web users (i.e., those who manage website content for Health and Human Development) that is both a traditional start-to-finish course as well as a reference tool. This course includes background, step-by-step instructions, visual tutorials, and training videos. I’m interested in this course as I’d like to think through ways to better present material for mobile use and develop other ways our web users can utilize mobile tools to successfully do their jobs.

As for the first reading, “WILD for Learning,” Pea and Maldonado had some interesting predictions that came true (handhelds embedded in everyday life (418)) and a variety of interesting perspectives on handhelds in general. 

Handhelds are now part of my everyday life and I, along with others I’m sure, take them for granted — mainly because they are now a part of us. I found their perspective (page 429) on the size of handhelds related to teaching in a classroom an interesting insight. The small size allows for the teacher to work with the learners on the material they are learning vs. the teacher being the main focal point. Essentially, this perspective is mimicking how we use handhelds now — it’s a part of us and we expect them to be by our side and help us when we need an answer. The teachers are training students early on to use these devices in the fashion we’ve all been accustomed to doing for a few years now.

If we were to extrapolate their predictions, they fall in line with what we are seeing today. Pea and Maldonado’s focus on taking these devices outside of the classroom to learn, using them within the classroom to focus the attention of the leaners on the topic at hand, and using the handheld device as a tool to enhance learning are foundational concepts to what we’re starting to see now. The popularity of augmented reality (and maybe virtual as well), the ability to use our phones as tour guides in museums and college campuses, and even entertaining us while waiting in lines in Disney World, all take their predictions to another level. It makes me wonder where we will be in the next ten years with handheld devices.

Finally, I also appreciated their focus on understanding the audience for the handheld (on page 434). All too often, and in many readings and discussions in previous LDT classes, the audience is forgotten. I can see that many might feel that it’s understood who the audience might be for a project, but it still needs to be stated. Coming from a communications background, I know how easy it is to forget about the audience if it’s not clearly defined throughout the project. We all learn differently and keeping that focus at the forefront only helps the designers create courses that are successful.

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Pea, R. D. and H. Moldonado. WILD for learning: Interacting through new computing devices anytime, anywhere. Cambridge handbook of the learning sciences. Sawyer, K. ed. New York. Cambridge University Press. 2006. 0521607779. pp. 427-441.