One of the things I love about my current position is that I get to work with individuals from a variety of disciplines and with a variety of experience levels. I enjoy the challenge of figuring out how to teach and support these individuals so that they not only help improve the college, but they also gain knowledge and professional development skills that will serve them well in their current role and any future roles.

Throughout ,my time working with so many people, I’ve come to realize that job responsibilities for university staff have grown over the years since technology has improved efficiency. With that comes increased stress and pressure to get things done. This causes learning anything new to be put on the back burner until there is time, which there is usually never a good time. The thought of learning something new when there is so much other work sometimes is a bit unnerving for learners. 

In my last blog post I wrote a bit about chunking material to make it more manageable for leaners in a workplace learning environment. This, along with digital badging, could help learners stay on track and complete learning objectives as the courses wouldn’t seem so daunting. So, this week I wanted to read a bit more about these ideas tied to motivation as well as some ideas on how to build a virtual community of support.

The main function of digital badges in higher education is to set attainable goals and motivate learners to succeed. These badges can also present the list of competencies and objectives clearly in that the badge itself highlights the objective. Noting these badges at the beginning of the training help the learners see that they can slowly grow their skills over time with small milestone steps along the way (Dyjur and Lindstrom, 386-87). In addition to the content associated with the badge, it was interesting to find from Dyjur and Lindsrom’s study, on page 390, that the design of the badge mattered as well. A more simplistic design was looked at as not as important and lowered the credibility of the program while a more complex design made the program more credible. This particular point is often overlooked and something to consider in my own project. Design does matter and first impressions can be everything. 

In “Adult learners’ intention to adopt mobile learning: A motivational perspective” by Hashim, Tan, and Rashid, the authors focused on adoption of mobile learning by adult leaners and was to motivating this demographic. They discussed that adult learners typically have a desire to learn and can naturally be motivated by the subject matter (Hashim, Tan, and Rashid, 383-84). While this is the case for self-selected topics, it may not work for the “job duties as assigned” topics that many in the workplace engage with. I think building out the objectives into smaller chunks with attainable milestones would be a strategy to encourage learners to also be motivated for those “job duties as assigned.” What Hashim, et al. found through their study on motivating the adult learner using mobile technologies is that the learners are more likely to adopt mobile learning if the technology used is something that can support their needs and is easy to use (Hashim, et al., 388). In tying it to my project, this study offers some good insights in that mobile technology options selected should be easy to use, familiar, and aid in what they are already doing. My audience is already using mobile apps for their job duties, so keeping focus on implementing use of those apps through the learning process will be key to their success.

Since my project deals with digital communication, including social media, I wanted to read a bit more how to potentially use Facebook groups as an engagement and support tool for the learners. This environment is already familiar to the learners, satisfying points made in the Hashim, et al. study. The focus of “A multi-analytical approach to predict the Facebook usage in higher education” by Sharma, Joshi, and Sharma, attempted understand Facebook use in academia. What was interesting about their review that helped lead to the study is that learners tended to support instructor use of Facebook as it helped connect with the instructor on a more personal level (Sharma, et al. 342). Going one step further, seeing that an instructor is human just like everyone else can be a great tool to connect with others. In my own work, there are faculty members who share their stories through social media to show students that they have lives outside of work. This can empower the learners to see that other people like them were able to learn the material and follow their career goals. The results of their study showed that sharing this type of information, as well as subject specific information with the purpose of collaboration was a successful way to motivate learners and build a community through social media for academic purposes (Sharma, et al. 350). This study shows that there is a way to successfully use Facebook as a tool to increase connections with leaners. Within my project, my ideas to make it a bit more specific by using a close Facebook group to encourage collaboration among leaners. 

Overall, my understandings of mobile technologies didn’t change much. I work in communications and tend to be an early adopter of new technology. What the various readings so far have done is confirm what I’ve experienced with mobile technology and offered proof that things I’ve observed and thought about are in fact valid. Throughout my journey through the LDT program, my focus has been on communications and how can we better get across to our learners the things we need to get across to them. Much of what I’ve read and selected to read highlighted was to do what I’m already doing in digital communications (social media, website, apps, etc.), but offered suggestions on how to tweak content and experience so that digital communications can encourage, engage, and support learners. 

Dyjur, P., & Lindstrom, G. (2017). Perceptions and uses of digital badges for professional learning development in higher education. TechTrends, 61(4), 386-392. doi:http://dx.doi.org.ezaccess.libraries.psu.edu/10.1007/s11528-017-0168-2 

Hashim, K. F., Tan, F. B., & Rashid, A. (2015). Adult learners’ intention to adopt mobile learning: A motivational perspective. British Journal of Educational Technology, 46(2), 381–390.

Sharma, S. K., Joshi, A., & Sharma, H. (2016). A multi-analytical approach to predict Facebook usage in higher education. Computers in Human Behavior, 55, 340–353.