For the last three or so years I’ve been working my way through the Learning, Design, and Technology program (LDT) at Penn State. Throughout this program I’ve taken a variety of courses ranging from theory based to practical, and I’ve participated in a variety of experiences that have helped me craft online learning environments focused on the learner

As my career has progressed over the last decade my interests have aligned. The LDT program combined my interest in education, technology, and communications to help me craft better ways to educate the public about the work that is done in higher education. Prior to starting this program, I thought about how virtually anything done online — from a traditional online university course to a YouTube video — has some sort of educational bent. 

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Our mobile devices are becoming part of us, in that rarely does anyone leave home without such a device. We use the device to learn about restaurants, tourist attractions, do-it-yourself projects, and more. We peruse websites to learn about various products, companies, and even university degree programs. In order to ensure that the audience receives the information needed to make the right decision for themselves, it needs to be presented in such a way to educate the public. 

Throughout the various courses and projects, I’ve focused on how to use theories and principles from education to improve communications with our respective audiences and integrate communications best practices into online education. The projects selected within this portfolio showcase how we can better build digital communication tools to both educate our desired marketable audience and how to better communicate to our internal stakeholders how to educate our audiences so that they can make appropriate decisions for their education needs.

The first project, “HHD Website Training Course,” was by far the most involved. This project was developed as part of an independent study course. The College of Health and Human Development at Penn State recently launched a new website. In order to ensure that the content was updated on this website, we needed to have individuals within each department make periodic updates. Rather than train them one-on-one, this course was developed to ensure consistent training for each learner. This training was developed to be a course that a learner to use from start to finish, use it as a reference tool, and complete the course in flexible, unique timeline based on each individual learner. Additionally, the learners also needed be able to use a variety of devices — desktop computers, tablets, mobile phones, and laptops — to complete the course. These design decisions were made because:

• • From a tactical perspective many skills used to keep a website up-to-date are not used on a daily basis and the learners need a way to refresh their skills.
  • Staff members want to learn news skills that help with professional development, promotions, and general knowledge (Hashim et al., 384).
  • The audience is primarily composed of adult learners and this demographic needs to utilize technology that is familiar and easy to use. By selecting Canvas as the learning management tool and Office 365 as the collaboration tool, the learners already felt a sense of comfort with adding this new tool (Hashim et al., 389).
  • This course allowed the learners to immediately practice what they learned in a live test environment that mimicked the HHD website. This allowed them to experiment and engage in real-world activities (Mouza and Lavigne, 4).
  • These practice fields were carefully thought out and planned based on the audience assessment. They included assignments that the learners would receive from actual clients. The learners needed a place to experiment and try what they learned in an actual scenario (Barab and Duffy, 34) and the design called for collaborative work in a closed environment.

The main focus of this project was to train people in a collaborative environment that encourage discussions, experimentation, and learning. 

The second project, “Mobile Social Media Training Module, was designed again with the audience in mind. This audience for this project was staff at Penn State. Just like the web training project, this particular course module was designed to actually be used as part of the overall digital communications training provided by the College of Health and Human Development communications and marketing office. The overall goal of the office is to empower and train others in the basics of digital communications. This particular project was aimed at those staff members learning how to use social media for a brand (that is, a department at Penn State). 

This particular project had many components, but by knowing and understanding the audience certain design decisions were made. The most important is the focus on digital badges. Most of the people taking this training module had social media added to their list of duties. Because of this, they had very little time to work through a training from start to finish. Digital badging and chunking the material into small lessons with badges acting as milestones can help them complete the tasks in the timeframe that fits their schedule. So rather than developing a course that is one-size fits all, this module was developed with them in mind.  

This project fit in perfectly to the LDT program and more specifically my focus and interest in designing learning programs with a focus on communications. Since the users of social media have this task added to their job duties and they tend to be more mobile, the learning fits their schedule making it easier for them to learn. By ensuring that the learning was being done using technology they are already using, it motivates and makes it more likely that the adult learners will learn. (Hashim, et al., 388). Additionally, this helps build their confidence and skills over time (Dyjur and Lindstrom, 386-87), and the micro-credentials that badging provides motivates them since progress can be seen by the learner and the learner’s supervisor (Jones et al., 432-433). 

The third project, “Introduction to Marketing Collateral in a University Setting at Penn State,” was developed as a group project. However, the vast majority of the work was completed by me. This particular project was designed to help staff members within our college submit and create flyers for marketing purposes. The reason I selected it as part of my portfolio is not so much due to the final project, but because of the process. This project required developing an instructional strategy that helped outline each and every milestone for a project. Learning and understanding these concepts helped inform the website training course, and without this project I do think the web training course would have been harder to complete. The design itself was, like the other projects, built with the learners in mind. We knew everything we could about the overall learner and that helped frame the overall objectives through the strategy design.

This project didn’t so much expand the process for me, but instead, helped internalize and better understand the importance of a plan when creating a course. It’s very easy to start writing the material narrative right out of the gates and it’s also very easy to then run into problems with losing the overall focus of the course. By creating the plan/strategy ahead of time, the focus remains throughout the project creation. 

The course material over the last few years has both confirmed ideas I’ve had about teaching and learning as well as gave me ways to rethink how I teach. The most valuable course experience was LDT 832. What I appreciated most about this course was how it was designed. At the first glance, it seemed a bit random. Each week it seemed we were submitting our work in a different way or interacting with our classmates in a new way. I didn’t see the full value of this until the course was almost complete, and I do believe I learned the most from this one class. I learned that we must not be afraid to try new things and figure out ways to engage with our students in ways that isn’t forceful. Many LDT courses since have had blog assignments or forum assignments. These assignments force discussion as in many of them students must post a minimum amount of times. However, in LDT 832 there was more freeform. We posted when we had something to say or add to the conversation versus posting the same thing as someone else. This helped the course two fold in that we didn’t need to read the same comments over and over again wasting time, and the comments were more thought out. These lessons helped inform future projects both in the LDT program and in my current job role.

Overall, this portfolio closely follows my learning philosophy. Each of these projects help illustrate that we need some sort of formal structure to learn (Canvas and outlines), but we need a way to informally learn and experiment in an informal space (test environments, communities, mentoring, and creativity). Being able to tinker and try new things is what pushes learners to the next level. They need to be able to internalize the theories and tactical skills, build something new, and share it with others. 

Additionally, audience has been a driving factor in all my decisions for these projects. Throughout this program one thing I found quite interesting was the lack of focus on audience in course assignments and the literature. Communication and marketing principles should be incorporated into all learning activities. We may not be selling a tangible product, but we are selling our concepts, theories, and ideas. In order for others to internalize the material, we need to convince of the value. Communications and marketing principles can help us do just that. 

As a final point, no matter how experienced we are on any given topic, we all have something to learn. This program discussed various theories, explained various concepts, and offered ways to build these into practice. However, in order to be successful, the concepts and theories needed to be altered and updated based on the current trends and research. Otherwise, it will be very easy to slide back in time.

Sources

Barab, S.A., Duffy, T. From Practice Fields to Communities of Practice. Theoretical Foundations of Learning Environments. New York. Routledge. 2012. 0415894212. Ch. 2. pp. 29-65.

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.

Jones, W. M., Hope, S., & Adams, B. (2018). Teachers’ perceptions of digital badges as recognition of professional development. British Journal of Educational Technology, 49(3), 427–438.

Mouza, C., Lavigne, N. Emerging Technologies for the Classroom, Explorations 1 in the Learning Sciences, Instructional Systems and Performance Technologies,
DOI 10.1007/978-1-4614-4696-5_1, © Springer Science+Business Media New York 2013. Ch. 1. pp 1-12.