EdTecker

Research /Conferences

2008-02-11T20:00:00.000-07:00

One thing that I am passionate about is my research on Instructional Technology :)When you are in academia, research and conferences become part of your life style. With a 3-3 load I just have to find the time to make room for it.

Here are some of the areas that I've been working on,
1. A Web 2.0 Learning and Instructional Design Model
2. Learning Management System Self-Efficacy (LMSES)
3. Adoption of Virtual Classrooms
4. Multimedia Competencies for Instructional Technologists

My article on Process Improvement was just published in PI and my dissertation will be published in JEMH in April. Some of the journals do take a long time, and I'm hoping that some of my other articles in the queue would get published sooner.

I'm travelling end of this week to World Congress 2008 at NY, and then to Society of Applied Learning Technologies (SALT) at Orlando. Two good conferences to look foward to. I'm also attending the UNCTLT conference at Raleigh in March. It will be my first time at UNC TLT and I'm looking forward to it

Spring 2008 @ UNCW

2008-01-22T07:37:00.000-07:00

I am excited that my husband has also taken up a job here in Wilmington, NC. He now works for the ITSD group. www.uncw.edu/itsd

As for me, I am teaching Computer-based Instruction and I'm enjoying every bit of it. I've introduced my students to the total training videos. (http://www.totaltraining.com) and they love it. I've been very impressed with the videos myself and they have been such a big help in learning the tool. We've been having fun working with FLASH and I'm waiting to see how their projects turn out.

I've finally transitioned over to Office 2007 and getting used to it.

Fall 2007 Conferences - NSF ATE and AECT 2007

2007-11-10T21:51:00.001-07:00

I made two back to back trips in October, one to Washington DC and then to Anaheim, California. Since I've been a co-principal invesitigator on an NSF ATE Grant, we had to present at the conference in DC. We had to set up a booth and we did get creative and used a DVL Wheel which we used last year as well.

Then at AECT, I participated at an NSF Symposium organized by a research group from UGA. It was a neat experience learning on how to write successful grants!

Good Bye to Authorware

2007-10-02T19:42:00.000-07:00

Adobe has planned to discontinue Authorware which has been one of the earlier CBT development tools. It will continue selling Authorware 7 and provide support for that version! http://www.adobe.com/products/authorware/productinfo/faq/eod/#a9

However, there are other excellent CBT development tools such as Captivate, Flash, Dreamweaver. Looks like the industry is going in the direction of the demand!

From Adobe:

According to a recent survey by the eLearning Guild, most of the top tools currently used by eLearning professionals come from Adobe. These include Adobe Captivate®, Flash®, Acrobat Connect™ and Dreamweaver® software. As eLearning continues to shift from a static “Web 1.0” style publishing paradigm toward a “Web 2.0” style connected ecosystem, additional Adobe products such as Adobe® Acrobat®, Flex™, Adobe Photoshop® Elements, Director® and Flash® Lite™, as well as rapid eLearning tools such as Adobe Captivate®, Acrobat Connect™, Adobe Presenter™ and Contribute® software will enable learners to engage with ideas and information, anytime, anywhere, and on virtually any device.

University of North Carolina - Wilmington

2007-08-12T16:37:00.000-07:00

After 6 years of being in Arizona, finally it is time for me to move. I've accepted a faculty position with University of North Carolina - Wilmington.

More details of the courses I'm teaching is displayed at http://people.uncw.edu/martinf/

North Carolina seems to be beautiful :) and I'm still in the process of settling down.

Process Improvement

2007-07-19T13:22:00.000-07:00

Over the last few months I have been researching on Process Improvement - specifically, "A Performance Technologist’s approach to Process Performance Improvement" I'm hoping that the paper will be published soon, but for now here is an outline.

Here is an outline...

Process Performance improvement is the concept of measuring the performance of a particular process, then modifying the process in order to increase the output performance. The concept of performance improvement can be applied to either individual performance or organizational performance.

Process Performance Management provides detailed understanding of how a process can be designed/ redesigned to improve the performance. It starts with identifying an opportunity for improvement and ends with an opportunity for continuous improvement. This can be viewed as an alternate way to the HPT model’s performance improvement approach. It is not very heavy on the analysis front as the HPT model, but focuses more on identifying performance outcome measures.

My New Corolla

2007-06-26T12:27:00.001-07:00

Here are few pics of my new Corolla! A cousin of mine wanted to see it, so here it is :)

Summer of 2007

2007-06-26T09:46:00.000-07:00

I have been working for University of Phoenix and also for Mesa Community College on the DVL NSF grant. Both the projects have been a good experience for me so far. Work has been relaxed and exciting. The only problem is the Arizona heat. Unbelievably its so hot here these days. Here is the graph showing the average highs and lows for Mesa, Arizona - 85202

My Wedding

2007-03-15T21:33:00.000-07:00

Yep, the other exciting event of my holiday was my wedding. The wedding was planned in a short period of time. I married "Suseel" who is also my wonderful friend :) We are now both back in Arizona. But we are thinking about relocating to North Carolina because of a job opportunity that has come through for me. We are happy to be married to each other and I am in the process of learning to be a wife :)

Back from Coimbatore - India

2007-02-16T09:26:00.000-07:00

I just returned from after a long vacation to India. I was there for about 6 weeks and had a good time. I was visiting after four years and yes there were quite a bit of changes. All my little cousins had grown up. The culture had changed a bit. The shock was to see my parents being aged. My grandmother had become very old. Time can change a lot of things. I am from this city called "Coimbatore" http://www.coimbatore.com It is called the manchester of south india and primarily known for its textiles. I love this town :) I was able to meet up with some friends and had a good holiday.

NSF ATE Conference - Influence of ID

2006-10-30T21:31:00.000-07:00

The DVL Project that I have been working for the last 6 months is part of an NSF Grant. Specifically, it is through the ATE group of NSF(Advanced Technological Education). I just returned from the NSF Grant at Washington D.C and it was a neat experience. Meeting all the other technical educators and taking a look at the projects that the projects each one is working on was a good experience.
Link to the AACC Advanced Technological Education Site

Amazingly, beign an educational technologist I found that most of the grants are involved with the deisgn of instruction in someway or the other (be in manufacturing or in computer science), designing simulations or training programs, they all are designing instructional material. I do wonder how much of ID influence they have in each of these projects though. We just have to keep our fingers crossed that the projects are not only an advancement in the subject matter but also are designed with new technology and have sound instrucitonal material. I was amazed to see a variety of simulations being designed for the purpose of serving as labs such as chemistry labs and there was one for aircraft maintenance lab. Interesting! The world does seem to be moving in our direction :)

Digital Visual Literacy (DVL)

2006-06-30T18:12:00.000-07:00

The words that ring in my head constantly these days are "Digital Visual Literacy." Its been a wonderful experience working on the project so far. I have been working as the Instructional design consultant and work with the subject matter experts from Brown University and the faculty from the community colleges in the Maricopa County.

What is DVL?
Digital visual literacy is a set of skills that enable students to function in an increasingly digital and visual workplace.

The NSF Grant
Supported by a three-year, $600,000 grant from the National Science Foundation, Mesa Community College (Mesa, Ariz.) and Brown University (Providence, R.I.) are developing pioneering curriculum modules for teaching digital visual literacy. As international culture and commerce become increasingly reliant on visual communications, visual literacy is becoming an essential skill for college graduates.

Here is a URL to learn more about the project
http://dvl.mc.maricopa.edu

Goodbye to Albuquerque

2006-05-28T20:58:00.000-07:00

My project with Intel ends on May 31st and I'm heading back to Arizona. I was in Albuquerque for about 3 mths. I should say that it was a good experience. I did not do a lot outside Intel - except that I went to UNM once, went to the downtown once for a concert (Indian Ocean) and then went up the tram.

I am starting my next project with Mesa Community College and will be working on an NSF Grant.

eLCOP at Intel

2006-04-24T14:00:00.000-07:00

The last 2 days were exciting. I learned a lot of new technology such as Web 2.0 - Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, Web Feeds, and Aggregates. I also learned more about Knowledgement and the LMS Moodles...

For those of you who would like to know the difference between these terminologies,
here they are:

Blogs -A blog is a website where entries are made in journal style and displayed in a reverse chronological order. Blogs often provide commentary or news on a particular subject, such as food, politics, or local news; some function as more personal online diaries. A typical blog combines text, images, and links to other blogs, web pages, and other media related to its topic. Most blogs are primarily textual although some focus on photographs (photoblog), videos (vlog), or audio (podcasting), and are part of a wider network of social media. **You are reading this text from my blog.

Wiki -A wiki is a type of website that allows the visitors themselves to easily add, remove and otherwise edit and change some available content, sometimes without the need for registration. This ease of interaction and operation makes a wiki an effective tool for collaborative authoring. The term wiki can also refer to the collaborative software itself (wiki engine) that facilitates the operation of such a website, or to certain specific wiki sites, including the computer science site (an original wiki), WikiWikiWeb, and online encyclopedias such as Wikipedia.

Podcasts - A podcast is a multimedia file distributed over the Internet using syndication feeds, for playback on mobile devices and personal computers. The term, as originally coined by Ben Hammersley in an article in the Guardian on February 12, 2004 [1], was meant as a portmanteau of "broadcasting" and "iPod".[2] Like 'radio', it can mean both the content and the method of delivery; the latter may also be termed podcasting. The host or author of a podcast is often called a podcaster.

Though podcasters' web sites may also offer direct download or streaming of their content, a podcast is distinguished from other digital audio formats by its ability to be downloaded automatically using software capable of reading feed formats such as RSS or Atom.

RSS - RSS is a family of web feed formats. The initialism "RSS" is variously used to refer to the following standards:

Really Simple Syndication (RSS 2.0)
Rich Site Summary (RSS 0.91, RSS 1.0)
RDF Site Summary (RSS 0.9 and 1.0)
RSS formats are specified in XML (a generic specification for data formats). RSS delivers its information as an XML file called an "RSS feed", "webfeed", "RSS stream", or "RSS channel".

Web Feeds - A web feed is a data format used for serving users frequently updated content. Content distributors syndicate a web feed, thereby allowing users to subscribe to it. Making a collection of web feeds accessible in one spot is known as aggregation.

In the typical scenario of using web feeds, a content provider publishes a feed link on their site which end users can register with an aggregator program (also called a feed reader or a news reader) running on their own machines; doing this is usually as simple as dragging the link from the web browser to the aggregator. When instructed, the aggregator asks all the servers in its feed list if they have new content; if so, the aggregator either makes a note of the new content or downloads it. Aggregators can be scheduled to check for new content periodically.

The kinds of content delivered by a web feed are typically HTML (webpage content) or links to webpages and other kinds of digital media. Often when websites provide web feeds to notify users of content updates, they only include summaries in the web feed rather than the full content itself.

Aggregator - An aggregator or news aggregator or feed reader is client software that uses a web feed to retrieve syndicated web content such as weblogs, podcasts, vlogs, and mainstream mass media websites, or in the case of a search aggregator, a customized set of search results.

Descriptions are from "http://www.wikipedia.com"

A new beginning

2006-03-13T18:41:00.000-07:00

2005 was memorable for me. I have just taken up a short term project with Intel Corporation. I moved to Rio Rancho, New Mexico. Intel has been a wonderful experience, but I do miss Arizona.

I have been working on putting together a Web Based Training for a Project Management Tool. I have been learning a lot...We have an eLcop (its a conference for the ID practioners at Intel and I am looking forward to it).

Graduation

2005-12-22T20:28:00.000-07:00

Here are a few pics from the graduation ceremony.

After Commencement

At the Pysched Hooding

Being Hooded

Graduation Ceremony/Party Invite

2005-12-10T13:25:00.000-07:00

Its time for the graduation ceremony. Finally I turned in all the copies to the book store, bought my graduation outfit and ready for the ceremony. You are invited to the party :)

Edtech Party

2005-12-05T13:19:00.000-07:00

Here is a pic from an Edtech party that we recently had..Edteckers at ASU are fun to hangout with.

The defense - November 18th 2005

2005-11-20T12:55:00.000-07:00

The defense was not that bad as I thought. I did have questions from all the committee members. My friends and other edtech grad students were there to be supportive.

So in about two hrs of presenting/answering questions on my defense....wow I became Dr.Martin

Here is a pic that was taken right after my defense and has my committe members.
From left to right, it is Dr.Robert Atkinson, Dr.James Klein (my chair), Myself, Dr. Howard Sullivan and Dr.Wilhelmina Savenye.

Abstract of my Dissertation

2005-11-17T12:32:00.000-07:00

Finally, I have everything ready and am all set for tomorrow. Here is an abstract of my dissertation

-----------------------------------------------
This study examined the effects of instructional elements (information, objectives, practice with feedback and review) on achievement, attitude and time in a computer-based, multimedia program. Undergraduate college students used the multimedia lesson to learn about artists and their painting styles. All participants received the same information and examples from the multimedia lesson; the programs varied based on the presence or absence of practice and objectives/review.

The elements of instruction investigated in the study were combined into four different versions of the computer program which consisted of (1) a full version that included information, objectives, practice with feedback, and review, (2) a version that included information and practice with feedback, (3) a version with information, objectives and review, and (4) a lean version containing information only.

Results indicated that practice had a significant effect on achievement while objectives and review did not. Participants who used the program with practice performed significantly better than those who did not receive practice. Student responses to the attitude survey showed that they were sensitive to the presence or absence of the instructional elements investigated in this study. Participants who used the lean program (information only) had the lowest overall attitudes. When the individual items on the attitude survey were analyzed, participants who received practice had significantly higher agreement with the item - “The program gave me enough opportunity to practice what I was learning.” Results of paired comparison questions on the attitude survey revealed that participants perceived information, practice and review to be more helpful than objectives. Turning to time, participants who received the full program spent the most amount of time working though the multimedia lesson and those who received the lean program spent the least amount of time.

This study has implications for the design and development of computer-based, multimedia instruction. Practice was the one consistently effective instructional element for enhancing student achievement and attitude in the study. The findings imply that practice with feedback should be included in computer-based, multimedia instruction especially when students are tested using items aligned with the objectives and practice items.

Countdown to my defense

2005-10-25T11:54:00.000-07:00

The big day is nearing and the countdown has started. I will be defending in less than a month...The format review process has been a pain as always and I have been working towards getting everything together. I feel as though I can even talk about my research even in my sleep. Guess that's how dissertations make you!

AECT at Orlando

2005-10-23T11:51:00.000-07:00

This year I headed to Orlando for AECT 2005. Usually AECT conferences are such fun for the Edteckers at ASU. This year, Wilma decided to head towards Orlando....and though we were at Disneyworld, I had to cut short my trip and return back home. It was a short trip but memorable I should say. I presented my dissertation results :) there at AECT

Looking to the future

2005-10-09T15:40:00.000-07:00

The field of instructional design continues to evolve. This change is due, in part, to speed and storage increases occurring in computer technologies; an evolving infrastructure allowing for easier delivery of instruction through distance delivery; new epistemologies requiring a rethinking of the teaching and learning process; economic concerns demanding more effective and efficient performance; societal concerns mandating that materials reflect diverse cultures and peoples; and an increased understanding of a self-correcting systems operation.

Greater recognition and inclusion of diverse cultural perspectives: Instructional designers must become more aware and sensitized to an increasingly diverse and global clientele. Recognition and inclusion of diverse perspectives is justified for corporations not only with employees who travel to distant locations, but also to those with workers or clients at home in our multicultural society.

Development of rapid, adaptive, instructional design and evaluation systems: The importance of rapid prototyping, and the idea that instructional design will give way to more "on-the-fly" processes. These concerns may be originating from the idea that "time is money." Limited time and resources demand quick resolution with lean and simple approaches to a training requirement. How will designers react to this need for speed? Possibly by incorporating more fluid, nonlinear instructional design processes that rely on frequent evaluations and alterations rather than by following a rigid design process.

Growth of online, on-demand, access to information, performance support, and training: The ability to train workers at their work site, rather than sending them to a classroom, influences the bottom line by reducing the cost of the lost time spent in travel and adaptation to a new location or system, and by providing information and instruction when and where it is needed. Integration of training, support for learning, and electronic performance support will be integrated into a worker's ongoing daily activities. Computers will continue to move beyond CBT by providing access to data bases and expert opinions. These computer-based environments will help workers with minimal skills operate more like their highly skilled counterparts.

The emergence of content rich and methodologically robust distance training and information networks. There will be increased use of networks to provide easy access to training and information at a distance.Pushing the development of distance learning environments will be the continually expanding numbers of telecommuting employees. There will be greater use of distant shared synthetic environments, such as virtual realities and distributed simulations, which will be able to provide new learning opportunities.

Instructional materials customized to the user: Customized training solutions for individual users is a worthy goal, but today, cost usually prohibits this level of intervention. In the future, however, our experts believe that adaptive intelligent systems, coupled with the ability to store and access electronic resources and plug-in components, will make highly customized training a more distinct possibility. Increased customization would not only provide content relevant to the needs and experiences of the individual user, but could also allow materials to be more attuned to the motivational needs of the learner. As learners interact with the content, an intelligent adaptive training component could query the learner, then pass information through an appropriate plug-in to help situate the content in a context the user recognizes as relevant and motivating.

Increased personal responsibilities of instructional designers: Two additional highly rated items by our experts stressed the need for designers to upgrade their skills to both remain legal, and maintain their marketability. Knowledge of copyright law and intellectual property was identified as a top concern, possibly due to the increasingly murky area of access to the World Wide Web, transmittal of instructional materials via distance delivery, and the increasing ease of using digital means to cut-and-paste text, audio, and video material.

Streamlining the instructional design process via emerging technologies: In the quest to increase ROI, businesses often look for ways to streamline the way work is done. The content experts will be given more control of the instructional design process through increased access to automated instructional design systems, distributed data bases, and expert systems. Minkin (1995) describes the future uses of 'knowbots' which will allow the ability to search through “ever increasing networks of data bases for information desired for projects or for an individual task”. Together, these systems could potentially allow content experts to assume some of the traditional roles of instructional designers, thereby reducing the time to completion for instructional products and decreasing costs.

Major disciplines that influenced ID

2005-09-29T15:30:00.000-07:00

What are the major disciplines that influence professional practice in ID?

1)Systems Thinking
2)Learning Theory
3)Communications and Communications Theory
4)Technology

Systems thinking - Instructional designers believe that the use of systematic design procedures make instruction more effective, efficient and relevant than less rigorous approaches to planning instruction. A variety of systematic instructional design processes has the core elements of analysis, design, development, implementation, and evaluation to ensure congruence among goals, strategies and evaluation and the effectiveness of resulting instruction.

Learning Theory - Depending on the learners and situation, different learning theories may apply. The function of ID is more of an application of theory, rather than a theory itself. We must allow circumstances surrounding the learning situation to help us decide which approach to learning is most appropriate. It is necessary to realize that some learning problems require highly prescriptive solutions, whereas others are more suited to learner control of the environment. A behavioral approach can effectively facilitate mastery of the content of a profession. Cognitive strategies are useful in teaching problem solving tactics where defined facts and rules are applied in unfamiliar situations and constructivist strategies are especially suited to ill-defined problems through reflection in action.

Communications & Communication Theory - Wilbur Schramm’s communications model featured the concept of feedback as integral to the communications process. As did Aristotle, Schramm noted that communication always required three elements, the sender, the content, and the receiver. This conversation is a two way iterative process that recurs until the sender is assured that the receiver understood the intended message. Schramm also noted that the sender and recipients prior experience with the content and the media had an effect on how the message was encoded and decoded.( Schramm 1971). Schramm’s communication model became one of the most widely referenced communication theories in ID research. This led to the development of Instructional design that integrated feedback throughout the learning process.(Smith& Ragan 1993).

Technology -There has never been an age in which the practical applications of science have applied so large a portion of talent and enterprise of the community, as in present. Technology included the scientific investigation and the systematic application of scientific knowledge to the process of commodity production.

Strong ties and parallels between industrial technology and educational technology were established early in this century (Finn 1957; Heinich 1984). The predecessors of educational technology borrowed terminology and images from industrial technology.

Definition then and Now

2005-09-26T15:23:00.000-07:00

In my first semester at the edtech program, I was asked to define what I thought Edtech was and this what I defined it.

Then - When I say then, it means it was at the beginning of the semester in Edtech in Spring 2002. When I was asked to define Instructional design at the beginning of the semester I defined it from an Engineer’s point of view, as I did my under graduation in Engineering. This is how I had defined it.

I agree with Coldeway when he states, “Instructional Design is actually a hybrid made up of concepts in Learning Theory, Systems Engineering, Instructional Technology and Organizational Development. It is a systematic attempt to organize procedures and methods of demonstrated effectiveness in the educational context.”

Now - When I said now, this was the definition I came up with at the end of my first class in Edtech in 2002.
The field of Instructional design and technology encompasses the analysis of learning and performance problems, and the design and development, implementation, evaluation and management of instructional and non-instructional processes and resources intended to improve learning and performance in a variety of settings, particularly educational institutions and the workplace.

Elements of Instruction

2005-09-25T18:25:00.000-07:00

The last two years I've spent a lot of time researching on the effects instructional events in Computer based learning.

Gagné and Driscoll (1988) defined instruction as “the set of events designed to initiate, activate and support learning in a human learner.” Furthermore Gagné et al. (1992) defined it as "a deliberately arranged set of external events designed to support the learning process."

I prefered to call these events as elements of instruction and the ones that I researched on were Objectives, Practice with feedback, Examples and Review. In my investigation in a couple of experimental studies, I found that Practice was one element that had the most effect. Not that the others weren't useful, but just with the presence of practice the effects of the other elements were minimized. So I have become this big advocate for designing Practice in any instructional material.

If you would like to read more about my studies, I would love to share them with you. I have a couple of conference presentations and one journal article - with the other on the way. I thoroughly enjoyed the research process, even though I was disappointed when I heard from reviewers "what is new in your study?", they did not get the point that I investigated a combination of elements in a single study which not a lot of others have done.

To sum the studies in a single sentence, it was a research in depth and not too wide. What can you benefit from research if you do not include the main instructional elements in a module but test for the all the other external variables which might add on to it...........

Educational technology vs Technology Integration

2005-09-21T13:48:00.000-07:00

It was 4 years ago, while I was researching on the edtech graduate programs, I realized that Educational Technology to me always meant Technology in Education or Technology Integration. Ofcourse, I did change my view about the field once I realised that I was wrong. It does mean more than the words "Education" and "Technology" by itself. It is an entire world of Instructional Technology and Learning Technology. It is also not limited to education for children but also includes adults.

When I tell people that I am an educational technologist or an instructional designer, not a lot of them do know about the field. I have always tried to explain in the simplest words I can ....

It is a field where we help people learn better by designing effective instruction and use the appropriate technology

Welcome to Edtecker

2005-09-21T12:52:00.000-07:00

Finally I have an Edtecker Blog....which I wanted to create for a while. In this blog you will read my thoughts in the world of Educational Technology. I am an Edtech graduate from Arizona State University. I have been fascinated with this field and love the area of instructional design, human performance technology, online learning and teaching, educational evaluation, corporate training and distance education