Design Project Closing Reflection

Well, at the conclusion of this course, I realized that I have learned a lot about Content Management Systems, Learning Management Systems, flipped classrooms, cooperative and collaborative learning, and have a new found respect for teachers who are able to incorporate blended learning. We covered a lot in the class, and it was extremely beneficial for me as both an educator and a designer to experience the variety of tools that we used. I could realistically see myself incorporating several of these systems in a learning environment in the near future, based on the fact that many were free, and easy to use.

Reading other students' blog posts was educational. Many times we were given a choice as to what application or site we would like to try out for the week. When other students chose different sites from me, it allowed me a chance to learn more about that site; its cost (if any), its features, what kind of pedagogy it is good for, and what kind of learning experiences it helps strengthen. In addition, communicating with the other students in the weekly discussion boards was an eye opening experience because it allowed me to see things from their perspective. Sometimes, they came at it from a completely different angle based on their background, or they interpreted the readings differently because of their past instructing experiences.

The broad scope of the course had an impact shaping my final design project. What I ended up doing was combining the affordances of several different sites and apps into one unit. Part of that is because most of the different sites did different things, and I couldn't find one (unless you count Google Apps) that did every item that I was trying to achieve. Plus, my belief is that if you use different sites in education, you give the students more experience within the digital domain. This can be beneficial to them in later courses, or job situations.

I would have to say that the reading discussions and the weekly design experiments contributed about 50/50 to my final design project. On the one hand, first-hand experience with the product myself gave me a direct insight to how it worked. On the other hand, conversations with students in the discussion forum helped in being the deciding factor when I had several paths I could have gone. For instance, I didn't hear a ringing endorsement for Wikipedia, but smaller Wiki-type sites which are less well known (like PBWorks) seem to be safer bets in that they are not targeted by hackers or ne'er do wells.

My Final Design Project would have been very different had I not had the guidance of peers, the weekly discussions, the experimental learning, and the syllabus. In fact, it would have been almost non-existant. We depend on an influx of different factors to determine how we should shape our decisions regarding educational technology, and in this case, the more the merrier!