12OCT2014

I would like to look at reusable design or learning objects, digital games or simulations and virtual worlds. I think these combined could be the future of learning. Already there are extremely popular virtual worlds, World of Warcraft is just one that comes to mind. It isn’t much of a stretch from having a virtual world game to adapting it to a learning environment. Young kids are already spending vast amounts of time playing digital. The idea would be to bring learning into the game world. Students learn well when they are engaged, a virtual world where they want to spend time would facilitate learning simply by getting the students interested. 

I could envision a future where students don’t leave home to attend school, they simply log on. The availability of internet access is expanding daily, especially here in America. If there was a nationalized education system that was completely online, the costs of buildings, upkeep and transportation could provide free access to the internet for students. Teachers would work from home also but would be more like a help line call center. This would allow students to work at their own pace, receive individual help when they need it and attend class when it is convenient. I honestly think we will eventually move to a program like this and I am interested in seeing it implemented.

There is always an ethical problem with teaching. Educating the young is the only way to truly continue as a country. This brings up several problems in what do we as a nation want our children’s future to look like? An obvious example of education gone wrong would be the Hitler youth in Germany. Children, especially young children are easily influenced. That can be used to change their beliefs or alter their perception of the world. If for twelve years we told a child Canadians are evil and eat babies, it is unlikely he/she would doubt it. If this were institutionalized, a war with Canada would likely result.

The same ethical problems are present in virtual worlds. What is taught is more important than how it is taught. The problem can be as simple as omitting parts of history such as slavery in the United States. If students don’t learn about the past, mistakes are likely to be repeated. You can see this today in the way news is reported. The same subject will be treated very differently on FOXNEWS and CNN. This is the slant that the network gives a story. The same slant can be included in education to alter the makeup of America in drastic ways.

4SEP2014

Currently I am unemployed. Since being diagnosed with PTSD I have had some issues. I am currently looking for employment that won’t set off my triggers. Right now and for the immediate future just finding a job that I can work without having an attack would be great. I am hopeful that eventually I will get better at managing my PTSD symptoms and be able to work as either a lawyer or possibly a professor at a college. I am working on my master’s in education and have completed law school. I haven’t taken the bar exam in Texas yet because of my PTSD symptoms. Once I have my other problems under control I would like to have the option of either taking the bar exam or getting a career in education.

Overall the type of work I want to do is focused on improving the community. After the Army I got my bachelors in criminal justice and then went to law school. The idea was to become a district attorney or assistant DA. What drove me towards this was the idea of getting the bad guys off the street. I thought about doing this in a more direct way such as police officer but I was attracted to the idea of how many people’s lives I could touch as an attorney. An average DA clears 10-15 cases a day, which is just a huge amount of people. If you do your job correctly as a DA, you can be a greater force for good in your community than anything else I can think of. The same ideas drew me towards education. How many lives does a teacher affect? If they teach three classes a week at an average of 20 students per class, that is a potential of 60 people per week. Admittedly both lawyer and teaching can be a positive or negative effect on the students or community, but that is really up to the teacher or lawyer.

I think I am developing the skills I need to proceed towards either of my goals when I graduate. I have the Juris Doctorate and am working on what I need for the teaching. My main hold up right now is my PTSD. I wish there was a way to just make it go away so I could get on with my life. I take pills every morning and every night before bed and they help. I have been to classes to teach me how to manage my symptoms and have been trying to get things under control.  Unfortunately I haven’t been very successful with this yet. I get worried about how well I will be able to cope with this when I see 50 or 60 year old men in group who are still dealing with PTSD. I worry that I will never be able to get past this and it scares me.

There are a lot of organizations that would help me professionally. The American bar association is the first that comes to mind. There is also the Veterans of Foreign War, and the V.A. I am involved with the V.A. and the VFW now, but not the ABA. The ABA fees are pretty high but they offer continued learning and a social network to help you with case law. It is more geared for practicing attorneys as opposed to people who do not have a license yet. I don’t think the benefit of professional organizations would outweigh the cost until I am ready to actively pursue a career in the field.

27SEP2014

1. Chapters in Section V identify trends and issues in IDT in various contexts: business & industry; military; health care education; P-12 education; and post-secondary education. Select at least 3 of these 5 contexts and compare/contrast the IDT trends and issues. Then explain how they are similar or different from the IDT trends and issues in the context in which you work.

Business and industry appears to be focused on profit. They expect training to be delivered fast effective and cheap. This usually means automation of learning skills. You tend to see a lot of self-paced computerized learning in business focused on delivering information and testing that the information has been delivered.

The military is involved in quite a bit of teaching. While much of the teaching and learning in the military is done “old school” with teachers and students, hands on testing. A lot more instruction is being delivered electronically. Standardized Department of Defense slideshows and interactive field training are being implemented across the branches of the military.

Post-secondary education has always been ahead of the curve in implementing new teaching and learning practices. This class is an example of this. Colleges have been innovative in delivering new forms of learning and improving on old forms.

All three of these separate contexts have a similar goal, effective teaching and learning. While there may be different end goals, profit, security, and education, the main thrust of each is the delivery of knowledge. Currently I do not work in a teaching role, I usually have to relate back to the classes I was in and taught in the Army. The end goal was always to get a soldier the knowledge to perform a task. The knowledge had to be internalized by the soldier in such a way that he/she would be able to perform the task even under pressure. In the military this is a lot more vital than in college or business, because lives may depend on a soldiers effectiveness.

2. Chapters in Section VI discuss global trends and issues in IDT. As the world’s population grows exponentially, we face unprecedented challenges that have implications for learning. How and can we prepare our youth to address the problems of living in a world with 9 billion people when the earth’s resources cannot sustain that many? Does our current education system, curriculum, and instructional practices help learners foster the complex problem-solving skills necessary to tackle these issues? Are there methods and practices used in European and Asian countries that we should use here in the US? Why or why not?

This question assumes a lot. It assumes the world’s population will continue to grow and there will not be major loss of life due to war disease or famine. Starvation is nature’s cure for overpopulation. For example if we kill off the wolves in an area, the deer population explodes and eats more than the land will support, without enough food a lot of the deer die of starvation.  Who is to say human overpopulation won’t be cured in the same way?

Regardless we are preparing our youth to address this potential problem as best we can. Creativity is stressed in schools and science and technology have been making a comeback. If all else fails we are one of the few countries that has armed citizens. Survival in a world with scarce resources may come down to who has the most weapons.

Many Asian and European countries have superior education systems, and yes we should implement their ideas. One of the most obvious to me is year round school. I have read that students spend three to four months at the beginning of each school year relearning what they forgot during the summer. This seems a waste to me. I think the nine month school year is an outdated system that should be replaced with a year round system. The nine month system was designed for a mainly agricultural society. Most of America is not agricultural anymore. It is time to revamp the system to more accurately reflect today’s society.

Week Four

1. The first thing that comes to mind when thinking of human performance improvement is teamwork in the army. When a unit is first formed, there is a learning curve while everyone learns to adjust to their teammates. Everyone already knows how to do their specific jobs but that special camaraderie is still missing. The camaraderie is more than just a feeling of brotherhood; it affects reaction times and improves the safety of the entire platoon. I think the best way to describe it is knowing what your teammates will do and being able to adjust to improve not only your own job but theirs as well. Camaraderie isn’t something that can be taught in an instructional setting, it just takes time and practice. In a war time setting camaraderie can build very quickly because you learn to trust your teammates with your life. In garrison it can be tougher to build camaraderie between soldiers but it isn’t impossible. Social settings and events can help a lot. While it isn’t necessary for everyone to be friends, there must be trust. Teamwork building exercises and drills help and can be very effective.

2. Most performance support systems consist of four components: (a) an advisory component, (b) an information component, (c) a training component, and (d) the user interface component. I can’t really see using a PSS to build camaraderie in soldiers. It seems too rigid and systematic to be used as a trust building exercise. Camaraderie is built on feelings of trust and emotions. It is hard to develop a system that would train emotional reasoning.

3. While camaraderie can be difficult to train it is rather easy to measure. Live fire exercises and similar real world response training can be times. As camaraderie improves times will go down and responses to the unexpected will be quicker. It is easy to tell the difference between a newly formed unit and one which has been working together for a while. The older unit will have better times in training and will be capable of reacting quicker faster and better. Camaraderie will also affect morale. A high level of camaraderie will equate to high solder morale.

4. Informal learning in the Army occurs on a daily basis. Soldiers are professionals and we constantly strive to improve. This leads to informal teaching between soldiers, from ideas for quick reaction force deployment to the best way to load your m16. I don’t think this type of learning should be organized. If it were standardized it wouldn’t have the same impact of either the teacher or the learner. Being informal it helps build camaraderie between soldiers because it allows a private to teach even a sergeant a quicker or faster way to accomplish a task. It also allows for peer review of the technique which can lead to more improvements or new ideas.

14SEP2014

ADDIE Model

The ADDIE Model consists of five phases. Analyze, Design, Development, Implement, and Evaluation. I like this model because it incorporates revision between each major step. This allows for on the fly fixes and review of what is working and what is not.

Michael Scriven's Goal-Free Evaluation Approach: This approach is premised on the assumption that an evaluation should establish the value of a program by examining what it is doing rather than what it is trying to do.

I liked this approach because its focus is not on what the programs goals are but on actual results. It is a bit cynical approach in that it asks if the program is actually doing what it is designed to do.

I could see myself using both these methods as well as the CIPP and Kirkpatrick models to determine if my instruction is effective. There is a lot of focus on the results of state testing and while I can see where standardized testing can be useful it is not the only indication of learning. it would be useful to know if learners are internalizing information, learning how to think for themselves and how to acquire knowledge in a dynamic setting.

Part two

I have never worked anywhere where there were unlimited resources. I can’t imagine a school or business that isn’t interested in saving money. Situational leadership is changing your style to match your learners. This fits well with using what is already available at a location. Take a school for instance; there are already resources in place that can be used to teach. Be it older computers, projectors, or slides. Using what is already paid for saves money for the organization and allows you to retrofit older equipment in new ways.