As of this writing, my course is complete except for a few details. I still need to add my final evaluation, which will be done as a survey and focus groups.
From a technology perspective, the main challenge I had was during development. I wanted to move quickly from one page to another. I often wanted to see what a previous direction or week’s assignment had specified. I overcame this challenge (partly) by having multiple tabs open. Canvas still makes it challenging to open and navigate while designing a course. I suppose another way of addressing this is to complete the full text of all of the assignments of the course before putting them into Canvas. However, beyond the fact that seems like extra work, sometimes the structure of the course highlights something you might have not seen when drafting the text in a document. The people challenge I see is having an editor. In my current role at Scaled Agile, all products have a formal editing and quality assurance review before being released. This is a little different than the peer feedback we’re doing as part of the coursework. An editor has a specific skill set, and is able to look beyond the design at details the designer may have missed. For example, this week I noticed that I have week numbers spelled and in numeral form. Beyond that inconsistency, it would be worth a conversation with an editor on whether that is the best way to label the modules. It feels important as a designer, because that’s how I divided the content. However, as a student, I learned after Spring Break that can be problematic, as I have two classes on different weeks now. One class numbered Spring Break and one didn’t. I considered putting dates in the headers instead for easy reference for students. However, that introduces tech debt that would require updates every semester. That may be a useful exercise, but also unrealistic, depending on an instructor’s workload. My experience with working with professional deadlines helped me manage the expectations for what I could accomplish in the timeline. I would have liked to add two additional videos, but I recognized that I simply didn’t have the time to create them. But as a fan of working in an Agile way, I believe the course could be improved every semester, given what I would learn by teaching it, as well as from student feedback. Additional videos could be one of the improvements I make on future iterations. I’m sure there are things I can improve as a designer. However, as a capstone project for my Master’s, I’m quite proud of this accomplishment. It’s a course that has promise in the customer education community.
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AuthorMichele Wiedemer has worked in software as an "accidental instructional designer" for many years. She is currently completing the MS in Learning Technologies at The University of North Texas. This blog represents reflections on specific assignments in the coursework. Archives
February 2024
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