Lowery+Final+Report

 The Educational Technology program has taught me a lot in the past two years, but in this one class I have grown tremendously. Before this class, we were still learning the foundations of instructional design, but this internship has allowed me to apply what I have learned in this program to a real situation. I feel that the application portion is the true test of knowledge, and I believe that I was successful in this stage. Just because I was successful in this process, does not mean that I did not face obstacles. It just states that once those barriers came my way I was able to overcome them to the best of my ability.

 In the beginning of this internship, I was very eager to jump in and get started. I created a needs assessment survey, distributed it to my audience, and got to work. After the assessment, I analyzed my data and begin to design how I wanted the instruction to look. During this stage, I did not take the time to use the resources that were available to me, including my annotated bibliography and other resources provided by my onsite supervisors. Since I did not plan and use my resources during this stage in the project, I ended up planning too much. In the development stage was where I realized my problem. Once I started recording my videos, I realized that many of the video segments that I planned for could be combined. For example, originally I planned for a video on the tricks and shortcuts the SMART board offers. When I started recording the tutorial videos, I realized that it was more sensible to add the shortcuts and tricks in the hardware and software videos.

 Also during the design phase, I planned to include a video on how to update lessons from SMART Exchange and how to incorporate other interactive sites into the lesson. Due to my lack of communication with my onsite supervisors, I was shocked when the technology coach presented this for all of the teachers during one of our RESULTS meetings. From that point on, I learned the power of communication. After that meeting, I asked the technology coach to provide me with a list of the trainings she would be doing and we began to collaborate more.

 My eagerness to complete the tutorials was overwhelming during the development phase. According to the timeline I was already behind due to issues with the SMART board’s hardware and Mac Book’s hardware. Once I began recording my tutorials, I went through them non stop until I felt that they were complete and ready to be edited. My negligence taught me a major lesson during this phase, because once I started to edit the videos, I realized the microphone on my camera was not working properly. All of my videos sounded very fuzzy, so I had to start from square one. By the time I realized the poor quality of the videos, it was already November, so I had to rethink how I would present the material in video form. I then decided to create screen shots of the material and add audio using I-Movie. This process was easier, but the lesson I learned from this experience is to carefully plan before developing products and constantly evaluate your products as they are developed.

 A lesson that I learned in this process is that teachers do not like to be overwhelmed with “extra” trainings. Although many of them stated in the original survey that they wanted more training on how to use the SMART board, when it actually came down to attending the training many teachers were no longer interested. In the creation of my trainings my goal was to remain focused on what the teachers stated they needed help with. “If you direct the training around teachers' time and needs by focusing on what is most relevant and important to teachers, this will keep them interested and motivated to continue to learn more about the SMART Board after the training is over.” (Malburg, 2010)

 My video tutorials were all less than five minutes and they are posted on a wiki for teachers to access whenever they are needed. These resources are all pieces of work that can be added upon as needed. The creation of these tutorials were centered on the teacher’s needs and were not created to add more work to the teacher’s workload. The goal was to aid teachers in becoming SMART board proficient, and with the creation of these tutorials I feel that we are one step closer to our goal.

 Overall, I had five teachers view the wiki and respond to my evaluation since I presented it to the faculty and staff. I was very please to see the positive responses from everyone who evaluated the site. One evaluator stated, “The presentation was thorough and easy to follow and understand.” The other evaluators also had similar comments and they encouraged me to continue to create these types of tutorials beyond my internship experience. One suggestion was for me to create videos on how to use the I-Pod Touch in the classroom. Although many teachers have not visited the wiki, the response that I have received so far have made me feel that my internship experience was a success.

 As I stated before, this internship has taught me a lot about instructional design. In this project I had to serve as the content expert, editor, graphic designer, and the project manager, so I was able to gain experience and grow in a lot of these areas. When I think about this process, I think that the most beneficial part of the internship is the evaluation and the self-reflection segment. As I reflection on this entire project, I feel that I was successful in fulfilling my ultimate goal. If I had a second chance to go through this internship experience again, I would increase the amount of time I spent collaborating with my site supervisors and I would spend more time designing the instruction. These two issues caused me some small setbacks that could have easily been avoided. Realizing these issues have better prepared me for my next instructional design experience.