Welcome

I have worked in the training and education industry for many years in a variety of roles. I started out in graphic design and illustration, was a technical writer, then learned HTML and dove into the fields of usability and accessibility with the advent of web-based learning. In my current role as a learning designer, project management, collaboration and facilitation of ideas and goals, figure prominently when working with internal and external clients and stakeholders.

As a learning designer, I am interested to understand how technology can push instructional design in new directions for how people learn. With my background in technical writing, I am particularly interested in content, and the how, what and why to structure content in ways for its audience to better understand and relate to it, and ultimately, to learn from it, and use it.

This was the bio I have used to introduce myself to clients and colleagues before I completed any coursework in the Master of Education in Distance Education (MEd) program at Athabasca.

The motivation to do a M.Ed. started with clients, colleagues, and acquaintances, inquiring about what I did for a living, my professional experience and educational background. After completing a degree in French literature, and various courses in fine arts along the way, I fell into a technical writing career which led me into the field of training and instructional design. Twenty years ago, it was easy to say, "I create software documentation and online help." Today, the field has changed dramatically with so many ways to create and publish online instructional content and the demand for 'compelling user experiences'. A technical writer or instructional designer for that matter, is now a business analyst, an information designer, a content developer, a content strategist, instructional writer, learning developer, learning experiences designer and so on. As the lines between these roles merge and blur, those of us in the learning and development profession are more challenged to stretch our professional skills, take on multiple roles, and deliver and deploy compelling training and education learning experiences through technology. To do this effectively, I believe it requires interest and expertise in educational psychology to better understand how the mind works and learns.

Underlying the art and science of designing for how people learn, is the fundamental skill of problem solving. During my early technical writing career, I never viewed myself as a problem solver but this is a fundamental skill at the core of technical writing or learning design for that matter. Experimenting, exploring, and testing how software functions and might function is how you spend a good part of your day as a technical writer. This experience not only helped sharpen my trouble-shooting and technical skills but it also deepened my awareness and interest into how people learn. As my professional expertise shifted into instructional design and training engagements, and more recently, raising a son with learning disabilities, my interest in how people learn, somewhere along the way, became a requirement.

The following artefacts reflect the themes and work products that best represent my interests in distance education and training, and helped frame my personal theory of practice:

• Wikis and Screencasts in Online Learning (Artefact 1)
• Open Educational Resource and Open Learning (Artefact 2)
• Lifelong Learning: A journal (Artefact 3)
• Collaboration & Mentoring (Artefact 4)
• Program Management (Artefact 5)
  
  

Openess as a theme, as in open content, open learning, open access, and all its variants, captured my imagination and thoughts at the outset of my learning in the program. My first paper in the MDDE 601 course was a critical review of an article written by David Wiley and John Hilton III, "Openness, Dynamic Specialization and the Disaggregated Future of Higher Education". My insight at the time was that it was hard to 'quibble about principles' and that 'openness is inherently good but what does that mean?' A few years later, in MDDE 622, I would have a semester to explore the challenges of defining 'openness' and how to operationalize learning and business models in open learning. Currently, I find myself wondering once again whether open educational resources truly exist as I curate 'open' learning content to replace professional skills training in my workplace. Access, i.e., findability and re-use still seem to be issues with openness in distance education and learning.

Artefact 1 explores the challenges of using 'open' learning content, i.e., user-generated wiki content, in terms of quality and 'authority' or subject matter expertise while Artefact 2 delves into my understanding of the landscape of OER and the process of creating open learning content. These are the reasons why they have been included in my portfolio.

During my studies I really enjoyed exploring adult education learning theory, specifically how motivation, and cognitive, constructivist, and social learning theories apply to instructional design in distance education and online learning. Several courses such as MDDE 603, 604 and 613, provided me the opportunity to develop a 'personal theory of practice' and helped me articulate my position on the adult education theory continuum. It is for this reason, and because of the wonderful instructors of these courses, and Marcy Driscoll's quirky text, the Psychology of Learning for Instruction, that Artefact 3 is in my portfolio.

As a designer of instruction, my goal is to gain the learner’s attention and present organized instruction so that meaningful learning can take place. I have learned that learning theories provide well-grounded approaches to instruction; but they do not truly define the conditions of learning, or the problems learners face. This is the wonderful world of instructional design, learning as an output is not equal; and it is highly variable.

Artefact 4 evaluates the benefits of collaboration and mentoring in distance education and in the workplace. Collaboration in the form of working with other students in small groups, was a regular component in the Athabasca program, and it provided both challenging and rewarding learning experiences. This artefact is included in my portfolio because it represents a key theme that underlies my personal theory of practice: the individual within the group, or how to accommodate shared learning that takes place in social learning situations without losing focus on learners as individual subjects. Initially, I viewed learning as essentially an internal cognitive process regulated by the individual; shaped by other influences, such as a mentor, group or society, but steered by the individual who establishes and maintains their own goals and interests and strives to make meaning of their experiences. However, by the end of my coursework, I came to appreciate the group work, perhaps as a result of practice in planning, monitoring and evaluating our work, and this in turn, shifted my position along the adult education theory continuum to also think of regulation of learning as a group-level process.

Finally, Artefact 5 is included in my portfolio because it represents a mix of theory and practice. My initial working title was Program Management, from textbook to real world, and this artefact synthesizes the importance of user experience or contextual design, educational theory, and program evaluation but also acknowledges that there other practical elements that can steer our design approaches. Getting the mix of learning right involves trade-offs which includes non-learner constraints such as time, cost, and quality. Just as we cannot guarantee that learning will take place, there is also no best ‘formula’ or approach to guide the design of online instruction.