Collecting Data

I continue to post more requests for participation..have gotten 24 responses so far. I posted yesterday to the Freelance in ID LinkedIn group.

Yesterday, I interviewed David Pesta and Alice Acker. It was great catching up with David. Having had a lot of experience with him in class, it was an easy entry into practicing my interview. But, knowing him as well as I do, I wonder if this was a good interview to include?

It was funny that Alice and I both are Colby grads! I wonder what that says about our under-grad...also interesting that David is a Hampshire grad. Does this mean that people who have been or who are drawn to liberal arts educations are more open to continuous learning? Isn't that one of the major thrusts of what we learned in undergrad? But, doesn't it also follow that we were drawn to those learning environments because we have a thirst for a broad range of learning?

I also wonder about the method that I am using to gather this information....by posting on LinkedIn groups, doesn't it necessarily mean that I will get a high response from participants that LinkedIn is very important for their learning? Does this mean that I should look for other methods or should I just articulate that in the results? If I distributed this using other methods, that would mean that those participants would say that method was very important....got to make sure that I do say that in my results.

First Set of Responses!

After having posted the SurveyMonkey survey, in the first posting I received 9 responses. Seven of the respondents agreed to be interviewed and I have sent emails to all of them asking for dates to be interviewed. Unfortunately, no responses to those emails...

Pilot Study Survey Posted

After some word-smithing, I finally got the survey questions into SurveyMonkey. I then posted on 4 linkedin groups: eLearningGuild, GIDA, Instructional Design & E-learning, and E-learning 2.0. I twill be interesting to see if anyone responds!

Beginning the Pilot Study

I just received approval from Terry that I can begin data gathering. This is such a big step and I am both excited and nervous. After the "bob" study of last semester when I only had 12 respondents, I am afraid that I won't have enough generalizable data. But, off we go. I'm going to build the SurveyMonkey tomorrow and post the request by Monday.

I have started to compile another round of research to read in order to write  a more comprehensive lit review in June.

Semester 2 Starts

In keeping with my resolution to be better about documenting what I am learning, here is my first reflection for the semester.

This semester is meant to be the beginning of getting one's head wrapped around understanding research paradigms as preparation for getting a research proposal done in Semester 3/4. From the very superficial level understanding that I have of the 4 paradigms, the most logical one for me appears to be pragmatic. The problem is that I probably won't be able to do a complete pragmatic research study in the timeframe of the 3 years. So, I will probably end up with a constructivist study that depends only on qualitative data. This is not what I want to end up doing as it will not meet my personal requirements. I don't want to only know what the learners' impressions are, I want to have quantitative proof that one method over the others works best in a give scenario.

The other really big aspect of this semester is to work on narrowing the scope of my research. The lit review is going to be a real challenge as I feel that I lost the entire semester 1 chasing down the "brain research" alley only to figure out that it's not going to be where I end up. On the upside, I have subscribed to the Downes blog and so am tracking what is going on with connectivism. I just ran across a new term, 3P, that I will be reading about this week. If I am going to keep on task for getting my annotations and lit review done, I am going to need to go through my annotations/sources from last semester to see what I can carry over to this semester (not much I presume). I think that the collaborative learning, social constructivism, and coginitive load theory will carry over from a historical perspective. I will need to put a stake in the ground about when I will begin the historical perspective...should it be computer-based training, web-based traingin, or web 2.0? Food for thought...

On a positive note, I think that I will be able to use the Instructional Technology Certificate program as the program I will be evaluating for Program Evaluation. I'm having lunch with Judith and Fran to discuss on Tuesday.

Self-directed Learning Theory

I have been reading articles on self-directed learning and ran across this quote:
"In sum, SDL entails the ability to assess learning needs, effective planning, and time management, a critical evaluation of the literature resources, as well as a critical evaluation of their own SDL skills. Personal autonomy, self-management, and learner control hence clearly play a role in the PBL learning process”
It seems to me that this is what our program is based on. The expectation from the design is to provide us with a framework within which we can select our own readings and directions. The portfolio allows us to reflect on the process as well as the reading. That's what I am using this blog to accomplish. I should also be using this blog to reflect on my own skills. To that end, let me think out loud about where I am at this point in time:

* I have an overwhelming sense that I am not doing enough reading and that the month of November is going to do me in.
* I feel like my studies take time away from my family obligations and that when we are all at home, doing any studying is not what I should be doing for them...it feels like something that I am doing very selfishly. Does this mean that I am being a bad person, wife, mother?
* I feel like I need to spend time reorganizing and reprioritizing and not making headway. But, when I look back on the list of tasks for the semester, I have made some strides...I wonder what it will feel like when I look back on the semester?
* I want to make sure that I take the small steps now that will set me up to accomplish the big goals at the end of the semester and not be left freaking out...to whit keeping up this blog and doing the annotations along the way.
* There is just too much to do and not enough time in which to do it!

Adult Learning Theory - sorting it out

I have been concerned that I still don't have a good handle on who does what in the adult learning theory arena. I am writing up an orientations table for my own studies. I want to get a good grounding in some of the more relevant theories that are being applied in web 2.0 educational technology. I wanted to start with the source writings of the individual theorists. But, I don't think that I am going to have the time or ability to read some of them. Bandura in particular seems very overwhelming. As such, I am going to see who has written about Bandura and see if I can get a handle on social learning theory. At this point, I'm thinking that the most applicable theories for me to look at are:

• social learning
• social constructivism
• situated learning
• experiential learning
  
• functional context