EDT 502 Unit 7 Evaluation of the instruction for the University of Skaro on how to create a podcast.

 
Evaluation of the instruction for the University of Skaro on how to create a podcast.  

This  project was on a very interesting topic.  Creating a lesson for a group of "Champion"  Students that are really thought experts in their field.  On the one hand we had to assume they were the expert on their subject while showing them a remedial subject and "teaching" them how to present their work.  It was a really complex scenario and I'm not sure we did a very good job.  

I had some objections to the way our group went about the whole process.  I realize in a group that we have to come to some sort of consensus in order to move forward.  However several of the other students in my group were strong minded and very motivated.  I had objectives and ways I wanted to work on in the project and they had ways they wanted to work on the project, and they really didn't always align.  I guess that is true of real life and work life as well.  You have to compromise.  However, in this case, I felt like some of the compromise was moreover the strong willed pushing their ideas on everyone else. I'm generally a pretty quite individual and don't really like confrontation, so I probably didn't push back as hard as I would have at a job or a paid engagement.  I would suspect at a paid engagement, I would have more directional latitude than in this class.

From a completely holistic approach we completed the assignment and had a rudimentary process for helping the champion create the podcast.  So to that effect we did complete the task. However when it came to the audience I feel we completely missed the mark.  The learners were probably way more advanced than the work we put forth.  I suspect that the audience we were to be presenting to, didn't really need the types of detail we included in our course work.  I almost felt in many instances that we were talking down to the student and I suspect that the course probably came off as a complete waste of their time.

I understand the reason why we went in the direction we did.  However in this day and age of "Googling it"  I think our whole course could have been reduced to just a couple lines of text.  Google this.  Google that.  Start recording. Review it. post it. Tell your students how to get to it.  The whole course was redundantly redundant.

I also understand why the professors of LDT502 wanted us to go through the motions of creating all the detailed design documentation and all of the parts that go into creating a course.  Which from my perspective was really valuable.  It gave me great insight into the whole process and helped me to understand how to make it flow from one topic to another as well as how to make sure the student had a basic understanding of what we were trying to get across.

Breaking the project up into the different pieces, seeing how those get presented in a web site and developing the tools and evaluation methods of the project to gauge the learners development in the course were all of value and will help me immensely in my future roles of a instructional designer.

In conclusion, the group learned a valuable lesson.  We were forced to work together and we had results that would probably need to go through at least one round of review which hopefully would have pointed out my issue on being remedial.  Perhaps they would have liked it, perhaps they would not have.  I guess it is an exercise to contemplate.  We all learned a soup to nuts process of developing a course, developing a plan and executing against that plan.  All in all a good endeavor, and I'm glad I enrolled in this program and course.