About Me
Stephanie Smith lives in Brighton Colorado.
She is an Instructional Designer and Courseware Developer that specializes in eLearning, learning management systems and curriculum design.
The purpose of this website is to highlight her skills and abilities, as well as to document her demonstartion of the competencies of the University of Colorado at Denver's Information and Learning Technologies Program.
She is an Instructional Designer and Courseware Developer that specializes in eLearning, learning management systems and curriculum design.
The purpose of this website is to highlight her skills and abilities, as well as to document her demonstartion of the competencies of the University of Colorado at Denver's Information and Learning Technologies Program.
Reflection Statement
Recently, I heard someone say that instructional designers should look at eLearning, not necessarily connected to the keyboard, but to look beyond that.
Technology has always been the teacher’s best friend and enemy. It changes constantly, and sometimes it works beautifully and sometimes not at all, taunting us with error messages. But ultimately, it’s just a tool for us to use. And the key to using this tool is to make sure that it enhances design and does not limit it.
Early on, eLearning seemed devoid of human interaction, and as an instructional designer, I know the power of the human touch and community can have on learning. Several years ago I learned about the 4MAT theory and how it can impact motivation and learning by teaching to four types of learners. One area that kept poping up with it, was the importance of social learning, sharing and interacting with people. I thought about it, almost everyone has been affected by a great teacher or classroom experience. We are social creatures, even if we are behind the keyboard learning.
With this desire, social media emerged. Ron Jones defines it as “a category of online media where people are talking, participating, sharing, networking, and bookmarking online.” So, social eLearning is the practice involving using social software technologies to enhance learner engagement and learning outcomes within flexible and blended delivery. When we, as instructional designers, use social eLearning, we are able to bring together community and learning in a new way that goes beyond the keyboard of the computer. It can be accessed from a smart phone, it can connect learners to experts directly, it allows networking and forums, wikis, and story-telling which is part of our foundation of learning.
What does Social eLearning do?
· Gives students ownership of the tool and its use, and minimise distraction with learning
· Maintaining student engagement with independent and student-centred learning tasks
· Fun and relevant to students’ wider interests.
· Regular and timely feedback (eg commenting on, questioning, and reinforcing a student’s blog entry) is a critical technique used by Trainers for fostering participation in new online spaces.
· Social networking reduces isolation of remote students; increased connectedness and peer learning and support, amongst a student group or across student groups.
Social eLearning is important, it appeals to how people learn information today and it moves at the speed of today. Learners are capable of processing more media than ever before and it reinforces communication and personal skills needed in business today.
Personally, my goal is to build beyond the keyboard, with whatever tools and designs we can use to connect to eachother. I use the 4MAT theory to build training using the social connections I have learned about and incorporating the interpersonal and intrapersonal intelligences (Gardener’s multiple intelligence) to enhance learning in this technilogical age. Technology is a tool; it can bring learners together from all over the world with a common goal of learning like never before. To me, this is most exciting time to be in this industry, in the undiscovered country of social eLearning.
Technology has always been the teacher’s best friend and enemy. It changes constantly, and sometimes it works beautifully and sometimes not at all, taunting us with error messages. But ultimately, it’s just a tool for us to use. And the key to using this tool is to make sure that it enhances design and does not limit it.
Early on, eLearning seemed devoid of human interaction, and as an instructional designer, I know the power of the human touch and community can have on learning. Several years ago I learned about the 4MAT theory and how it can impact motivation and learning by teaching to four types of learners. One area that kept poping up with it, was the importance of social learning, sharing and interacting with people. I thought about it, almost everyone has been affected by a great teacher or classroom experience. We are social creatures, even if we are behind the keyboard learning.
With this desire, social media emerged. Ron Jones defines it as “a category of online media where people are talking, participating, sharing, networking, and bookmarking online.” So, social eLearning is the practice involving using social software technologies to enhance learner engagement and learning outcomes within flexible and blended delivery. When we, as instructional designers, use social eLearning, we are able to bring together community and learning in a new way that goes beyond the keyboard of the computer. It can be accessed from a smart phone, it can connect learners to experts directly, it allows networking and forums, wikis, and story-telling which is part of our foundation of learning.
What does Social eLearning do?
· Gives students ownership of the tool and its use, and minimise distraction with learning
· Maintaining student engagement with independent and student-centred learning tasks
· Fun and relevant to students’ wider interests.
· Regular and timely feedback (eg commenting on, questioning, and reinforcing a student’s blog entry) is a critical technique used by Trainers for fostering participation in new online spaces.
· Social networking reduces isolation of remote students; increased connectedness and peer learning and support, amongst a student group or across student groups.
Social eLearning is important, it appeals to how people learn information today and it moves at the speed of today. Learners are capable of processing more media than ever before and it reinforces communication and personal skills needed in business today.
Personally, my goal is to build beyond the keyboard, with whatever tools and designs we can use to connect to eachother. I use the 4MAT theory to build training using the social connections I have learned about and incorporating the interpersonal and intrapersonal intelligences (Gardener’s multiple intelligence) to enhance learning in this technilogical age. Technology is a tool; it can bring learners together from all over the world with a common goal of learning like never before. To me, this is most exciting time to be in this industry, in the undiscovered country of social eLearning.