Free Tools for A Convenient Time

A (very) Brief History of Design

Created above is a short slideshow made with the intent to broaden some of my understanding and background knowledge regarding design beyond the educational design space. I found that Google Slides was a convenient tool for the different modalities I prefer to use when self-educating, but also in educating others.

I like how slides allows me to cross pollinate an idea or concept with video, image, text aesthetics, graphs, and pre-provided layouts to build a cohesive but also unique learning experience. I struggle with Google Slides because there is not really any feature that can be embedded that a viewer can interact with. These sorts of tools must be sought elsewhere. It seems strange to me that I cannot even embed another Google product however (other than image from Google Photos).

I know this was a preferred tool used by teachers during the pandemic, and I think Google Slides (and Powerpoints generally) have a great potential to shift into the AI and VR worlds when it comes to learning experiences. The imagined futures in which information and entertainment screens can literally live floating around us in simulation of the way memory in the brain is sometimes conceived of as a hallway of doors to memory 'rooms' portrayed in popular media (particularly cartoons, see here and here - combined with the idea of 'Content Agility' that first came across my radar via the movie Minority Report and is highlighted in this clip) is exciting to me and is where my mind drifted while using this tool and considering how I would want it used in a professional, educational, or personal setting.

Assignment Prompt: Go to Google Drive. In the upper-left, click the NEW button. Select either Google Sheets (like Excel), Google Slides (like Powerpoint) or Google Forms (for creating polls and quizzes). Create something in one of these apps that you feel could be useful for your work (now or future). Nothing too big or complex - just something to demonstrate that you played around with this tool. Make what you created Public (using the Share button in the upper-right) and link to what you created in a blog post. Explain in your blog post what you created and also describe what your impressions are of using this tool. How easy or hard was it to figure out how to use it? Are you interested in using it more?

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EXPECTATIONS: a new course carried on from the old.

Instructor: Dr. Brian Horvitz The Theory and Practice of Online Learning, 2nd Edition, Anderson & Elloumi. Free Ebook found at https://www.researchgate.net/publication/44833801_Theory_and_Practice_of_Onli ne_Learning Adding Some TEC-VARIETY: 100+ Activities for Motivating and Retaining Online Learners, Free PDF download found at http://tec-variety.com/TEC-Variety_eBook_5-4.pdf Discussion Expectations: 1 page (approx: 500 words) by Thursdays, substantive responses to 2 peers by Sundays Regarding your discussion postings, Grice's (1975) principle and maxims of conversation are also useful to keep in mind: The principle of co-operation: Try to make your contribution one that supports the goal and purpose of the ongoing conversation. 1. Maxim of quantity: Make your contribution as informative as is required, but give no more information than is required. (Sometimes overly long posts make it harder to have conversational dialogue.) 2. Maxim of quality: Try to make your cont...

Transcending Content

In my comment last week I was trying to suss out what the 'stakes' of instructional design were, if the argument is that design is a need and not a privilege, and also that design is a need. In this weeks reading I appreciated that it more clearly focused on what those stakes could be through the lens of what instructional design could bring to the table in terms of educational design. Wilson introduces the term 'principled resistance' as a response to "certain ideas that are seen as negatively impacting the profession" (p 27). And while I think the way he qualifies heavily by using the 'certain' and the 'seem' padding in his statement (illustrating what he later cops being what he terms a 'limited radical') I appreciated his use of the term for the way it makes space and acknowledges that radicalism is not synonymous with a lack of intention or that it is simply an act of unstructured rebellion. I also appreciated Martin's cautio...

Screen Capture and Record Showcase

The video below is meant as a basic tour of the gradebook in Elearning for new TAs or TAs who need a review. It's intent is to supplement an larger Elearning course meant to facilitate TA's as a reference and guide for how to grade a course, the different tools they have access to, and when to seek outside help. The video takes TAs through the basic layout of the gradebook, and toggles between the two crucial screens in gradebook management. It mentions some of the symbols used in Elearning to make grading more convenient, and refers TAs to the screenshot embedded on this page. The screenshot below was developed with the intent to supplement the above demo tour through the gradebook in Elearning. It illustrates symbols that are referenced in the demo and details further how they can be of use to the TA grading tasks. Assignment: For your Screencast video: Come up with a fairly basic (I’ll let you judge) computer-based task that you would want to demonstrate as part of a less...

Remote Possibilities: Likely Instructional Learning by Lauren

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