It’s time to write about stuff for ds.106! Our first task, after establishing a digital home for ourselves, was to think about some of the ideas posed by Gardner Campbell on personal cyberintrastructures. In this article in particular, he questions the effectiveness of the LMS, or Learning Management System. This was particularly timely and relevant to me, as the institution where I work has just announced that we are upgrading our LMS. I have been involved with this upgrade process to some degree since I started the job I’m in, and it will play a big role in my daily work life for many months to come.

How am I involved, do you ask? Primarily, my job is to work with instructors to teach them how to use the system, and find ways to use it effectively for learning. As an instructional designer and technologist, part of my job is knowing the system’s affordances inside and out, so I can help make design and implementation decisions that best support learning. Right now I’m maintaining a website with announcements and training resources, an LMS-related twitter account, and working on a comprehensive training plan that involves thinking up the most creative and effective ways to help people manage this change.

While I need to be a critical consumer of any learning technology, I also feel like in this case, it’s my job to be positive about these things. After all, I spend my day-to-day helping people and trying to make the best of things. I figure anything I say won’t be very effective if I don’t stand behind it, right? And if I hate what I’m doing, I’m in the wrong job, right? And then there’s the fact that I honestly believe we can do something good with this type of technology. Maybe that’s my youth and naivete talking.

THE GLASS IS HALF FULL, DAMMIT! 

But I’m not going to lie, sometimes my job feels like this: 

(Not sure why this is funny? Read about it here)

So this is where I’m coming from. See why I might have a hard time sorting out my ideas? I feel like I’ve still got lots to say, but I had to start here. I hope to think and write more about: how design thinking might help us deal with this issue a bit better; how magical thinking ruins educational technology for everyone; and how technology affordances are very often a reflection of institutional policies rather than problems inherent with the technology itself. Sound good? Good. I look forward to some discussion!

It’s time to write about stuff for ds.106! Our first task, after establishing a digital home for ourselves, was to think about some of the ideas posed by Gardner Campbell on personal cyberintrastructures. In this article in particular, he questio...

Spaghetti squash. You know you love it. I figure if I’m going to fit in with the DS106 crowd, I better learn how to make animated .gifs. I haven’t done this in years, but photoshop and layers makes it pretty easy. Also, spaghetti squash is the shiz...

Spaghetti squash. You know you love it.

I figure if I’m going to fit in with the DS106 crowd, I better learn how to make animated .gifs. I haven’t done this in years, but photoshop and layers makes it pretty easy.

Also, spaghetti squash is the shizz. Fo reals.

It’s approaching mid-January, and I’m working at getting this year off the ground. As much as some people hate resolutions, I still find it useful and positive (and difficult!) to sit down and think about what you really want out of life. What’s important. What’s necessary. What’s really going to happen (or not). 

I have already been throwing a few ideas around, and I recently stumbled across a project that really sums it up well. Designer Chris Streger started the to resolve project, where he asked as many designers as he could to come up with resolutions and design them as iphone backgrounds. Awesome! Instead of a list that you never look at again, you have a message you will see many times a day. There are some great examples in the gallery, and there are templates where you can make your own.  

So what am I resolving for 2012? Here it is: 

Simplistic? Absolutely. But aphorisms can be useful. I’m using this message as my own personal Commander’s Intent for the year. I first came across this notion when I read Chip and Dan Heath’s Made to Stick, which has become one of my favourite books on instruction. Basically, a Commaner’s Intent (CI) is a short, publicly stated objective, which focuses on the desired goal or end state. It aligns a wide range of activities and behaviours, and doesn’t require specific or detailed instructions. How you get there is up to you; so long as you get there. “Work Hard/Play Hard” is an idea that I’ve been trying to actualize for years. Fortunately for me, I have some great role models in this area, and I figure it’s time to get serious about it.

This will help me as a theme for posting. I can see it working in a lot of different ways - figuring out exactly what this means to me; playing hard at work and working hard at play; how successful I am at this over the coming year… I’m sure more ideas will come.

What’s your CI for this year? 

Alright then, let’s get this started.

It’s approaching mid-January, and I’m working at getting this year off the ground. As much as some people hate resolutions, I still find it useful and positive (and difficult!) to sit down and think about what you really want out of life. W...