eLearning and Tools of the Trade – where oh where have my university library days gone?

Technology and all its glamour is at times, tedious. Seems to me that all of this elearning and eliving can be problematic for the “older” learner. We grew up in the day of the card catalogue as our search engine; wrote down the location of the book or periodical, and then, armed with at least $30 in dimes and our personal stapler, stood in line at the university library copy machine, ready to make our copies that we could then mark up and highlight to our heart’s content. Now, I am forced to utilize technology to learn, and I am even more disgusted with myself that I want to be one of the people who actually help others learn this way! How do I do that if I can’t conquer my own fears? Every week I am forced to face those fears and try to maneuver through the web in search of an answer to my professor’s weekly punishment – or is that assignment? At this point, it is one in the same.

As I sat at my laptop, and typed the key words into the search engine and began trolling through the pages, it occurred to me, that I only wanted to rely upon things that were relevant in terms of research chronology. Things over 10 years would be, I imagine, considered archaic in the land of technology. So my scope became limited not due to the assignment parameters, but due to my personal ones. I only wanted up-to-date information, because that would yield me the most relevant information, right?  Hopefully!

In her online blog site, theelearningcoach.com, Connie Malamed talks about what it is to be in instructional designer. By joining her website I was “gifted” with a free download of her book “No More Spilled Ink Writing for Instructional Design.” Topics of podcasts, edesigns, digital badges, all of the latest “catch” phrases are discussed. One article highlighted discussed the emerging roles of the learning designer.  Within this article, the idea of “constant innovation and disruption” are dealt with as the “new normal” of our world (Malamed, 2014). The perfect storm is built around the ever-changing world of work and the use of learning new concepts related to the work place, though the elearning environment. Interestingly, it is purported that by the time you finish your four year degree in college, the information you learned is already outdated. Not something that the repayment of a student loan makes you feel warm and fuzzy about! We want to think that our money is well spent on our education, not already outdated.

The role of the learner is grouped into three categories: learning support role, empowerment role, and the change agent role. And by working through these roles, powerful, yet meaningful contributions can be made to the learner through thoughtful and meaningful instruction.

Articles are great, but I found the iPhone application that she developed was even more beneficial to me. I live with my iPhone attached to me at all times.  My husband had threatened to steal it from me in order to gain my attention, but I have threatened him with death should he even attempt it. Nonetheless, I down loaded the app “Instructional Design Guru” which highlights terminology, cognitive psychology, instructional design, legal aspects, multimedia, social media, online learning, and technical applications. I found this little gem to be a beneficial purchase and plan on exploring it even more during my insomnia laden nights.

In an article found in the Walden University library search engine ProQuest, the use of social networking through learning is briefly discussed.  ” In social learning, more brains are better than one” discussed the use of collaboration in online documents with students in the classroom.  Students are charged with an assignent where they are to engage one another through the use of Google Apps as they work collaboratively and create learning scenarios that provide more relevance to real-world skills. The authors shared that the students found this to be a more engaging learning method, building upon one another’s ideas.  Although it is assumed that the students have specific technical skills already in place in order to properly research and develop presentation documents through the Google Apps, the engaged learning and development heightened the presentation and made it more approachable and interesting to both the presenter and the audience.

Summary of the two resources found:

While the article provided a brief yet interesting read for a correlation of learning and use of technology, I believe the website mentioned above provided more relevant learning information.  The iPhone app is a wonderful jumping platform for engaging the learner in a mobile environment and will definitely lead me to more topics related to the learning aspects of the brain and learning, problem solving methods during the learning process, and informational processing as whole in the world of informational technology process and design.

References:

McCoid, J., and Gardner, H. (2011). In Social Learning, More Brains Are Better Than One.  The Courtenay Comox Valley Record First,  ProQuest document ID: 868791598 Document URL: http://search.proquest.com/docview/868791598?accountid=14872

Malamed, Connie. (2012). No More Spilled In Writing for Instructional Design. Simply Useful Tools, LLC Version: 1.2

Malamed, Connie. (2014).  Emerging Roles Of The Learning Designer, Are your skills relevant for the future? http://theelearningcoach.com/elearning_design/emerging-roles/