Why am I Here? How About I Show You

Why am I Here? How About I Show You

If I’m being completely honest, I actually stumbled on this degree by accident. I’ve been researching future career options for years, and had thought that I wanted to become a teacher. However, now that I’ve spent four years working as an aide in public education, I know it’s not for me. However, I am an educator in my heart of hearts, so I didn’t want to write myself out of teaching altogether. So, I began looking into securing a Masters in Library Science, since I now have a year of experience working in a library. 

As I was researching the possibilities of gaining an MILS degree online, I found this degree, Masters in Learning Design and Instruction. The moment I began reading about it, I got more and more excited about it, because it so closely matches my skill set. I have a good friend who is working on a UX degree from ASU, and she advised me to begin taking courses from LinkedIn to familiarize myself with the design process. So, now I can loosely define ADDIE, SME, SMAC, F2F, user interface design, etc. What’s even more exciting is that I can see how my background in the public school setting has perfectly prepared me to work in this capacity. While working with students who have special needs, I’ve also been able to see that there are some huge gaps between what we want students to learn and be able to do, and what they’re actually learning and are able to do. There is ample room for improvement in elearning design, and I can see myself being the one to improve it. I have enough firsthand experience with students and the psychology behind learning to see myself as a learning designer in either the K-12 realm or higher education. I know I can make a difference in the field of education, so I envision myself collaborating with a team of software designers, SMEs, and educators to create top-notch elearning products. From firsthand experience with Canvas, and feeling quite a few frustrations with it, I would also love to help create a much more user-friendly Learning Management System. 

Therefore, I have plenty of goals regarding the learning design degree, but I’m going to limit myself to three concise, attainable objectives:

1. A short-term goal I will complete by the end of the LDT program: I will have worked individually to create a larger online presence on my blog, and will have played around enough with some of the available technologies to create a video program similar to Agnes Aponte-Munoz’s, with a speaking avatar and interactive teaching & learning model. I was so impressed with her video, and how it made learning about her so much fun, so I want to learn to do that myself. I can see how it would improve instruction to make videos and learning platforms more interactive and exciting. The best way for me to make progress with this goal is to just do it. So, even though I feel some trepidation about creating those types of videos (I’ve never done it before!), I will just try and fail, and try and fail until I start succeeding. It’s the only way to learn!

2. A medium-term goal I can achieve by the mid-point of the program: I will become more proficient with technical skills, including, but not limited to: graphic design and screenwriting. I want to understand how each of these methods work together to create a unified whole, and what part I can play in improving each part of this process. Just like with my short-term goal, I’m only going to improve in these areas by doing them. I have to introduce myself to some of these technologies, and work to fit them into my life and into this course. Improving in these areas is important to me, because they are critical skills for an ID.

3. By the end of the LDT program, I will have developed a cohesive and collaborative learning community in which I can ask questions, swap ideas, find learning resources, and share know-how from my own experiences throughout the program. This is important to me because I can see that though the ID industry is exploding, so is the amount of students pursuing it as a career, so competition for future jobs may be fierce. I’ll have to keep up with the ever-changing tide of technology if I want to keep myself relevant and attractive to future employers. When it comes to new technologies, admittedly I’ve taken an “old dog new tricks” kind of stance, so I will make progress on this goal by playing around with some new technology each week. I’ll challenge myself each week by pushing that much more into a technology to encourage myself to understand it and utilize it. I’ve also made myself a constant presence on the community of practice thread in Slack. I have already connected with students who are just like me- with no ID experience. This has served two wonderful purposes: it has allayed my fears that I won’t be able to turn this into a career, and that I’m in the wrong ball field; and it has given me the Community Inquiry Framework (Garrison 2000) so crucial to a student’s success. 

I have a friend who is currently pursuing a UX degree from ASU, and she is an ideal mentor because she can advise me where to turn to become more familiar with all the aspects of ID. She has already assisted me in a huge way by recommending that I look to LinkedIn to discover more about ID before starting my classes. However, that’s not all. I know she’ll encourage me to continue referring back to LinkedIn courses to keep myself on level with the latest technologies in the field of design, even after I complete the degree. I’m so grateful for this friend and colleague, because I know I can reach out to her when I hit a snag in the degree or any of my assignments within the program. It really helps that I have someone in my life who’s pursuing a similar degree, so I can go to her if I feel overwhelmed.

    Garrison, D. Randy., Anderson, T., & Archer, W. (1999). Critical Inquiry in a Text-Based Environment: Computer Conferencing in Higher Education. The Internet and Higher Education, 2(2-3), 87–105. https://auspace.athabascau.ca/bitstream/handle/2149/739/?sequence=1