Scope Creep

Every tenth grader in the state of Ohio must take the Ohio Graduation Test (OGT).  Passing this test is one of the requirements of graduation.  The test covers mathematics, english, reading, science, and social studies.  I was assigned the task of creating a review program for students who had failed to pass the mathematics portion of the test and were planning on re-taking it during the summer.  The course would last for 2 weeks and the students would attend for 2 hours a day.  

I was able to use any resources within the school building, but not able to order anything additional.  I was the only individual creating and teaching the program as was paid a set amount for the 2 week course.  As such, I did not need to keep track of a budget. 

I knew ahead of time that planning for the course would take a significant amount of time.  I started by reviewing the way other teachers had run the review program in the past.  What did they do that worked?  How did the students perform?  What materials did they use? How did they break up the time?  These, and many more, were questions that I examined during the analysis phase of the project.  

Looking back, there are many things I would do differently as I planned this review course.  I never stopped to look at the big picture before delving in and planning daily lessons.  There were several mistakes I made that, in the end, created much more work (i.e. scope creep) that initially anticipated:

1. The objective for the course was to quickly review important material, test-taking strategies, and leave plenty of time for practice in order to give students the best chance for success.  This objective, however, was vague and never clearly stated to the participants.  Portny warns that vague objectives can be a major pitfall (Portny, Mantel, Meredith, Schafer, Sutton, Kramer, 2008). 
2. Not fully understanding the potential risks have to increase scope creep in a negative way, I used the ‘ostrich approach’ to managing risk (Portny et al., 2008).  In other words, I buried my head and pretended that potential such as disciplinary or attendance problems would not occur. 
3. Although I did look at what past facilitators did as far as creating their lesson plans, I did not fully investigate the risks that came to fruition in past years.  This would have better prepared me for the learning environment and what I could have done to combat the attitudes of the students. 

When I created the review course, I had never heard about scope creep, or risks, or many other terms that are commonplace in the PM world.  In essence, I only thought of the day to day tasks that I needed to complete to have the appropriate amount of material for the students.  I underestimated that value of clear objectives, of risk management, or time allocation.  The result was that I ended up scraping all of the work I did multiple times and ended up spending at least three times as much work on creating the course than needed.  

Resource

Portny, Mantel, Meredith, Shafer, Sutton, & Kramer (2008).  Project management: planning, scheduling, and controlling projects.  Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons. 

Comparing forms of communication

There are many different forms of communication.  Each has its strengths and weaknesses depending on the circumstance.  In the circumstance introduced in the multi-media piece, “The art of effective communication,’ a message needed to be relayed from one coworker to the next.  The message relayed the need for information to be passed along so that deadlines could be met. 

First, the message was delivered by e-mail.  The e-mail was short and to the point.  As I read it, I remember thinking that it “sounded” rushed.  If I were the recipient, my initial thoughts might be that I am being ordered around, that the writer is trying to be polite but it not, and that the e-mail reads informally even though it discusses important deadline information.  

Second, the message was delivered by phone.  The message came across as less rushed and more personal.  One of the advantages of a phone conversation is that it allows the speaker to use voice inflection and tone.  Overall, for the delivery of this particular message, using the phone was an improvement over e-mail. 

Lastly, the message is delivered face-to-face.  This conversation, even though the content was the same, came across as less bossy.  This could possibly be due to the fact that the receiver of the message can see that they are being greeted with a smile and can see the concern on the face of the person delivering the message.  One of the biggest differences between the face-to-face conversation and the phone conversation were the intentional pauses placed in the face-to-face conversation.  These pauses allowed the recipient to take in everything that was being addressed without being rushed. 

Sharing information in writing, over the phone, and in a face-to-face setting may relay a different message even if the content is the same.  My initial thought after viewing “The art of effective communication” is that e-mail is by far the most convenient method of communication but it can also be interpreted in various ways depending on the recipient.  There are too many factors such as voice tone, inflection, body cues, pausing between phrases, etc. that are left out of an e-mail that can effect how a message is received.  E-mail, however, still plays an important role in communication for a project manager.  There are many messages that must be relayed that are informative in nature.  An example of this would be recapping information regarding a formal or informal meeting.  When information is being relayed in which the sender is requesting some form of work to be completed, it may be best to stay away from e-mail.

Communicating through a phone call can reduce the chance for miscommunication.  However, if the communication occurs through leaving a message it does not “allow the intended audience to ask questions to clarify the content, meaning, and implication of the message being sent” (Portny, Mantel, Meredith, Shafer, Sutton, & Kramer, 2008, p. 358).  Instead of leaving a message, a full conversation allows for back-and-forth questioning to make sure the material was correctly relayed. 

When possible, face-to-face meetings allow for material to be correctly relayed.  However, face-to-face meetings must be carefully planned as many workers view them as a ‘time-waster’ (Portny et al., 2008).  It is important to remember that the best mode of communication is determined by the content and also the individual who is receiving the information.  

Resource

Portny, Mantel, Meredith, Shafer, Sutton, Kramer (2008).  Project management: planning, scheduling, and controlling projects.  Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 

A recent project..

I help out with coordinating social events at my church.  If I remember correctly, I believe my husband volunteered my services.  We recently had an event called an Eat n’ Greet where we gathered people in groups of 8-10 in homes across our town.  The evening consisted of appetizers and mingling.  

At first glance, the event appears simply to plan.  From a financial standpoint it was, because guests and hosts alike provided the appetizers.  From a planning standpoint, however, there were several factors that made this event tricky to plan.  LIsted below are the main tasks that needed to be completed prior to the event:

1. Choose a date and name for the event
2. Decide how the event will be promoted
3. Gather enough hosts for the event (‘enough hosts’ was an unknown number until the deadline for signing up for the event)
4. Gather RSVPs through a website similar to evite (http://new.evite.com/#home)
5. Create groups of 8-10 people and assign to a host
6. Send out reminder emails for hosts and attendees
7. Gather feedback 

Now that you have a brief understanding of the project, I’d like to look back and see what modifications could be made if this event were to be held again in the future.

What contributed to the project’s success or failure? 

The main objective of the event was to give people the chance to get to know others and begin to build deeper relationships.  While the overall event was a success, I found that the experiences of individuals depended deeply on the host and the make-up of individuals that attended a particular home. When grouping together individuals that may not know each other it is almost impossible to know if people will mingle well together.  That aspect of the planning was out of my control.  However, choosing hosts who are willing to go out of their way to make others feel welcome is something that can be controlled.  I found that those who had hosts who were proactive in making everyone feel welcome and included rated their experience as extremely positive. 

Which parts of the PM process, if included, would have made the project more successful? Why?

The last day to RSVP for the event was a week an a half prior to the event.  The hope was that this would leave a few days to break people into groups and send out reminder emails 4 or 5 days prior to the event.  This would have worked out fine, but many more people RSVPed in the final 2 days which required me to find 4 more hosts.  In retrospect, it would have been much better to plan to have too many hosts than too few.  If a host was not used, they easily could have been assigned to attend someone else’s home.  Estimating how many people would attend the event was not smart planning on my part.  In essence, what occurred is something project managers refer to as ‘scope creep.’  The event ended up accommodating over 30 more people than expected.  A smart project manager is not surprised, but has planned ahead, when unexpected changes need to be made.  

The future of distance education

Distance education has existed in various forms for centuries.  The growth of the internet over the last decade has allowed distance education to become mainstream (Simonson, n.d.).  Simonson discusses in the video, “Distance education: the next generation” that most innovations follow a S-shaped curve.  A new innovation first requires promotion by key social figures until eventually it will reach a point of critical mass at which point it no longer requires promotion, but rather support (Simonson, n.d.).  Because of the wide-spread use of distance education distance education appears to be nearing this point of critical mass.  At this point, it is still important to look at what the future perceptions of distance education will become and how I, as an instructional designer, can improve distance education and its perceptions.

Before looking at what the future perceptions of distance education may be I want to first discuss current perceptions.  After interviewing a small number of highly educated individuals, I found that most individuals who are hesitant about distance education courses have yet to participate in one (personal communication, December 20, 2010).  On the other hand, most individuals who are taken a distance education course have found the quality to be higher than expected (personal communication, December 20, 2010).  My assumption will be that the future perceptions of distance education will be directly related to the number of individuals who partake in a distance education course.  

Not all distance education courses have been designed based on sound instructional design principles.  Unfortunately some designers have used the ‘craft approach’ for creating online courses.  This essentially means trying to model the online course after the set-up and design of a traditional course (Moller, Foshay, & Huett, 2008).  As an instructional designer, it is important for me to promote distance education courses that have been designed with instructional design principles in the forefront.  

In order to continue the improvement of distance education and its perceptions, it is important for me to continue to stay informed with new findings and studies in instructional design and education.  The field is ever-changing and I will need to stay current in order to continue the improvement of distance education.  In addition, I believe it is important to develop an accreditation system by which courses that follow sound instructional design principles will be accredited.  This will allow instructional designers and searching students to pinpoint distance education courses that will maximize their learning.  

References

Moller, L., Foshay, W., & Huett, J. (2008). The evolution of distance education: Implications for instructional design on the potential of the web (Part 2: Higher education). TechTrends, 52(4), 66–70.

Simonson, M. (n.d.).  Distance education: The next generation.  Retrieved from: http://sylvan.live.ecollege.com/ec/crs/default.learn?CourseID=6052001&Survey=1&47=8115912&ClientNodeID=984650&coursenav=1&bhcp=1

Converting a traditional course to an online format

There are many different aspects to consider when converting a traditional course to an online course.  It may be tempting to use the same material and present it in the same format, but research has shown that this is not the most effective means of delivering the material to the student.  In the following post you will be given a specific example of a training manager looking to change a traditional course to a blended course.  There are many helpful hints and tips that can be applicable to the design of any online course.  In addition, you will find a checklist for converting a traditional course to an online format.  This checklist is by no means inclusive, but it gives a list of many different aspects of the online course to consider.

Blog Post

Checklist

Open Courses

I choose to analyze an open course offered online through Yale University called Listening to Music.  I choose this particular course because I have an interest in music, but also because I assumed that it would contain contain not only text and visual instruction, but audio as well.  This particular course can be found at: http://oyc.yale.edu/music

The primary purpose of distance learning is “to provide a valuable learning experience to students who might not otherwise have access to learning” (Simonson, Smaldino, Albright, Zvacek, 2009, p. 162).  Open courses offer learners who may not have the financial ability to pay for a course the opportunity to learn as long as they are equipped with motivation and a computer (Russel, 2011).  From this perspective, the open course is distance learning as its finest.  

There are, however, several design aspects of this particular course that are not in line with best-practices.  Moller, Foshay, and Huett coined the term ‘craft approach’ when designing distance education courses.  This essentially means that the material used in a traditional course is used and made to fit into an online course (2009).  This particular course uses the ‘craft approach.’  It has a syllabus, a introduction to the professor, an explanation of the course set-up and the textbook to be used, and each lecture accessible in video, audio, or transcript form.  

Although each aspect of the course is easy to understand and of good quality, there appears to be little thought put into the needs of potential students or ways to keep students engaged and motivated.  This, however, may be due to the fact that the course if free and the university is not necessarily benefitting from offering the course.  It makes sense that they would not spend the time to make sure the course is designed with best-practices in mind.  

“Interaction is essential” (Simonson et al., 2009, p. 147).  Discussion posts, email between professor and students, blogs, and wikis.  These are all venues of interaction that enhance distance learning and active learning.  Without interaction, the learning is one-sided and doesn’t allow the student to work through the material and create schema.  This course does not include interaction for students choosing to partake in the course.  The only form of possible interaction would be through email correspondence to the professor who taught the course. 

On a positive note, this course does use all four media available: the textbook, audio files, video files, and the use of the computer (Simonson et al., 2009).  In addition, the professor is very animated during his lectures and had several musical guests perform on the lectures that I watched.  The animation of the professor raised my motivation level to watch the lectures.  

Resources

Moller, L., Foshay, W., & Huett, J. (2008). The evolution of distance education: Implications for instructional design on the potential of the web (Part 2: Higher education). TechTrends, 52(4), 66–70.

Russel, S. (2011).  101 Free open course classes to learn how to build anything.  Retrieved from: http://www.bestuniversities.com/blog/2009/101-free-open-course-classes-to-learn-how-to-build-anything/

Simonson, M., Smaldino, S. Albright, M. & Zvacek, S. (2009).  Teaching and learning at a distance: Foundations of distance education.  Pearson Education, Inc: Boston, MA.  

Choosing distance learning technologies

Example 1: Collaborative Training Environment

“A new automated staff information system was recently purchased by a major corporation and needs to be implemented in six regional offices. Unfortunately, the staff is located throughout all the different offices and cannot meet at the same time or in the same location. As an instructional designer for the corporation, you have been charged with implementing a training workshop for these offices. As part of the training, you were advised how imperative it is that the staff members share information, in the form of screen captures and documents, and participate in ongoing collaboration” (Walden, 2011).  

With the previous scenario in mind, this blog post will identify two distance learning technologies that would address the needs of creating a collaborative training environment. There are two aspects of this training workshop that need to be addressed from a technological standpoint.  First, educational material must be presented to the learners.  Secondly, the learners need to take that information and collaborate with one another by sharing information via documents, discussion, and screen captures.  

Presenting the educational material can be done in many different, yet effective ways.  Because multimedia has been shown to increase authentic learning environments for students (Tan, Kwok, Neo, & Neo, 2010), creating a multimedia website will allow the educational material to be presented in different formats.  In conjunction with other Adobe programs, Adobe Dreamweaver is a powerful program that would allow the designer to customize a multimedia website.  Other options would be the endless numbers of sites, many of which are free, which allow designers to create websites using predesigned templates.  In particular, I have used Wix several times to create websites that contained videos, pictures, text, and links. Here is an example: http://www.wix.com:80/ducharmen/app7 

My assumption is that the content being presented in this course can be delivered via video, uploaded documents, online text, and by linking articles from the website.  A website will allow the designer to use several different multimedia combination.  Most websites are easy to update, which will ensure students have up-to-date information (Simonson, Smaldino, Albright, & Zvacek, 2009). 

The second aspect of this training workshop is to allow learners to collaborate with each other even though working asynchronously.  Once the wiki is created it “can be an excellent tool for collaborative online writing assignments and group activities compiling information in a single online resource” (Simonson et al., 2009. p. 245).  Wikis allow for learners to collaborate using documents, discussion, screen captures, among other features, which is exactly what this training workshop requires.  Wikispaces, Google, and Wikidot are three popular free wikis that are simple to set-up and easy to edit.  

One of my favorite blogs is called Teach Paperless.  The focus of the blog is not necessarily using technology in lieu of paper, but rather “seeking social solutions to the mysteries of 21st century teaching and learning” (TeachPaperless, 2011).  There are a handful of great posts that give examples of how wikis can be used in synchronous and asynchronous courses.  I encourage you to browse through the blog: http://teachpaperless.blogspot.com/search/label/wiki

Resources

Ducharme, N. (2011).  Akron Women’s Soccer. Retrieved from: http://www.wix.com:80/ducharmen/app7

Simonson, M., Smaldino, S., Albright, M., & Zvacek, S. (2009).  Teaching and learning at a distance: Foundations of distance education (4th ed.). Pearson Education, Inc: Boston, MA. 

Tan, H.Y.J., Kwok, W.J., Neo, M. & Neo, T.K. (2010) Enhancing Student Learning Using Multimedia and Web Technologies: Students’ Perceptions of an Authentic Learning Experience in a Malaysian Classroom. Curriculum, technology & transformation for an unknown future. p. 951-962.  Retrieved from: http://ascilite.org.au/conferences/sydney10/procs/Tan-full.pdf

Teach Paperless (2011).  [Blog].  Retrieved from: http://teachpaperless.blogspot.com/search/label/wiki

Walden University (2011).  Retrieved from: http://sylvan.live.ecollege.com/ec/crs/default.learn?CourseID=6052001&Survey=1&47=8115912&ClientNodeID=984650&coursenav=1&bhcp=1