TECHNOLOGY SHOWCASE
Below is a collection of work completed as part of my studies in the MAET (Master of Arts in Educational Technology) program as well as other examples from my professional career and teaching. This work is meant to demonstrate my skills in the field of instructional design including course development, video and screencast creation, educational websites, lesson planning, and the implementation of technology. I believe this work demonstrates how my skill set can be applied to an instructional design position as well as the benefits of hiring someone with my experience in teaching and graphic design.
Conference/Professional Development Presentations
Reworking the Syllabus: Setting the Stage for Success
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Storyboarding: The Key to Creating Engaging Videos for Learners
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This project originally came about after I radically redesign my syllabus in order to better address the needs of my students. My goal was to reduce the number of questions I was asked about things already in the syllabus by making it more accessible to students. My efforts were a success and I have run several professional development sessions on how faculty can improve their syllabus's effectiveness on campus. I have also presented it at the 2014 LAND Conference (Liberal Arts Network for Development) and won first place in the Adjunct Faculty category. I have continued to perfect my syllabus and incorporated QR codes into this semester to allow students to easily add assignment deadlines to their calendars and my contact information to their contacts.
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I developed along with two group members a conference proposal about using storyboards to improve the quality of instructional videos. One of the group members, Brian Patten, and I decided to actually submit the proposal and finish the materials for the conference. Our proposal was accepted for the 2014 The Teaching Professor Technology Conference in Denver, Colorado. I was responsible for creating the actual presentation, the good/bad video examples, and the resource sheets for the conference. The goal with the presentation is to demonstrate to attendees how using storyboarding (planning) can improve the quality of their instructional videos. The presentation is aimed at faculty creating content for online classes or even participating in flipped classrooms.
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Websites
ART 122 Online Course
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Typography 101 Website
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I have taught online for the past five years. One of the courses I teach is a Graphic Design History course. It is mainly for graphic design majors, but may also include non majors. The students are community college students and range in age from 18 to 60. The students have a wide range of computer skills coming into the class. Typically the course is administered through my college's Blackboard site. However, as part of my MAET coursework, I set up a version of the course that is publicly accessible without violating FERPA laws. With this version, I focused on improving the accessibility for students with disabilities and on providing additional resources to support learning. I have uploaded the first five weeks of the course. The course is created in Coursesites by Blackboard. You can click the link below to get access to the course. The login information is: Username: guestcep820, Password: cep820.
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Typography is typically seen as both an art form and from a technique perspective. Typography involves the visual aspects of the written word such as what type typeface you choose and how the words are arranged on the page. There are a number of resources out there for typography. Most are written at a level that is hard for the beginner to comprehend. My goal is to create a resource that is easy for anyone to understand, even those outside of the field. By making it more relatable, students will better be able to adapt the material. For non professional, it may get them to think beyond just their initial impressions (and hopefully realize there is more to than just selecting a font from the list). Professionals could even use it to bone up on their skills. I would ideally also like to include skill checks that would allow a user to demonstrate that they understand the concept.
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Lesson Plans
Example Lesson Plan Integrating Technology
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MOOC: Create Your Own Typeface
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This lesson plan was developed for week 5 of my ART 121: Intro to Graphic Design Theory and Process class. My goal with the lesson plan was to utilize technology to support the learning objectives of the week. The week's focus is on the research process for a graphic design project. The use of technology mimics the process a student will use in the real world when working on actual graphic design projects. The students will use tools that professional designers use to conduct the research stage of a project. This gives the students real-world and hands-on experience.
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I developed a plan for a MOOC (massive open online course) on creating a typeface. This course was designed with the intent to attract anyone interested in creating their own typeface for use. The course targets beginners who may or may not have familiarity with typography and type anatomy. The course is aimed at graphic design students or professionals who are interested in the subject but may not have known where or how to get started. While the course targets those with at least some graphic design background, the course does not assume any previous knowledge so that anyone with an interest in creating a typeface could do so. As the target audience is graphic designers or graphic design students, the course materials will focus on industry standard software, but will provide links to resources for those who may not have access to the software.
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Videos, Screencasts, and Alternative Presentations
Action Logic Types Video
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Type Anatomy
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This video demonstrates my understanding of the seven types of action logics found in leaders. The goal with this was to use my choice of images and backgrounds to help emphasize the action logic types. I feel like this best accomplishes talking about and comparing the different types. I used Goanimate to create the video. I feel this is appropriate because I was best able to show visuals that demonstrate aspects of each action logic type. The different voices, backgrounds, and people help emphasize the differences. I also feel it adds a bit more interest than a straight presentation. Further, I think it demonstrates my own action logic type—the individualist.
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This presentation focuses on introducing a student to the basic type anatomy terminology. This presentation seeks to break the traditional presentation format. The presentation is meant to work as a standalone product that a student could go through without needing the instructor. Unfortunately, you cannot insert sound with Google presentations. I would have preferred to have sound with greater explanation in addition to the pop-ups. This would also help make the presentation work better for auditory learning styles. It would also increase the ability for the presentation to work as an effective tool without the instructor present.
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KCEA Ad
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Introductory Screencast for ART 122
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While this video is not specifically targeted towards instruction, the video does demonstrate my skills with video editing. This ad was created for the KCEA (Kent County Education Association). I needed to combine the images of the various types of positions represented by the association with the scripted audio in an interesting manner. I did all video and sound editing. The images were either stock images or taken by the MEA (Michigan Education Association) staff photographer. The ad ran in theaters around Kent County during the summer and fall of 2014.
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This is an example of my abilities to create a screencast. This screencast is meant to serve as an introduction to the ART 122 online course I developed. It walks students through navigating the course, some basic expectations for the course, and the requirements to get started with the course. The screencast was created in Jing.
(Note: I have also created screencasts using Camtasia, Quicktime, and Adobe Captivate.) |
Ten Lessons
This video is the final result of my exploration of how various art forms create compelling experiences and how these lessons can be applied to teaching. Art forms like photography, film, design, music, and architecture focus on creating interesting and compelling experiences through a variety of techniques.
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Other
21st Century Classroom
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Tetra Logo
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Learning is often not just about teaching pedagogy and what material. The space in which the learning is occurring can be just as important. I was tasked with imaging my ideal classroom with a focus on technology and creating better learning spaces. This presented a challenge as I share my space with several other people. The space needs to meet a wide range of needs. My goal with my design was to make the space flexible by allowing for relatively easily reconfiguration when needed. I also wanted to incorporate new technology to improve the learning experience by allowing for more productive critiques. This was only my second time using Google Sketch-Up. The classroom was done to scale based on actual measurements of the classroom and existing equipment to ensure the plausibility of the design.
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This logo originated from a group project I worked on. Our group was named four by default. After exploring several options for names to replace the default, we settled on tetra which is a prefix meaning four. I completed some research about the term tetra and its usage. I was especially interested in a structure I found that involved five tetrahedrons intertwined. Our group had five members so this was a way to combine both the four and the five concepts into one visual image. This was the final logo design which uses the five intertwined tetrahedrons. Each tetrahedron is a different color to represent a different person from the group. The sans serif typeface in lowercase provided a simple, elegant complement to the main element of the logo. The logo provides a simple elegant solution to the challenge.
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