Thinking about interaction...
I remember a few years ago when I was working on my MEd in Educational technology, I had a meeting with one of my professors about a final project that I was "concocting" for a course on instructional design. My professor, sensing some frustration on my part simply said “Karen, imagine that there weren’t any limitations on how you could communicate the message. What, in your wildest imagination, would this project look like?” (Had my professor known me a little better, he might not have used the words “wildest imagination” in the invitation). I have to admit that I was stuck for a moment, caught a little off guard – no limitations? Is that possible? Then I took a deep breath and said, “Well, my in my wildest imagination I would take my instructional design model and turn it into a virtual world in which the aspects of the model became characters that the user could interact with…” It was amazing (no, I don't mean the idea itself!); at that point, all of my frustrations disappeared, and I set off for the next ten minutes or so dreaming of what this really could be. The reality of the situation is that I had neither the skill nor the technology to support the development of such a project. Looking back, I realize that much of the frustration that my professor sensed came from the fact that I wouldn't even allow myself to determine what I really wanted for the project because I was stuck - stuck in a place where I was trying to imagine and create in a very limited box. I realize now that it wasn't only the project that was at risk in this limited environment, but also essentially the potential of my creativity and imagination. I really loved this video of Jeff sharing the creative potential available with this type of technology. I had never really thought about the limitations that technology imposes on us...although I feel it every time I switch keyboards from one laptop to another and frantically struggle to adjust so I can intuitively find the letters I need. I loved that Jeff shared this innovation in the context of the belief that we should no longer be working in a world in which we "conform to a physical device" but instead be working to have the device conform to us. It makes me wonder: Hmm...much food for thought here. These are definitely some ideas and a video I need to come back too!
The other day, I had an interesting conversation with some colleagues. We were having a conversation about redesigning a unit plan template that had been around in our school district for a number of years. Given all of the new things we have learned and all of the things that we have revisited in terms of instructional design in the last few years, how did the recommendations for the planning process for teachers need to change? And further, what type of template could we possibly design to support this process?
Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately) the conversation really went around in circles. Out of that came an important consideration for me - can products (even really good ones) drive changes in teaching practice, or does teaching practice first need to change? Can a document or template be created that can guide a change in planning, or do teachers need to first understand the change in practice and from that, create a template that supports their own understanding?
For years, I used a long range planning template that by most, would actually be considered a short range plan. A number of hours were put into these plans up front in Septmeber. I carefuly considered outcomes, how they integrated with others, what patterns I saw in the outcomes, what success would look like, what resources might be helpful, and so on. In many cases, many would say that my plans were too detailed - that this type of detail did not take into account my students and where they were in their learning. But for me, that came later. As I approached each unit, I would pull out those plans and mark them up in ways that left them barely recognizable. I would look at what I now knew about my students and their learning, and go from there. The plans provided a detailed overview for me, but they were never set in stone.
But what worked for me would probably not work for someone else. Personally, I think it has little to do with the template and much more to do with how I used it. Is it possible to capture a process in a template? Is it possible to model a process in a template? I'm not so sure. I guess I wouldn't see the benefit of spending an enormous amount of time trying to capture and agree upon one template. Perhaps it would need to be a collection of templates together with teacher reflections on how they used them. Maybe video? Maybe a podcast? With what we know about education today, is the standard template a thing of the past?
