Myra's Service Summary

In my role as project manager, all my entries have been on behalf of the group. This one is just for me, and I'm claiming a point of personal privilege to post it. I took this shot of a fisherman on the Chattooga River last summer. This was not far from our little mountain cabin, where I'm headed this weekend for some R&R. I love the peace of the photo, and I'm looking forward to enjoying the peace of the mountains for a few days!

One of the requirements of students in EDIT 6210 is to mentor a student in EDIT 6190 or EDIT 6200. Lenrose Fears and I were matched up for the semester and it has been a productive relationship. At least I believe it has!

We met outside class once and shared e-mails and phone calls when we couldn’t get together in person. We also had several sessions during “Project Day” sessions. Lenrose did two versions of her “Dan’s Gym” Web site and I offered input, support and, I hope, guidance through both of those. Her technical skills are quite good, so the advice I offered was more about organization and presentation than about how to do things with the software. I enjoyed working with her and getting to know her and believe her final project is quite well done!

In addition to working with Lenrose, I provided two face-to-face desk crits for Erin Noh’s site for parents of young children, one each for Alison Burrous’ Fifth Grade Problem Solving I-Yunk Hou’s excellent photography site and Heui Seon Lim’s ACA Crisis Management site. I must confess that it’s quite gratifying to see their results and the fact that they follow at least some of my advice!

Finally, I helped Dr. Gwynn Powell, our team’s client, learn how to use Respondus software to set up quizzes in WebCT.

I graduate May 10 and it's hard to believe I've finished the entire two years. But this is it. So Long! Farewell! Auf Wiedersehen! Goodbye!

Myra Blackmon
April 30, 2008.

GLS Final 15/5 043008

We’ve done it! The project is finished (or practically finished), all the reports are completed, sign-offs gained and the site is working like a charm. Tomorrow, I shall deliver to Dr. Clinton a DVD with all the content and documentation and we shall call it a wrap!

The last couple of weeks have been tough. The beta test required a lot of prep and coordination, but it went well. We got lots of excellent feedback from the students, especially about navigation, small errors and that sort of thing. At first we were distressed to learn that only half of the students who took both the pre- and post-tests improved their scores. Closer analysis showed that they spent an average of only about 12 minutes on the 34-item test and skipped some questions all together. We concluded that the extra credit incentive for completing the tests did not motivate students to try to do well on the test and we believe most of them rushed through marking random answers or not paying much attention to the questions. Dr. Powell will include all 34 questions on her final exam and that should give us a better picture of their mastery.

Our Showcase presentation went well and I believe we’re all pleasantly surprised at how good the site looks and works. Our clients are delighted with the results and we received many compliments on both the design and the way we applied our knowledge of educational theory.

That said, we have had some disagreement about several things, most specifically a couple of the guided practices created using Hot Potatoes software. Most of us believe it is unprofessional looking, is inconsistent with the look and feel of the site and could cause interactivity problems. Of the three pieces, one of them was put up as a stop-gap measure (by me) to have something for the Beta test. Most of us agreed that we need to re-do all these exercises in Flash or in Dreamweaver, but one member declined to revise the submitted files. Melinda has re-done one of thsoe and I continue to try to find ways to re-do mine. One way or the other, we will have all the Hot Potatoes files out of the site before we turn it over to the ACA. Several of us will continue the final tweaking, even though we have submitted all our course materials.

I believe I speak for all of us when I say we have learned a tremendous amount. The team put in more than 550 hours on the project. You can’t spend that much time and not hit a few bumps here and there. Some of us had a hard time letting go of “our” units, even when the group believed we needed revision. We all have different skills, different styles and different ways of expressing ourselves. In the end, we made it work and made it work well. Donna, Melinda and I are graduating, leaving Roman and Radcliffe to carry on. This project will be an excellent addition to our professional portfolios and certainly the skills we developed will stand us in good stead for many years.

Gwynn Powell and Kat Shreve have been wonderful clients, with enthusiastic support, constructive feedback and constant availability. And we hope the project will stand the ACA in good stead for many years, as well.

Genesis Learning 15/5 041708

Showcase is one week away and we have LOTS of work to do. We will get it done, of course, but there is plenty of work to go around!

In the last week, we have conducted two phases of the alpha test. On April 10, several EDIT 6200 students reviewed the module for technology and formatting. On April 14, five camp directors reviewed for content. Feedback from both sessions was good, and consistent. The primary concerns are with ease of navigation and the fact that the content is quite text heavy. We are working on the former, but cannot do a lot with the latter as we are working with the client’s content. We are trying to find ways to break up the text and make it a bit more interesting to look at.

Roman has redesigned all our CSS. We were using a table layout and that was causing some problems. The new one is more crisp and professional looking and is also much easier to use. He is to be commended for taking on such a big task at this point in the project!

We are working hard and fast to complete all content by tonight’s meeting. That will give us a few days for tweaking and polishing before the beta on Monday evening. Roman continues to work on the site itself, keeping everything in working order. He has also completed a template we can use when we create new pages for a unit. Donna, Radcliffe and Melinda are working on examples and guided practice exercises. I am editing the self-tests to provide feedback beyond “correct” and “incorrect,” developing summaries and doing general editing work. Getting it all consistent is a lot harder than it works!

We have our beta test with Dr. Powell’s class on Monday, to be followed by a post-test and final revisions\ before Showcase on Thursday! At least a couple of us will probably work on the final polish after all our materials are due, but we will complete all the documentation and other requirements by April 28.

Genesis Learning 15/5 040908

We are heading down the home stretch and expect to have a decent presentation for Showcase Dress Rehearsal on April 10. There are many, many little tasks and a few very big ones remaining.

Our client has moved the beta to Monday, April 21, so we should have everything complete in time for that. This week, we finished loading all the text content and have some examples in. Radcliffe, Melinda and Donna are working on examples and guided practice for units 1, 2, 3 and 4. Roman is working on those for unit 5 and I am working on them for unit 6.

In addition, I have completed the self assessments and “think abouts” for all six units, but still need to get them loaded into the site. I plan to have that finished in time for Thursday night.

We are implementing our evaluation plan, with alpha testing over the next couple of days. Three subject matter experts will be here on Monday, April 14, so not only will be get their review, we can be present while they do it, which should enrich the feedback we get. We are about ready to send it out for technical review as well.

Our 6200 consultants are hard at work on animations and other graphic work. Suhwa has done a terrific climbing wall to function as the example for the unit on computerization. It does a nice job of illustrating the sequence while keeping the “camp” flavor of the module.

In the coming week, we plan to finish all the content. Then we will go about the long and sometimes tedious process of tweaking, fixing and modifying. The SME review should be very helpful for this.

Roman has bravely taken on the task of preparing the slides for our presentation on Thursday. I’ll fill in the text and we’ll be ready to roll. Only 15 days until Showcase!

Genesis Learning 15/5 040208

What started out as the most stressful week so far (at least for me!) has ended up with a bit of breathing room. I reviewed with Dr. Clinton how much we still had to do, and we all agreed on Thursday that we were concerned with the quality of what we could produce in time for a beta on April 7. He talked with our client, after which I talked with our client and we agreed to postpone the beta until April 14. That extra week should make a huge difference in the depth and quality of our product.

We really accomplished a lot. The pre-test went up in Dr. Powell’s WebCT site. We have the text content loaded for five of the six units. Donna and Roman came to Monday night’s meeting with several interactive spreadsheets that, with just a little refinement, will be ready to go.

Our 6200 consultants are hard at work on animations and other graphic work. Trudy produced a terrific splash screen of a waterfall with money flowing in it. Joy has developed a see-saw to illustrate the relationship between depreciation and value. We’re expecting several others in the next 24 hours.

In the coming week, we will continue to work on content development. Our target is to have all the examples and the guided practice portions up in time for the beta. We’re also working on the self-assessments at the end of each unit.

We continue to be frustrated with the amount of time available for meetings on Thursday evenings. Since three of us live out of town, we really need all we can get, so it’s hard to take away time for other Studio functions. We’re working away and recognizing that we’ll have to burn the midnight oil a few nights before this project is finished. But the end is in sight!

Genesis Learning 15/5 March 26, 2008

We are really getting deep into development this week. And since our client expects to use this (our beta) on April 7, we need to get it done! We have agreed that we need to meet face-to-face on Mondays instead of via Wimba. That is a challenge for the three who travel, but has been worth the effort the last two Mondays. It makes it even more important that we use our time wisely and agree on our desired meeting outcome before we start. This week we found it helpful to work individually for a while, but call on one another if we needed help. This is a bit faster than doing everything as a group, but also gives us the backup we need from one another.

We have developed questions for the pre and post tests and the pretest will be administered through Dr. Powell’s WebCT site this week. Since some of our group are accustomed to writing test questions from content, we’ve had to be sure that we are worrying only about assessing the tasks we have set out for each learning goal and objective.

After discussions with Dr. Powell last Thursday, we realized that we needed to change the module on computerization to deal with hardware and software for the office instead of the transition from manual to computerized accounting tasks. Although the text was updated four years ago, the ACA’s more recent business operations report indicates that computerizing accounting functions is not as much an issue as choosing appropriate hardware and software to handle all camp management functions. We’ll need to make this adjustment in the Scope Document as well as the Task Analysis, but it does not create a significant change in our design and development work.

We are using the storyboards to insert content from the text, which is really a challenge. The text is not very well organized, so we can’t just blindly cut and paste. For example, in one paragraph in the camp store section, the text begins with “careful accounting practices should be established” and ends with “may want to limit the number of snacks a camper can buy each day.” In between is also a rationale for carrying souvenirs with the camp logo. So we’re having to pull out the pieces that fit, sometimes one of two sentences at a time. And in a few instances, we’re having to write another paragraph or so to complete the module. Fortunately, I have enough experience with camps and with writing that this is not a big deal.

At the same time, we are working on graphics. We have assigned some to our 6200 consultants. Dr. Powell has gotten access for us to the ACA’s stock photo subscription service and Melinda has a couple of places we can draw from. When we met with our client last Thursday evening, she was enthusiastic about some light-hearted graphics to moderate what many see as daunting subject matter. She also expressed her pleasure with what we are doing.

Finally, Roman now has access to the ACA web site, so we can load our materials and check them out there. We will continue to be very busy with content development.

Genesis Learning 15/5 031908

We are deep into development now. We are learning that some work we cannot accomplish effectively in an online meeting as in f2f, so I will try to build future agendas for online and f2f meetings with that in mind.

We met f2f instead of online Monday evening. This was partly to make up for time we lost with spring break, but mostly so we could work through our storyboards together. We seem to do best with these kinds of “big picture” pieces when we can put the work on a screen and easily make changes while everyone can watch and participate. And if we need to, we can get up, point to things and sketch ideas out on the white board at the same time. These kinds of sessions have been our most productive. Then we each take a portion to polish it up. It makes our work more consistent, too.

We have incorporated our storyboards and flow chart into the same document, though we may need a simple “master” flow chart for the entire unit. We are writing pre-and post-test questions. We plan to administer the pre-test to Dr. Powell’s class soon, possibly next week. We’ll also use this as the post-test for our summative evaluation. It is a fairly simple thing to do in WebCT using Respondus, with which Melinda and I both have experience.

The other thing we did Monday night was to review our original work plan. In advance of the meeting, I made two lists: one of tasks we should have completed by now and one of the items we should complete in the next week. It was sobering. But we worked through and sorted it out and I think we are on track now to get it all done.

Our client is coming to our meeting tomorrow (March 20) to run through the storyboards and help us plan for SME review. We have also invited our 6200 consultants, especially those who want to do graphics or animation, to this meeting. Seeing the storyboards and being there for the discussion should make their work a bit easier.

We’re on the countdown to dress rehearsal in three weeks, while two of us are also frantically working to finish up our portfolios and prep for our Studio comps! We are all VERY busy!