Jared Stein – Education, Technology, Culture, and the Internet

I think it’s important that web design students create and post to their own blog for several reasons:

• Exposure to blog as a platform. Even if blogging as we know it doesn’t persist as a popular form of web sites, the functionality of a blog is still fundamental to a lot of web systems, for reasons of themes, plug-ins, content management, permissions, syndication, etc.
• A place to showcase work. A blog makes a great portfolio, whether of your web design work, or of your thinking about web design.
• “I write so I know what I think.” I can’t say it any better than Eric Meyer, for anybody in any field.

The latter two reasons tie in to my belief the students need to assert their own digital identity. When a prospective employer searches your name on the web, what do they find? I’d like them to find your portfolio. I’d like them to find what you think about web design. I’d like them to find that you’re engaged in the field of web design, that you link to and comment on the blogs of your colleagues. Blogging provides the impetus for this kind of behavior, and the web keeps track of it for you.

So, I explain these objectives and benefits, then direct my students to some blogging platforms, including WordPress.com, Blogger.com, and the UVU WordPress instance that I spearheaded while Director of IDS.

(I have to say “Real Blogs” in the title because LMS are notorious for providing “blogs” that–there’s no nice way to put this–suck. Or that are not even related to blogs at all. Thankfully the designers of Canvas acknowledged this and provided, instead, some interesting tools to help teachers manage real-world, student-owned blogs.)

In this course, students’ weekly projects could be posted directly to our discussion forums, or can be posted to their blogs and referenced. I obviously encourage the latter, because it adds to the showcase of learning, and provides more opportunities for exposure and connection beyond the walls of the classroom.

Archiving Articles through Diigo

The official blogging assignment is to post at least 3 times during the semester on articles that they have read and found valuable. In the past I’d maintained a wiki page listing what I thought were useful articles, web sites, blogs, and magazines that they could choose from, but I’ve recently discovered that the class Diigo Group archive has become robust enough, and is a far more elegant repository for this purpose. So now, if they’ve reviewed an article that I’ve not read or I know is not on the Diigo Group list, I ask them to also bookmark it for the Group.

Encouraging Connections

In order to encourage interaction between students on their blogs, I first collect all the blog URLs, add those to by Google Reader, and then export an OPML file so students can download and subscribe to all of their peers’ blogs at once.

I also grab the Google Reader “bundle” RSS feed, and add that feed to the Canvas Announcements as another trigger to read, connect, and share their learning.

Blogging Beyond the Class

I, like many other web design and development practitioners, am self-taught–or, rather, taught only through the open web. This fact keeps me keenly aware of the potential to waste students’ time in a formal classroom environment seems to me always a risk. This is just one way I think I can force students to engage in some positive behaviors that may lead to meaningful habits and leverage their advantage as they move toward their careers. I would be lying if I said I didn’t care if students abandoned their blogs at the end of the semester, but I think even if they only maintain it for the term of 15 weeks, they’ve at least been exposed to the blogging phenomenon, and, perhaps, have begun to understand how this field operates as a connected community of professional practitioners.

I also hope that by encouraging them to read and comment on each other’s blogs in addition to the community-based activities we do behind digital classroom walls, they might build relationships with each other that are collegial and persist well into their careers.

And, I tell myself, if they leave their blogs up, they will at least have something out there for others to find. And, based on the typical work of these students on their blogs, that’s something they can be proud of. I certainly am.

I maintain a Diigo Group specifically for my online Web Design class that, unlike services in a traditional LMS, doesn’t have to die at the end of the semester. Students elect to become members of the Diigo Group, and use the Diigo browser add-on to quickly share and comment on blog posts or articles that they find relevant with the Group (i.e. the class). Diigo also provides tools to tag, comment on, and highlight passages from the article (I haven’t required this, but probably would in a special topics class that focused more on new practices and methods in web design and development).

I actually first started this activity with a simple wiki page listing relevant articles that the class could contribute to. I also used a Delicious account with a for: tag that I linked to from the wiki for more current articles. Both were eventually replaced by this Diigo Group.

Diigo + Canvas

Diigo is the mechanism for both the bookmarking and the archiving of these web pages, and students are able to subscribe to the Diigo Group’s new bookmarks, but I am able to go a step further thanks to Canvas*.

Diigo produces an RSS feed, and Canvas can subscribe to any number of feeds. So I simply add the Diigo Group feed to the Canvas course Announcements. This means that any time a new Diigo Group bookmark is made, Canvas automatically posts it as a hyperlink in a new Announcement.

Students are able to control how Canvas automatically notifies them of announcements (e.g. via email, text, twitter, whatever) as well as the frequency of these notifications (e.g. right away, once a day, etc).

So, in addition to the Diigo archive of bookmarks, Canvas will keep a secondary record of all the bookmarks made in the Diigo Group for the entire semester. This simple act of syndication provides students with additional avenues by which they can choose to learn about new resources–especially important for students who may not yet be comfortable venturing outside of the traditional classroom space.

That’s the mechanism for the activity, but the activity itself is clearly founded in the first learning outcome described above. But I think there are some indirect benefits to this activity as well. For instance, I encourage students to find and read blogs in addition to web design magazines, because, in this field at least, blogs are the best way to share new information fast. Frankly, web design has little need of academics for the general practice; for the theory of usability and visual design? Sure. But most new information goes out through informal publications like blogs and forums.

Focusing attention toward blogs presents students a golden opportunity to be up close and almost-personal to web design luminaries like Jeffrey Zeldman, Eric Meyers, Tantek Celik, Cameron Moll, and more. By following the writings of practicing professionals in the field, I hope students might develop their view of the field, and even fall into some indirect cognitive apprenticeship and accidental learning. And by engaging in the rich, deep, and sometimes contentious discussions of techniques found on web sites like Smashing Magazine or A List Apart, students will have begun participating in the actual practitioner community.

My hope is that students will not drop out of the Diigo Group after the semester’s end. But if they do, and many have, I hope they will, at least, continue the practice of bookmarking and sharing new articles and web sites to support their continual engagement in the field — using their own tools, in their own space, choosing whatever methods suit them best.

* I currently work for Instructure, makers of Canvas.

My next official Instructure blog post was published today, a brief list of general tips on keeping the design of your online learning simple and usable: Online Course Design: Keep It Super Simple.

I could have gone on for pages on this topic (in fact, I did, for about 2000 words before cutting to around 600). That’s my way of saying there’s plenty of room for exploration and discussion, so go ahead, check it out, and leave a comment.

I’m working on a concept map assessment for my web development students as a means of evidencing an understanding of the properties and relationships of contemporary web languages.

Here’s the first draft of the criterion map (more…)

Utah Valley University is part of a statewide consortium of public higher education institutions that share a learning management system provided by the Utah Education Network. The Blackboard (WebCT) Vista license expires in 2012, and we’re currently considering our options for a replacement. This week we’ve been treated to vendor demonstrations by each of three finalists–one private demonstration for consortium selection committee members, and one open demonstration for institution faculty, staff, and students.

During these first private demonstrations I compiled some notes as to what I thought was effective and ineffective/detrimental in the presentations. I won’t reveal who did what, but will be very general, and talk in terms of “Dos” and “Don’ts” (more…)

Today I received an e-mail from a former student asking a common question: how do I know what to charge clients for web design/development? (more…)

The CSS max-width property has long been a favorite of mine, most often used to restrict the flow of content depending on the user’s browser, such as we see in elastic layouts. Since I began making WordPress themes a couple years ago I’ve used max-width as a staple rule for media in my stylesheet, starting with images that might appear in a post (e.g. .post) (more…)

Ever been annoyed by Blackboard Vista’s (or Campus Edition 6+’s) rendering of your XHTML + CSS web pages? Yeah, me too–especially on Internet Explorer. This happens because Bb Vista triggers a browser’s quirks mode in spite of DOCTYPEs and validated markup (more…)

Sitepoint offered up an article by Tim Wright (CSSKarma), CSS Angles: Just the Edge Your Web Page Needs!, which shows that increasing the size of a single border property results in an angular object that can be placed behind things. After some experimentation I found a new solution and a new conundrum (more…)

John Krutsch posed the following 8 questions to instructional designers/technologists on his Technagogy blog; here are my responses:

1. What do you do as an instructional designer/technologist?

   In the mode of an instructional designer I either work with instructors directly or I work independently.

   When I am working with instructors, I am probing and listening. We are discussing their teaching objectives, their mode of instruction, their activities, and their assessments. I am trying to gauge their teaching philosophy, and looking for ways to replicate their teaching activities in a technology-enhanced or online environment without abusing or neglecting the realities of that environment. While I believe that online teaching should be fundamentally different than traditional classroom teaching, that belief can not be forced upon traditional classroom instructors in it’s totality.

   When I am working independently as an instructional designer, I focus on the student experience. I match desired outcomes to available tools and technologies, avoiding any significant negative impacts on usability, accessibility, or facility. Then I prototype activities, materials, assessments for one lesson and test. I reflect, considering the student’s perspective regarding the usability of the tools, courseware, and environment. I attend to completeness and clarity of the instructions, the materials, the activities, the assessments through revision. I imagine the course from the point of view of an hour, a day, a week, a semester. Then, having spent as much time as is reasonable on the first draft, when I am satisfied with a prototype, and when I am assured of the instructor’s satisfaction, I call on one or more of our student developers to assist me in replicating it to complete the course.

   In the role of instructional techologist I focus on rapid development of educational tools that are usable and enhance the teaching/learning experience. To this end I try to focus on the creation of new tools or modification of existing tools that can amplify a pedagogical principle or provide improved facility. By principle I mean an aspect of one’s teaching philosophy or the actualization of a teaching objective/learning outcome. By facility I mean simply the ability and the process: how we make this happen, and in the easiest possible way for both instructor and learner?

2. Why did you choose to become one?

   I am enthusiastic about technology, I believe in the power of learning, I am committed to improving teaching, and I want to make education accessible to folks who are at geographical or temporal disadvantages. My profession in distance education fits.

   And while “distance education” is morphing from it’s roots as primarily an “independent study” mode to one that is more centered on the idea of a “classroom community” I have, in my own life, benefited from and enjoyed independent study, and believe that the relatively small niche of learners who thrive and can excel in independent study modes of learning are important and worthy of the support of our educational institutions.

3. Where did you work as an instructional designer/technologist?

   I began as a student Web developer and technical writer for FACT at Utah State University in 1997, where I converted paper-based independent study course to a relatively new mode of delivery: The World Wide Web.

   I then moved up to a position with Distance Education program in 1999, working with faculty in the department of Special Education to develop technology for and produce live, 2-way audio/video, Internet-delivered distance education courses with online course supplements.

   After completing my Masters degree and spending some time abroad teaching, I returned to instructional technology as an instructional designer for Distance Education at Utah Valley State College in 2002. Since that time, I have created UVSC’s Technology Enhanced Teaching Center, created dozens of new online courses, and been promoted to Director of the Instructional Design Services unit, where I oversee all aspects of Distance Education course production and educational technology development.

4. What surprised you the most after actively working in the field?

   One aspect that still surprises me is faculty and student preconceptions of distance education. Instructors still want to believe distance education is only independent study and it doesn’t deserve the same attention, committment, and rigor as their on-campus classes; students still want to believe that distance education is self-paced and, unfortunately, easier or less rigorous.

   But, in general, the most positive surprise has been to witness how effective distance education can be when Done Right. With a committed instructor, sound technology choices, and some sense of adventure in the students, a fully online course can be as productive, as effective, and more engaging and fulfilling than a traditional face-to-face course.

5. What has been your most discouraging experience in the field of instructional design/technology?

   This would have to be the persistence of ignorant or just plain negative attitudes amongst some instructors and administrators toward distance education. This is not just prevelant in the handful of distance education naysayers, but also present in some of the distance education instructors, who, as I mentioned above, still maintain wrong perceptions or inadequate committment to their distance education courses and students. There are plenty of motivated, interactive, and engaging instructors involved in distance education, but I am still discouraged in the numbers of underprepared, undercommitted, or underenthused instructors as well.

6. If you could change one thing about about your job as an instructional designer/technologist what would it be?

   I wouldn’t change much about my job, though I would happily take advantage of additional human resources. In higher education, and in educational technology particularly, even if one has open positions (which itself is a rarity), skilled educational technologists, seasoned instructional designers, and creative multimedia producers are hard to find and harder to hold on to. I am lucky to have a handful of exceptional professionals working with me, but too often I notice that we don’t have enough resources to keep up with our ideas, the changing face of technology, and the needs of students and instructors.

7. What aspect of being an instructional designer/technologist has given you hope for the future?

   Making education…

   • more accessible to everyone
   • more convenient for instructors and students
   • more open to potential learners everywhere
   • more engaging and interactive
   • more authentic and sustained–carrying it beyond the classroom by capitalizing on personal learning environments
8. If you could give a piece of advice to someone considering a career as an instructional designer/technologist what would it be?
   • Learn: adventure, focus, study, interact, reflect, write, revise
   • Teach: profess, engage, assess, interact, revise
   • Build: analyze, prototype, test, observe, reflect, revise