Using my job as an academic advisor gave me the benefit of understanding what my students needed to get out of their relationship with me. As I worked through most of my projects, I learned more about how to put together learning outcomes for my students who were the primary audience for my performances. When I was putting together my Instructional Design project, which was my first, I was setting my sights a little too big as far as what were appropriate learning outcomes between my advisees and me. As an undergraduate advisor, I don't have control or responsibility over what and how they learn, but my role comes in more in how they approach their academics and where they get assistance. By the time I was creating my Curriculum Project I was much more focused on the learning outcomes for the advisor-advisee relationship and was therefore able to put together a very precise instructional technology piece.
Due to this being my first project incorporating technology into a course and the course is meant for new first-year college students at University of Delaware, I decided to be very minimal in the technology incorporation. This will give me a sense of what aspects of the integration worked and will give the students an opportunity to learn about some of the technology resources available to them at the University, like the Canvas LMS, without overwhelming them. I think the use of a discussion board, like that used with the Common Reader module, will help extend a shorter class beyond the classroom, and help build a community for new students.
For my Needs Assessment I researched the possibility of using an ePortfolio project to assist with building the Advisor:Student relationship. Understanding the complex needs of undergraduate students, especially in a pre-professional major, and drawing on many of the professional development courses I have taken since becoming an Academic Advisor, I decided that a "flipped classroom" approach with an ePortfolio would allow the advisor and the student to continually build on their conversation in between regular face-to-face appointments. The use of technology, in this case, allows the advisor to have access to the ePortfolio at their convenience, thus allowing for more preparation leading up to the face-to-face appointment, which should yield a much more productive conversation.
After completing my Needs Assessment, I wanted to come up with a formal plan to implement an ePortfolio program. By this point in the program, I have learned about effective technology integration, as well as information about a number of platforms that could be used for my plan. Combined with knowledge I gained from a professional seminar I took about helping students with major and career planning, I was able to build a model for an ePortfolio program, using Google Apps technology, which is available to all staff and students at University of Delaware.
My Curriculum Project is a series of screencast videos explaining to new students how to use important technology based around class registration at the University of Delaware. As one of the last projects in the Educational Technology program, this involves a high use of technology and is backed by several learning theories, such as cognitivism, learner-centered, and the multimedia principle. Unlike other project ideas, this one was executed in a real-world scenario and followed up with a survey of its effectiveness. I learned a lot from getting to implement a technology plan in a real-world environment and getting instant feedback from university students, which is an audience most of my performances wish to target.
My Action Research paper centered on UD's adoption and use of an Early Alert System, Blue Hen Success Collaborative. I have pulled data from the last 2 years the software has been used and discussed how this technology has impacted how I am able to help the students I work with succeed in their undergraduate career. I also include a survey of the field of academic advising and how technology is assisting, improving, and growing what an academic advisor is on a college campus. Through the exploration of the BHSC data and scholarly writing review, I have learned how to best use technology to improve my advising practice, but also solidified what I have been learning throughout the Educational Technology program, which is that technology are tools, not the solutions.