Evaluation of Professional Development Workshop and Wiki Support Sites

Erin Adelsberger

University of Maryland, University College

April 26, 2014

A. Evaluation of Your Professional Development Workshop and Wiki Support Site

Participation in the EDTC 640 course has helped me to further develop my skills in

virtual instruction and eLearning. I feel that I have made progress toward my goals

outlined in my initial reflection of improving my professional development planning for the

2014-2015 school year.

Throughout the semester we participated in a wide variety of eLearning activities

the were effective in increasing my learning. First, the activity in which we edited slides
from Slide Share to demonstrate the Coherence and Contiguity principles was valuable.
Participating in this exercise really brought to my attention the importance of creating

presentations that do not have elements to distract the learner. In addition, the activity

where we explored the use of the Voki and the modality principle was particularly helpful.
As I work with teachers in the virtual environment, we often struggle with the

personalization principle in instruction. Learning about the Voki has given me a tools to
help foster more personalization in the eLearning experience of students we serve.

All of the activities in which I participated this semester supported me in developing

my workshop support wiki and active workshop day. Overall, the wiki has many strengths.

First, I think it is particularly strong in that the active day activities are presented using the
Modality and Segmentation principle. The demonstration of these two principles through

the design of these activities creates a learning experience for the participant that is easy to
follow. In addition, I also believe that the Segmenting principle is used throughout, even on

the non-active days. The use of this principle helped me to create a workshop that was well
parsed and covers easily digestible chunks of information.

To further improve this workshop there are additional enhancements that could be

made. For instance, further examples of setting up social skills lessons could be provided.
Recordings could be made demonstrating the social skills lessons with students actively

working through them. The wiki could also be further personalized to have the wikis that
teachers will use to chronicle their work created already. For example, have a wiki setup
where participants could post their sample social skills lesson, another setup for lesson

planning and community participation, etc. This would allow for the participants to come

away with access to various wikis with examples of their own work, as well as the work of

other participants. This will help begin the long term collaboration process by putting into
place some cornerstone wikis that can continue to be built upon.

Participation in this workshop will support secondary teachers in need of

technology based ideas for both planning and delivery of student instruction. For these

teachers, organizing community based activities and community referenced instruction for
the students can be both challenging and time consuming. This requires developing

ongoing relationships with local businesses and groups to know who is willing to work

with the students and welcome into their business, store, etc. Providing teachers with a

collaborative tool to plan lessons and record notes in a central location for future years and
lessons will allow teachers to begin to build a database of resources that is organized and

easy to navigate. In the context of our virtual school, collaborate wikis such as these could
be used in various states/cities to help teachers coordinate trips and opportunities to get
students to meet face to face in the community.

In addition, participation in this workshop will allow teachers to begin to explore

ways to develop technology based options for supporting Life Skills instruction. Though

Life Skills instruction is critical to successful transition to adult life for many students, it is
difficult to fit it into the school day at times, especially for students participating in full

inclusion models. Using collaboration platforms such as wikis will allow participants to

develop simple virtual lessons through the development of their own materials, as well as
through repurposing already developed content. Developing lessons, such as the Social

Skills lesson activity from the workshop active day, will give teachers opportunity to work
in Life Skills lesson either as a center based computer activity or a homework activity.
Through planning and pre-creating the wikis to be used for various topics

(mentioned as a further improvement above) teachers will be able to easily engage in

ongoing development of lessons, activities, and resources that can be used to develop a

localized and community based Social Skills program. Successful social skills instruction

that includes community partners is built over time through references and relationships.
Though any curriculum can be bought and used the heart of teaching life skills is the

practical application of the skills using the surrounding community as a frame of reference.
The large majority of students with disabilities will remain in our communities for their

entire lives. We must teach them be adults functioning within the construct of that

community. Maintaining the wikis for topics suggested in this workshop and more will help
develop this program. Periodic check-ins will likely need to be held to evaluate progress
and ensure that all parties that are benefitting are also contributing.

Because transition is not measured by formal assessment and is based on individual

goals outlined in student IEPs, it is difficult to place a quantitative measure impact and
success of using the wikis and other resources on student learning outcomes. Proof of

success can be measured through monitoring wiki activity, as well as through feedback
from parents and other stakeholders benefiting from increased coordination of

comprehensive Life Skills program. On going use of wikis for collaboration will lead to a
pool of resources that can be used year after year.

B. Evaluation and Feedback about the Professional Development Wiki and Workshop
Active Day of Others
In addition to my own Wiki, I had the privilege to participate in and evaluate the

professional development wiki and workshop active day of two peers. Overall, the peer

wikis were well planned and well developed. Conscious effort was made by both peers to

include eLearning principles covered in this course. In both, Vokis were used to include the
personalization principle, but in both cases they used the robotic voices generated by the
program. To further employ the the personalization principle their own voices could be
added to the Vokis.

In addition, the active day of one of the peer wikis did not employ the modality

principle. On this wiki all directions and materials were presented in written formats

without any audio. Viewing this wiki side by side with a wiki that did employ modality

principle helped me to see the effect employing the modality principle has on the learner.
Both wikis did not include extraneous graphics, media, or other distracting content.

Reviewing the peer wikis also helped me see the importance of the Segmenting and

Coherence principle. While Natalies wiki has very strong and well developed content, the
activities and lesson plan for the active day were on separate pages and much of the

information was redundant. In addition, the instructions for each of the activities were
linked out the separate pages in different formats such as a blog and a Glog. While the

content was robust, it was difficult to follow at times and would have benefitted from all

being embedded into one page. I would suggest for both workshop instructors to continue
to work toward employing the eLearning principles learned in this course into future
content.

After reviewing my own wiki and the wikis of my peers, I have been able to see the

importance of developing materials that take into account the eLearning principles. This
course has definitely helped me see the importance of developing materials that do not
contain distractions and decoration that do not increase the quality of the learning
experience.

I am currently in the process of developing my professional development plan for

the 2014-2015 school year to support Special Education teachers working with students

who are Alternatively Assessed. Because our my teachers provide instruction in the virtual
environment, it is important that they develop lessons that maximize the learning

experience, especially because many of their students function at very low cognitive levels.
I have included in my plan not only special education specific content, but lessons on the
eLearning principles to guide the development of instructional materials and virtual

lessons. I have also proposed adding the E-Learning and the science of instruction: proven
guidelines for consumers and designers of multimedia learning to the professional

development books we provide to support our teachers. I think all of our teachers, not just
special education teachers, at Connections Academy will benefit from this text.

References

Clark, R. C., & Mayer, R. E. (2003). E-Learning and the science of instruction: proven
guidelines for consumers and designers of multimedia learning. San Francisco, CA: JosseyBass/Pfeiffer.