Reflections

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Okay, I had to go with a cheesy title. It is true though. I have had to do a lot of looking at myself to understand what I was capable of in order to make this internship the most it can offer. I know I am a procrastinator. If you could see the time stamps of most of my material, it wanders onto the internet at around 11:45pm, just in time. So now I have had to put myself on a schedule, because with the type of work I do and the demands of grad school this semester, I have to get things done early (the procrastinator in me shivers).======

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I also have to remain true to myself in other areas. I am not a serious person. I take my personal work seriously, but not myself. Most of the instruction that I will be building for my Access class will be loaded with lightheartedness and humor. Technology can be so overbearing for people. I feel it is my job to make myself and my material accessible to my consumers. I do know there is a time and place for seriousness, but a little humor goes a long way in teaching.======

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I have a daunting task in fulfilling my obligations to create both instruction and programming for my internship. I am reviewing materials from three online courses I took previously//, Intro to Access//, //Intermediate Access//, and //Database Management//. I am also looking at online resources, questionnaires, pre-tests, and the teacher’s manual for Microsoft Office that I used when I taught technology courses. I will use these as templates for my modules, as well as the programming information for me to create the database for my workgroup. Since I am going to be creating this database for seven different programs, it is imperative that I get a grasp on the relationships that need to be included in my tables. The review is going well, and hopefully next week I will be able to call a meeting to get the office’s ideas on what they would want in a database.======

Bees Aren’t This Busy - Reflection 2
I guess you can say that I bit off more than I can chew. Between work, traveling for my job, babysitting four girls, and graduate school, I have been very busy. I am keeping up though, and I am thankful for my lunch break everyday where I can get some time to do some personal work.

It is difficult to get all of my coworkers together to determine their needs, but I have been able to communicate with them through emails, personal conversations, and quick phone calls to determine their needs. They are a little hesitant, as they do not want to input their own data. They have all assured me they have their data as Excel spreadsheets, so hopefully the data can be imported easily into Access.

I have been testing CourseSites as my delivery vehicle for my Access class. It is simple and easy to use. I am also using it for another class, so between the two, I am getting the hang of creating content. I have been looking at other educational websites to see what works well and what doesn’t as far as visuals, interactive content, and pacing.

I have separated my material into six modules. I am going to try to create just three modules, but I may expand to four in order to break more complex concepts into easier to understand segments. My database shell is almost complete, and in creating it, I have decided to remove some of the functionality from the database as individuals have stated what they did and did not want.

In a previous training, the SCDE eLearning office gave us great direction in creating courses and in the next three weeks I will attempt to either have a meeting with one of the trainers or establish contact through email for suggestions on best practices in my course.

=Slow Progress - Reflection 3=

During the last two weeks, I have only had a limited amount of time to work on my project. It has been increasingly busy at work and with my other graduate class. I see now that time management is crucial in completing this course. I attended the 2012 Ed Tech Conference in Greenville last week and I gained a lot of information that will help me in completing my project. Google Docs in conjunction with a free tool called Flubaroo will help me complete assessments on the course content. I will catch up on what I need for my internship this week and next. During that time, I will meet with my co workers, supervisor, and hopefully eLearning to check on my progress towards their needs.

=Catching Up - Reflection 4=

I think I have finally gotten the support and time I need to really work on my project. I have made great strides in developing the content and timeline for my course. I have sent a survey to my unit in order to determine their computer literacy as well as their data needs. I used the forms tool in Google Drive to create the survey and send it to my colleagues. You can view the survey [|here]. It was very easy to create the survey and Google does the analytics for you.

I did not have a lot of time last week to do much with my course or my database. The database shell is coming along nicely, however. I have developed the initial tables to reflect personnel information, site information, and grantee information. In addition, I have tables for both the finance and monitoring functions that we provide. These will all be joined in a relational database. Some programs will have more functionality than others (monitoring, finance, student level information). Due to the differences in what each program needs, I will attempt to create separate navigation pages for each one. This will allow them to only “see” what they each need. I have had trouble with creating navigation pages in Access 2010; it was much easier to do in 2007 and before. Hopefully, I will have time in the next two weeks to take a few online tutorial classes on creating navigation.

This experience has definitely been a learning experience. I am having to deal with the varying schedules in our office, my supervisor is monitoring my progress but we have trouble getting together due to the number of days when either one or both of us is out of the office. I can see where if this were a full time job, you would not be able to do more than a few design projects at a time. The ability to multitask is essential, so I feel that this is a great learning experience for me.

=Crunch Time - Reflection 5=

I thought I was going to have this project done and in the bag by now. It has turned out that I had one delay after another. It took longer than expected to receive the survey results from my coworkers, so the actual building of the database shell took longer than expected. I have finished the database content of the course, and with the shell in place, I will start adding in the lessons for the Access portion of the class. Another issue I am having is getting caught up with submitting my timesheets. My job has become overwhelming, and getting in touch with my boss has become a hit or miss affair. When I do finally catch up with her, I forget the timesheets because I have an issue with what I am doing in my actual job. I have come to realize that a successful instructional designer can not have instructional design as a “side job” if they want to produce quality work on a deadline.

I worked very hard over Thanksgiving, getting in more than 28 hours of internship work, in between watching a turkey slow roast and being roughed up at Wal-Mart 11:00 at night. I actually enjoyed the work when I finally had time to sit down and do it. I like creating the database and coursework, and the time flew by.

It is back to reality this week though. I will present the first half of the course to my coworkers during a meeting tomorrow. Hopefully, they can start the course Wednesday and complete it early next week. I intentionally did not create a very long or intense course, because we rarely have time during the day and all of my coworkers have families. We are never in the office at the same time, and I do not want to add too much to what they are doing. The course will act as a guidebook of sorts for them.

To see the results of my survey, click.