Instructional Design. Final Paper: Wikispaces. University of Akron. Fantastic Five

Transcription

1 Running head: INSTRUCTIONAL DESIGN: WIKISPACES 1 Instructional Design Final Paper: Wikispaces University of Akron Fantastic Five Jacki Cain, Felisha Jackson, Molly May, Jessica Sevchek, Christina Paskiet

2 INSTRUCTIONAL DESIGN: WIKISPACES 2 Instructional Design: Wikispaces Analysis Phase Wiki s are an online way to share work and collaborate with classmates and people from around the world. Wiki s are a vital tool in the Instructional Technology (IT) program at the University of Akron and we have been chosen to design a plan to help future IT students improve their Wiki skills. Everyone in our group has had extensive experience creating individual wiki s and 3 of us have experience with creating team wikis. Our Subject Matter Expert (SME) is our professor, Dr. Ward. Each of us has worked closely with Dr. Ward in our online classes and we have met with her to discuss her concerns about the IT Masters students lack of Wiki skills. After our discussion we were able to come to the conclusion that students are having difficulty figuring out how to create a wiki, how to log in and remember their password, how to create wiki pages, how to make their wiki public, and other various technology skills such as embedding videos, photos, and creating charts. As a team we decided that our first plan of action was to send an to all the students in the IT program explaining our project and asking for volunteers to assist us. We were fortunate enough to quickly receive 10 responses. We then created a survey with google forms to send to those 10 participants. Our survey consisted of five short answer questions and a list of items to check if the participant needed more help in developing that Wiki skill. We had six out of the ten participants respond to our survey. The participants consisted of five females and one male and they are ages 22 to 50 years old. There is a wide age range because our audience consists of graduate students. Three out of six of our participants said they preferred to learn about Wiki s through videos and the other three said they preferred to experiment with the Wiki

3 INSTRUCTIONAL DESIGN: WIKISPACES 3 site by themselves but like to have videos to refer to when needed. All six of our participants said that directions for wikis could be improved by having videos and screenshots. This data helped us determine that we wanted to provide the IT students with instructional videos. We also discovered that none of our participants have tried using a Wiki in their own classrooms due to their own lack of knowledge and understanding. Three of our participants expressed that they needed help with the following skills: creating a free teacher page, adding new pages, making their Wiki public, embedding videos and photos, making their Wiki visually appealing, uploading files, and adding/organizing data into charts. One participant said they didn t need help with any skills and the other two participants only needed help with team Wiki s and embedding videos. In order to help solve the problem and enhance the IT students Wiki skills we determined the following learning goal for our participants: When provided with videos and tutorials, the members in our study will be able to better their Wiki skills. Students in the IT Master s Program will be able to manipulate a Wiki page as an individual and as a team. They will learn based on instructional videos and tutorials and will demonstrate their learning through a project-based evaluation. In order to achieve this goal we are going to create the following eight videos: embedding videos making the wiki visually appealing creating a free page working as a team/changing settings to have a group Wiki adding pages to a Wiki making the Wiki public uploading files

4 INSTRUCTIONAL DESIGN: WIKISPACES 4 putting data into tables/charts In addition to creating these videos we will also write short reflections explaining which IT classes the students will need each Wiki skill for. After creating the video we will have our participants perform a task where they have to create their own wiki and incorporate the skills we have taught them. Design Phase Since the topics do not need specific building of content knowledge, we will use a world related instructional sequence to present the information. The participants will be able to view the information in any order they choose, and will be able to go back and review any tutorial if they have forgotten the information. This will also address the varying levels of proficiency in the group. According to our analysis, three of the six participants are not proficient, two of the six are approaching proficiency, and one participant seems to be proficient with creating a wiki. The participants learn best through video tutorials and experimentation, and listed seven skills they would like to focus on. Using the backward design approach to create our Wikispace, we began our design with the final evaluation. The participants will create their own free, public educational wiki, which includes one page, at least one video or photo, at least one file uploaded, at least one chart, and visual appeal. We used this to create the following objectives: The participant is able to create a free teacher wiki. The participant is able to make their wiki public. The participant is able to add new pages to their wiki. The participant is able to embed videos and photos to their wiki. The participant is able to upload files to their wiki.

5 INSTRUCTIONAL DESIGN: WIKISPACES 5 The participant is able to organize data into a chart on their wiki. The participant is able to make their wiki visually appealing. The instructional videos will have similar formats for each section. The video about creating a wiki will begin from typing in the url for Wikispaces, and walk through the process of creating an educational Wiki. The rest of the videos will begin after they have already been signed into their wiki, and walk the participant through each skill, step by step. The participant will be able to see the screen and hear one of us explain the process at the same time. As we explain the process, we will also suggest uses for the skill in a classroom setting or for the Instructional Technology Master s Program. Development Phase After surveying a group of students in the Instructional Technology Master s Degree Program, decisions were made about how to develop instruction. Students were struggling with development of their WikiSpaces for the various classes during their Instructional Technology Program. Based on student responses and analysis of what skills are necessary for classes in the program, our instruction was developed. The first determination that the team made was to design our instruction on a WikiSpace page. We rationalized that if students were to learn how to use a WikiSpace, they should be able to use these materials as a way to familiarize with the navigation of pages. We decided on screen casting videos to instruct students on how to navigate and work through various Wiki skills. Instructional videos were our decision due to the fact that videos can be watched over and over again. The videos are separated by skill and students can easily search for tutorials along the navigation bar. The videos allow our students to view how things are done in real time, rather than through a photo or written direction format.

6 INSTRUCTIONAL DESIGN: WIKISPACES 6 As we were determining what videos to create, we had to evaluate what skills the students needed. There would be no point in creating a video that students already had the skills for; we had to make note of the skills they needed and then title them something that was easy to find. We then created our WikiPage and created the individual videos. We made sure to include a reflection element with each video that allowed for our students to know what classes they would need the specific skills for. Students are then able to visit the page whenever a new skill is needed or they need to refresh their memory. A few resources were necessary when developing our content. We needed the list of necessary wiki skills for each class. We also needed student survey results for the determination of those skills as well. As for our instructional WikiSpace page, we needed to create a team page that all of our members and students could participate in the viewing and creation of the page students will have to add a page to our website to show the skills that they learned. In terms of video creation, we needed to know the skill ourselves. We also needed a screen-casting tool. The tool that was used by our video creators was ScreenCast-O-Matic. For these screencastings, we needed a YouTube account to upload the videos; imovie to create the Teamwork video; and effective computer software to make video creation smooth. These videos will help the students with their learning. The website that we created can be found at Each video has an individual tab along the website and can be found easily. The instructional videos can all be viewed at once or can be viewed when the skills are necessary for classwork in the Instructional Technology Master s Program.

7 INSTRUCTIONAL DESIGN: WIKISPACES 7 To determine our effectiveness, a few assessment strategies were developed. First, we will ask students to take a survey upon completion of viewing videos. They were surveyed at the beginning of the instruction to gather data on the skills that they needed; a post-survey is effective to determine if the skills were gained through the instruction. However, a post-survey is not enough to visualize if the lessons and teaching was effective. Therefore, our students will be asked to add a page to the instruction page. This page will include various skills that were discussed in the instructional videos. If students are able to complete these skills after viewing the videos, we will know that our instruction was effective. The instruction was developed after analyzing student needs. Video tutorials were created in a WikiSpace and students are able to view the videos whenever a new skill is needed. These videos were created with the Instructional Technology Master s Degree Program at the University of Akron in mind. Therefore, reflections are also included when certain Wiki skills are necessary for each class. These videos will be assessed based on student performance and skill. Implementation Phase For the implementation of our wiki project, we used master students from the Instructional Technology program at The University of Akron. After sending out an to all of the students in the IT program asking for volunteers to participate in our project, we received six participants. The participants we asked to use the tutorials created on our wikispace to help them design their own page. Participants were then asked to create a new page on the navigation bar, and title it with their last name. We also asked that they write their first and last name in a size 20 font in the center of the page. Then create a table that included their level in the Master s program and their graduation year. They also needed to find an educational YouTube video that

8 INSTRUCTIONAL DESIGN: WIKISPACES 8 was no longer than 5 minutes, and embed the video into their page. Finally, they needed to comment on one or more participant s page. Out of the six participants that volunteered, only one participant implemented the task. The participant created a new page on our Wikispace on the navigation bar. The first step we took with our participants was a survey. We created a survey in Google Docs to get an understanding of what Wiki skills our participants needed assistance with. Our survey consisted of five short answer questions and a list of wiki skills to check if the participant needed more help in developing that skill. The data helped us determine that instructional videos would help guide IT students in enhancing their wiki skills. We set the following learning goals for our participants: When provided with videos and tutorials, the members in our study will be able to better their Wiki skills. Students in the IT Master s Program will be able to manipulate a Wiki Page as an individual and as a team. They will learn based on instructional videos and tutorials and will demonstrate their learning through a project-based evaluation. In order to achieve that goal we created the following eight videos: Embedding video Making wiki visually appealing Creating free page Working as a team/changing settings to do wiki with a group Adding pages to wiki Making wiki public Uploading files Data in tables or charts

9 INSTRUCTIONAL DESIGN: WIKISPACES 9 In addition to creating those videos, we also wrote short reflections explaining which IT courses students would need to know specific Wiki skills for. After creating the videos we had our participants perform a task where they had to create their own wiki page and incorporate the skills we taught them. The task consisted of: 1. Creating a new page on the navigation bar, and titling it with their last name. 2. In the center of the page, write your first and last name in size 20 font. 3. Create a table. Include in the table your level in Master's program and graduation year. 4. Find an educational YouTube video that is no longer than 5 minutes. Embed the video into your page. 5. Comment on 1 or more participant s page. We created a rubric for the participants to follow. Once the task was completed, participants completed a post survey. The post survey consisted of questions such as: Were the how-to videos easy to follow? If "no", what would make them easier to follow? Please share any comments about the videos. After watching the how-to videos, how effective were you in implementing the skills yourself? Any recommendations on how to improve the videos/wiki page? We started out with ten volunteers when we initially sent out the asking for people to participate in the project. Out of the 10 people, only six people took the first survey and submitted it to us. We took those six people and moved forward with our project goals.

10 INSTRUCTIONAL DESIGN: WIKISPACES 10 Throughout the process, there were s sent to the participants frequently as a way of communication. We sent out s reminding our participants to watch the tutorials, complete the task, and complete the post survey. Out of our six participants, one participant fulfilled their requirements for the project. The challenge that we faced was getting the participants that we had gathered, to fulfill their requirements for the project. We communicated with the people who volunteered, but when it was time to implement their task for the project, only one person completed the task. We had set a deadline of November 22, 2014 to have the task and post survey completed by. That gave participants two weeks to implement the task and complete the post survey. This caused us to have little to no data required for our project, so members from our team asked their significant others to complete the task and post survey. We ended up having five participants that completed the task and post survey, which in the end was a success for us. For future implementations, communication is key. That s an area to change. Although we communicated with our participants, in the future, communication needs to be more frequent so throughout the project participants are constantly being informed and updated on the project. Evaluation Phase Once the participants completed the task and the post survey, the data needed to be collect and interpreted. Since the participants who completed both the task and survey were not graduated students in the IT program, the data collected is not as accurate as it could be if Master students completed the assignment. The target audience were the six participants who volunteered to be in our project. Of those six volunteers, one completed the task completely and one completed all but embedding a video into her new page. Neither of these two volunteers completed the post survey. After striking out with volunteers in the IT Master s program, three

11 INSTRUCTIONAL DESIGN: WIKISPACES 11 of the team members recruited the help of their significant others who have a variety of college educational experience. These three participants completed both the task and post survey questions. Using the rubric to grade the participants task, they all were able to create a new page and add their last name as the title. They all were able to write their name in the middle of the page in a large font, create a table, and embed a YouTube video on TPACK or Google Applications. Since none of these participants are in the Master s program, in the table they labeled who their significant other was and stated they were helping out the team by creating a Wiki page. Comments were left on the pages stating that they liked the page and that they were helping out the team members. After reviewing the feedback from the post survey, we received great reviews from the three participants. Some of the strengths included having very informative videos that were organized and easy to follow. The participants also stated that they liked the fact of being able to pause the videos and re-watch sections if confused. One of the participants also stated that the videos allowed for easy navigation when adding a table and embedding a YouTube video. One of the weaknesses found was that the font size was in percentages starting at 100%. The participants had a difficult time figuring out how to change the font size to 20 if the font sizes are in percentages. In order to fix this for next time, the wording needs to be write your first and last name in the center of the page using 120% font size. To better our evaluation process for next time, we need to change the wording on the rubric and the evaluation tab in our wiki. We also need to be sure to have participants that are in the Master s program and are using Wiki s versus participants who are not in the program. To have this, we need to make sure we are communicating more with the participants and have more

12 INSTRUCTIONAL DESIGN: WIKISPACES 12 than six participants to ensure we do not run into this problem again. One of the participants stated that watching the videos all at once was boring, so we could set deadlines for the participants to watch a number of the videos and have small tasks along the way. We could also add more to the rubric that would allow the participants to incorporate all of the videos, instead of only a few.