Baird & Fisher make a compelling argument that social networking and social media can support neomillennial learning styles in both online and face to face models of education. Rooted deeply in adult and social learning theories, the concept of social networking and social media to enhance student learning has become not an emerging trend, but a necessity.

The basic theories to support these new design strategies are largely based on Knowels and Mager. They assert five learning assumptions about adult learning, which include self concept, experience, readiness to learn, orientation to learning, and a motivation to learn (p. 6). From this theory, Baird and Fisher tie pedagogy, and andragogy and learning outcomes to applications in educational technology.

Baird & Fisher use research by Gagne as a baseline to tie theory and pedagogy to educational technology. He Gagne developed “9 Types of Instructional Events” (p. 7) that is which are the lens through which learning is viewed. They note, “This is a unique way of understanding the way that external instructional events, such as social media, can lead to internal learning processes and forseeing ways that new technologies can empower improved modes for learning.” (p. 7).

Commentary

Although they get a bit too far into the weeds with when expounding on HTML code and more back-end technical specifications, they do make some great discoveries regarding the possible applications of some social media including podcasting, wikis, tagging, and blogs. One of the article’s greatest strengths is it’s its bibliography which was filled more with HTML links rather than academic journals. This is a sign that research is rare on these topics and more writing and publishing is required. A consideration that is still debated however is the concept that neomillenials are “wired” to use these tools while more adult learners are not. The jury is still out whether this is something that should be debated. Further research is definitely needed in this area to determine if age gives learners an edge when using social media.

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Baird, D. E., & Fisher, M. (2006). Neomillennial user experience design strategies: utilizing social networking media to support “always on” learning styles. Journal of educational technology systems. 34(1), 5.

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Don’t Make Me Think

Originally uploaded by Jason 2.0.
I just finished this book this afternoon. Wow. I’m a slow reader, so it took me a bit of time to consume this. I brought it with me to Refresh Orlando, so obviously this got put on the fast track. For good reason.

We’ve done usability testing this summer on the current Web site as we attended Jeff Veen’s Usability seminar about two years ago. Joel and I pushed hard and took time to test students the right way. We did focus groups for parents, accelerated degree completion students and graduate students. We published the findings in a comprehensive doc for the VPs and President Beebe. The testing really helped us think strategically about how we would design the new arbor.edu. I’ll publish the doc sometime soon.

What Don’t Make Me Think did was confirm many things we are already putting in process, but also help us really get down to the nitty-gritty on what we’re trying to accomplish. There were tons of things that I could pull out of this, but one key statement was regarding the home page. Krug says:

“As quickly and clearly as possible, the Home page needs to answer the four questions I have in my head when I enter a new site for the first time:

1. What is this?
2. What do they have here?
3. What can I do here?
4. Why should I be here — and not somewhere else?

I need to be able to answer these questions at a glance, correctly and unambiguously with very little effort.”

I believe that’s where we’re headed. He used an exercise that I believe Cameron Moll did in his presentation at Refresh Orlando with squinting at the home page. If you can blur the page and still make out what the basic story is, what it’s about, or where the main sections are, you’ve succeeded. If we value everything and focus on nothing, we’ve lost.

Judging from some preliminary design and IA, I think we’re on the right path. Especially after listening to our audience. I think we’re going to try and do some preliminary usability testing with some of our preliminary PSDs when they are generated to get impressions and feedback. Before we walk down roads too far and too long. Let’s do things right.

Graduate Workflow Graffle 1.0

Originally uploaded by Jason 2.0.

Because I’m an extremely creative person that thinks visually, it’s been hard to do content inventory and evaluation in Excel. Just seeing page names, ID’s and columns looks foreign. I’ve acclimated somewhat, but when it comes to deconstructing the site and reconstructing, I have to be able to draw. Tim thankfully ordered a huge dry erase board for the conference room and I took full use of it.

Using the Excel and discussion, I simply went in and started drawing a schematic. From that, as a group we were able to solve some very real problems with how our admissions workflow can change.

It’s hard dealing in higher ed with academic programs that each have their own enrollment process, application, and cost. The marketing group, us, has to find a way to make the enrollment and overall Web experience for the end user/prospective student seamless, while the back ground internal constituency is definitely divided into their own pieces of the pie.

Fortunately, I think we came up with a plan that will allow us to translate our internal cultural values to the external audience without confusing them. It was a real breakthrough, because I think we are going to be able to do this for the entire graduate studies site as well as the Degree Completion area. We may even bring the flow into SAUonline. Major victory for us figuring out the “batch”. Let me know what you think of the initial graffle. I’d love to hear some comments. Got some already, so will be making those changes todayish.