Overview
My experience as a teaching assistant and Zone Mentor in the SISLT Digital Media Zone has helped me to gain greater insight into how students use and react to instruction, content and activities delivered in a fully online environment. My previous teaching experiences have all been in-class, and some have used Learning Managment Systems(LMS) in a blended context. Though I have trained many teachers how to use LMS for online teaching in my career, the knowldge I conveyed was based on the experience of others. My participation teaching online courses will prove invaluable in my future endeavors.
| Courses | |||
| semester | course | supervisor | activities / artifacts |
| FS 2008 | ISLT 4361/7361 Intro to Digital Media | Dr. Jane Howland | Primary instructor    |
| SP 2009 | iSLT 4361/7361 Intro to Digital Media | Dr. Jane Howland | Primary instructor |
| SS 2009 | iSLT 4361/7361 Intro to Digital Media | Dr. Jane Howland | Primary instructor |
| FS 2009 | iSLT 4361/7361 Intro to Digital Media | Dr. Jane Howland | Primary instructor |
| SP 2010 | iSLT 4361/7361 Intro to Digital Media | Dr. Jane Howland | Primary instructor |
| SS 2010 | iSLT 4361/7361 Intro to Digital Media | Dr. Jane Howland | Primary instructor |
| FS 2010 | iSLT 4361/7361 Intro to Digital Media | Dr. Jane Howland | Primary instructor |
| SP 2011 | iSLT 4361/7361 Intro to Digital Media | Dr. Jane Howland | Primary instructor |
| SS 2011 | iSLT 4361/7361 Intro to Digital Media | Dr. Jane Howland | Primary instructor |
| FS 2011 | ISLT 4364/7364 Flash Authoring | Dr. Joi Moore | Teaching Assistant |
Detail
ISLT 4361/7361 Introduction to Digital Media
| Primary Instructor |
| Fall 2008 - Summer 2011 |
| Supervisor: Dr. Jane Howland |
Introduction to Digital Media is a media basic-skills development course delivered online through the LMS, Sakai, at the University of Missouri. The target audience is primarily master's degree students in the SISLT who have not had digital media development experience. The course introduces students to media concepts and units of skill-building activities necessary to create digital images, audio, video, together with web integration. There is a related unit covering digital rights management and copyright issues. Each of the skills units entails creating a product in a project detailing students acquired skills.
As the primary instructor for Intro to Digital Media, I was responsible for all aspects of the curriculum design and delivery using Sakai (though the instructor of record, Dr. Jane Howland, is listed on the course evaluations, the ratings and comments are directed at my participation). The curriculum handed to me in 2008 had evolved through several generations of teaching assistants, and I updated and revised the content and activities over the semesters I was involved.
The curriculum applied a limited PBLE framework and relied on individual project work coupled with collaborative discussion forum activities. The original discussion forum activity instruction leaned toward general concepts, ( e.g., "Discuss what makes a good web image") together with peer review forums directed at the individual project work. Project work was intended to evoke creativity in communications, and were open for students to interpret and choose any topic, but lacked specific instruction about what constituted creativity. Thus, the project rubric contained a creativity requirement that was ambiguous and subjective. I applied my knowledge of art and design to the project instructions and in communications with students through the discussion forums and announcements in to alleviate these issues, though in the end the creativity requirement was removed (noted below).
Online teaching is a time-intensive effort due to technology usability and interaction issues. For example, to grade 40 student projects requires managing project documents, rubrics, and the LMS grading features, resulting in many dozens of interactions with the technology (e.g., mouse clicks) for each. Throughout my time teaching Intro to Digital Media I endeavored to streamline the course management workflow by creating spreadsheet versions of the rubrics and utilities which address specific steps in the process.
| Curriculum and Workflow Updates |
| Modified the forum activity sequence to include discussions that targeted each project directly. |
| Created an additional, authentic image project that simulated a client - media designer relationship. |
| Created a Web page for students to test the transparent GIF image project requirement. |
| Created an applescript utility to copy and rename project rubrics to each student project folder. |
| Created Excel rubrics and grade books to facilitate project and course grading. |
| Rewrote all project task steps to remove creativity and target skills directly. |
Dr. Howland supported my efforts when needed, and during my final semester as primary instructor in 2011 we rewrote the project activities to remove creativity requirement entirely in preparation for handing the course off to another teaching assistant.
ISLT 4364/7364 Flash Authoring
| Teaching Assistant |
| Fall 2011 - present |
| Supervisor: Dr. Joi Moore |
As a Digital Media Zone Mentor since starting the SISLT doctoral program in 2008, I have had many opportunities to help students taking the Flash course who either walk into the Zone lab or contact us using the various online communication systems at our disposal (e.g., chat, telephone, email, Skype).
Because of my expertise with graphics, animation, programming concepts and Flash in particular, I have been able to not common issues and problems students encounter in designing and creating their course projects. To address some of these Issues, I have created example files that demonstrate possible solutions.
| Example Flash Files Addressing Common Issues |
| Drag and drop exercise. |
| Single frame navigation design. |
In the Fall of 2011 I was given the opportunity to be a teaching assistant in the course, and have been working with the supervising instructor, Dr. Joi Moore, to update some of the course content as well as responding to student issues in the discussion forums.