KarynSealy

**Karyn Sealy** **EDET 650 - Internship - Fall 2011** **Professor Smyth**  **Home Page, Introduction** **Formative Assessments** **Midterm Report** Final Reflection Final Presentation **Annotated Bibliography** **Time Sheets**

**Reflections**
September 12, September 27, October 25, November 9, November 22, December 6

December 6, 2011

This Internship was a wonderful learning experience. I was surprised by how excited both my mentor and I became as we progressed into the project. It was very satisfying to use my skills and modern tools to help someone communicate more professionally and also become more technologically sound. It was difficult at times, especially when my mentor would ask me if something was possible for us to do with my computer skills. I used research and what I learned in previous courses to apply creative problem-solving to our projects. Sometimes simple tasks became very time consuming and I now know to prepare better before meeting with the client/mentor. In other words, practice, or rough-out some steps in the process on my computer so that I will know what tools are available and efficient for me to use as Instructional Designer. Overall, my mentor, Sandy and I worked well together, progressed along our timeline efficiently and had no major communication errors. It was very fulfilling to be able to make someone’s visions come true via technology that I have learned in this course. During the Internship, my mentor was very helpful, and as a retired schoolteacher she was excited and willing to stay involved. I think this helped me to gain a better understanding of a client’s needs. Sandy was very vocal with her opinions and with her experience in teaching and presenting; it helped me a lot in understanding what was important and what was “extra information”. It was wonderful to work with a client that was also so dedicated to allowing me as much creative freedom as possible. I cannot relate in words how helpful it was to have her clear and strong opinions in my head while creating the instruction. It helped me to learn how to balance the bones of a project with the beauty and usability of it. Her Master Gardener status requires allows her to instruct. Before the internship began we did another presentation, sort of a trial-run, that was presented to a group of gardeners in October. This went well, and it was the first opportunity I had to receive feedback from an objective and outside source. This internship has opened my eyes in many ways to the realities of being an Instructional Designer. Return to top When Professor Smyth suggested I include Formative Assessments (FA) during this internship, I was not sure exactly why. At first I researched the definition of a Formative Assessment and finally realized that it can be difficult to define. This is because the FA has to fit your particular situation. In my case, the first FA, I simply asked some questions to Sandy that were fairly broad, regarding her feelings on the process. The second FA is a short movie with Sandy’s own reflections on Presentation 1 content. I really enjoyed both FAs, but particularly the second one. My mentor was excited about this opportunity, and I realized while we were recording her that my audience would get a peak into the true purpose and from her perspective. This is the only artifact that my audience has the chance to hear from my mentor, and team member. She worked hard on our internship and I am now aware of how valuable it is to share multiple perspectives whenever possible. This reminds me of the ADDIE process, where the Instructional Designer conducts an Analysis, hopefully taking multiple perspectives into account. It was truly awakening to hear her honest feelings about the process that I imposed on her.

This experience also taught me a lot about the importance of planning and researching the needed technological components. I understand that it is rarely possible to predict all the hardware and software needed for a project. One major problem was compatibility. My mentor has a PC and I have a Mac. Now I know that PowerPoint has trouble with formatting across these two mediums. This is something I learned while editing her original PPT presentation. In this case, Presentation 1 was finally completed in two editions, one for a PC and one for a Mac. Regarding software, I realized quickly that I needed to practice using my software more often. There were a few times when I spent time during a meeting trying to figure out how to perform a certain action. This was unexpected, but I did learn that I should work with the software before meeting with the client, and keep practicing between “job” opportunities to keep myself fresh. Communication is very important to the success of a project. I learned this especially quickly because the dates for various presentations changed or were miscommunicated to me for Presentation 1. This did not cause any problems, but I would not like this to happen in a professional situation. I am considering having this be a bimonthly questionnaire at the time of a Formative Assessment, asking particular questions regarding progress and due dates. Speaking of timing, I was surprised that my mentor got so excited about our meetings. She did not like to miss our twice-monthly meetings. This is another thing that I learned: be consistent. I feel like this would apply very well to professional settings; it would work well to have fairly frequent communication meetings for an office team to convene and discuss progress or problems. At my old job they tried to do this every month, I think every other week is best to keep all progress in check. Having said this, I think that my mentor and I made great progress, and followed the timeline very well. Maybe this is because we communicated so frequently? Return to top This internship also made me more aware of the needs of older adults, particularly the elderly and the disabled. Sandy often reminded me that most people reading about gardens are older and would very much appreciate large font sizes, and clear fonts. We stuck to this rule throughout the presentations and in the website. Although this is only one aspect of providing communication to people with different abilities, it was the first time that I have truly began to understand the application of disability communication in media. In addition, the first presentation discusses the five senses and this helped me in creating the iMovie for Sandy’s garden. Her goal was to have a presentation that made people feel as if they were personally walking through and sensually experiencing the garden. From the view of an instructional designer it helped open my eyes to the best uses of our communication tools. This was also a finding that I had in my research for the annotated bibliography. Several of my sources on multimedia presentations discussed the positive benefits of stimulating as many senses as possible. This, in theory, should provide a more thorough learning experience of the learners. Presentation 2 taught me a lot. I have used the iMovie program in the past, for my own school presentations. By working on a movie for Sandy, I could easily get feedback on my creative ideas about timing and transitions. I soon learned from bouncing ideas off of her, that audience is important. She reminded me that these “learners” or “observers” were older and wanted peaceful, pleasant, images with subtle or moderate transitions. So, by working with timing and watching the movie to judge for its overall “flow”, I learned to put myself into the most objective frame of mind that I could. I tried to take what Sandy told me and look for those key elements: clear, good contrast pictures, easy-to-read, large font, soothing and fitting music, and most importantly an overall uplifting mood to the presentation. In other words, adding the human element into the basic bones of any communication medium. Creating the website for Sandy made me realized how difficult it is to do this well, professionally. This project allowed me to revisit my website from last year, and look at ways that I would like to improve, and things that I would definitely do different-to make it look more professional. I did try to create a better one for Sandy by being honest with myself and my abilities. I used several different HTML website design systems, but learned quickly that professional websites should be done by professionals. There is definitely a steep learning curve when it comes to HTML or CSS website design. At least I do understand the basics of how to host and maintain a website. This should be quite valuable in the future. It was surprising to see how useful iWeb was to create a basic website. The features were great. It did encourage me to find a good book on HTML or CSS for website design because there are some great possibilities. It was very rewarding to see how smoothly we could incorporate Sandy’s ideas into a resource that could allow her to communicate with innumerable populations. When I chose the template I was careful to find one that had the elements that she requested. I did learn that it was good to keep the website as simple and easy to navigate as possible. Instead of adding multiple pages for Sandy’s informational pages, iWeb allowed me to collect all of these into a Blog home page, with an automatic archive. The photographs were also important to this garden website, and it was easy to add them. I think, when I return to HTML I will begin by finding a good template, it definitely saves time, and often allows for more professional pages. Regarding my personal progress throughout this internship, I now have a broader and more confident view of instructional design. This is largely due to my mentor’s own experience and great attitude. She suggested meeting at a regular time every other week, sometimes every week. In the past, group scheduling has always been difficult for school coursework; which can have a short timeline. Sandy, being a retired school teacher, and Master Gardener Instructor, has the experience to know what works. It was very easy for us to remember the meetings and her excitement helped me gain confidence in the process. I chose to apply the ADDIE process of Instructional Design. This worked well in getting us both on the same page. In the future I will definitely choose a set of guidelines such as ADDIE to discuss with the client. Having said this, it is not wise to discuss the process in too much detail with the client because it is your responsibility and in this case, probably your “specialty”. Another very helpful communication step was giving Formal Assessments throughout the project. In our project I gave two Formal Assessments and this reminded each of us to take an objective look at our progress, individually and as a team. It also reminded us to look at our progress in the ADDIE model. Return to top Overall, Sandy and I made good progress in a timely manner. This said, we were very excited and focused on our goals, and it was a blessing to have such a wonderful mentor, and in this case “client”. In the future I would create a checklist in a table format. In our project we had a list of our final products in the contract, and used this to keep track of what we needed to complete. Although this worked, I think would be better to keep a fairly detailed chart for each two weeks of a project. The ID (Instructional Designer) should provide a hardcopy for his or herself and for the mentor/client. Like having “minutes” printed our for a meeting agenda, this would be really handy to have at meetings. It would also be good to allow for “notes” at the bottom of the printed table so that each team member can write down their responsibilities for the next meeting. Scrap paper scribbles are not a good idea, and this is especially true when someone does not do their work. The paper trail will provide a certain accountability measure in the process. This would also be extremely helpful in groups or teams with more than two people. Another change I would make is to remind team members of meetings 24 hours in advance. Although people don’t mean to forget, it is easy when meetings are only once a week or so. This would also help ensure that the work gets completed on time. The website also allows this project to continue to spread information, hopefully the DVD versions of the presentation will also work well to share this information to broader audiences and last over time. After completing this internship, I feel more prepared to work professionally. In previous classes, I did work for myself and for group projects, but it made a big difference to work with someone outside of the immediate academic circle. This was a good first experience because my mentor and I naturally work well together and can communicate pretty easily. Now, after completing this process for someone outside of school, I feel more prepared to tackle tougher projects and more varietous clientele. Throughout the project I also felt very excited about our goals and progress. Her ideas were mostly feasible and it was wonderful to see the technology help to communicate her information more professionally. It was also very fulfilling to design for particular clients, in this case the elderly and the sick. My mentor knew a great deal about her audience, and that was extremely helpful. Having a set group of needs to design for helped us both stay focused on the most important aspects of the project and not be so distracted by features that are exciting but did not work for our audience. Return to top November 22, 2011

Sandy and I have worked hard on finishing up the Sunshine Garden presentation. As I mentioned in the last reflection, I did have to make my own Mac version of the Healing Gardens presentation. The iMovie creation went really smoothly. Most of the time spent was editing for length and adding transitions. It was a very fun project. I was surprised how the “Ken Burns” effect did help when added to some still images. Without this added movement, the movie would seem to drudge along at times. It helped give the images “life”, and worked especially well for wildlife images. The music, Sandy picked out, fit wonderfully. I did work hard to arrange it in a pleasing way, that would also keep people’s attention. In other words, I added the softest/slowest tempo music to the second quarter of the film. After the midway point, the music picks up tempo strongly to lead to the “climax” and final season of winter. That is now posted on my Internship page. Now both presentations are posted, and soon the pdf version of the website will be posted. The website was the final goal of this internship.

Due to time constraints and limited resources, I ended up creating a website using iWeb. This is the fastest and best-looking website design system that I have. I did try to begin a new site with Kompozer and then again with Dreamweaver, but my skills would not allow me to create a site that had what Sandy needs. The iWeb templates are easy to use and had everything I needed to design a site for her. Eventually she will host it on her own. I hope to spend time after this class is over helping her finish up the site for web-hosting. So now, Sandy is creating the textual content for the site and I will begin to produce the final DVDs, and prepare for the final paper and presentation for the class. Return to top

November 9, 2011

Over the past few weeks Sandy and I are nearing the completion of Presentation 1, on Healing Gardens. If you remember, the DVD is meant as a supplement to her lecture, so it is just images and a little music. We have not produced the DVD yet, but hope to soon. Meanwhile, as both a Formative Assessment and as a reflection period as teammates, I asked Sandy if she would feel comfortable recording some brief reflections/descriptions of the work in Presentation 1. She was more than willing and had already prepared a few paragraphs. This was an interesting event. I used Audacity to record her in 1-2 minute sessions. I was surprised how well Audacity picked up her voice, and there is little to no noticeable white noise. For these recordings, six in all, I opened a new file for each one, and then mashed them together in iMovie with a few images. Once this was complete, I posted the reflection as a video on Youtube.

Presentation 1 is now on both of our home computers. One additional problem we ran into was using the same PowerPoint presentation between a IBM and a Mac. At last we reached a compromise and Sandy has one file and I have the modified Mac file, where I went in and redid all the fonts again. So now we have a file for each type of system. This was not a foreseen problem. But, it is always good to have multiple copies and now we do have one for each type of computer system.

This experiment refreshed me on using iMovie, and now that we are beginning to work on Presentation 2, I am using iMovie extensively. Sandy collected photos of her garden that she wanted to use and brought them to me. I organized them by season (Sandy doubled checked this), and then begin placing them in appropriate order in iMovie. This Presentation is all based on her private garden, which is helpful. We have more than enough photographs to use! Now we are trying to decide on music. Last week Sandy helped me decide on the length of the presentation and which photographs to eliminate for times sake (and for conciseness). We agreed that people are known to loose interest after sitting for too long, so we are keeping the presentation down to around 7 to 8 minutes in length. This week I began working on the transitions between photographs. Return to top

October 25, 2011

While Sandy has been gone I have worked further on researching the subject matter of healing gardens and how various websites display and organize similar information. The first project is basically done, but I hope to add audio of Sandy going through some of the talk before posting it up for everyone to see, and then create the DVD. Sandy just returned and we are meeting tomorrow to review project 1 and to begin the second and third projects: DVD of her garden and a website, respectively. We will begin with the DVD because it will give us a foundation to begin the website. Currently, Sandy’s husband is finishing up choosing and editing photographs of the garden by seasons. The DVD will be organized by seasons, beginning in Spring and ending in Winter. There is an earlier version of this DVD, and I am studying that now to look for room for improvement, not only through updated pictures, but in format and presentation style. Music is a big part of this presentation, and I will have to choose all new music for this DVD, because Sandy wants to freshen it up, and see the work through another artist’s view. The previous DVD was created by another acquaintance with professional media and advertisement experience. Again, I will work on studying her work beginning today and present Sandy with another formative assessment tomorrow regarding likely direction for the project. After we begin work on this project, probably after 2 weeks, I hope to begin planning the website and to begin organizing a storyboard. Sandy is really excited about the website, and I plan on doing more research of garden websites. I am particularly interested in how they portray their atmosphere, themes, layout, and design features. For a 2D medium, the website must be able to convey some of the encompassing, 3-dimensional beauty of the garden. This is going to be a challenge. I have already visited several garden websites that did not accomplish this. I also know a few that do convey the sense of atmosphere. This will be an interesting combination of media, multimedia (music and videos), graphics, web design and meshing it all with Landscape Design. I am excited to see what the end products will be. Return to top

September 27, 2011

The next few weeks gave Sandy and I time to have two more meetings. At the first we reviewed some of the research material that she had collected on Healing Gardens. We jotted down notes and began to brainstorm for what the presentation was missing. Then we reviewed the previous presentation together, and began to jot down a new timeline and storyboard. The bones of the presentation were there, however we had not included all of the senses yet.

One of the senses is hearing, so Sandy brought over a few CDs with soothing music that includes sounds from nature. We listened to the various tracks and decided on a few that would work. One song includes “water sounds”, another is uplifting classical music called “morning”. The later suggests the joys of nature found in the garden, such as birds and butterflies. Sight is another sense, and we addressed this section with a new slide including a color wheel. This will begin the conversation on affects of color on mood, as well as on depth (for design purposes).

While scrolling through the various images in the presentation we realized that it would be nice to have the audience smell some of the scents that Sandy discusses. To accomplish this, she is going to take lavender oil to the presentation. We both agreed that it would be best to have real flowers, however, there are not many flowers blooming in the Fall for her to use. At the second meeting we also discussed the senses, and Sandy brought up two that we missed: touch and taste. These were listed in a nice article that she found from Whole Living Magazine. Sandy has decided to take lamb’s ear to pass around the audience so that they can feel what might be in a garden. She has also decided to take blueberries for them to taste. Now we have covered all the senses! Next is adjusting the music in the PowerPoint presentation. I have inserted music on certain slides that best fit the selected music, and now I have to fine-tune how many slides the clip will play.

This has also brought up another concern for our project: hardware available for use during the presentation. Sandy has presented many times, and always takes her own projector, laptop, and screen. I will have to load the appropriate music onto her computer for it to play with the presentation. What I need to find out is whether the sound and formatting will work on her laptop. That is what I will be working on next! Return to top
 * [|Draft of first Presentation on Healing Gardens] **

September 12, 2011

When I first began to consider possible project and mentors I was worried because most internships are at business or regular places of employment. The mentor that I wanted to work with kept coming up as I tried to think of projects. My mentor is my neighbor and friend, Sandra Randall (Sandy). I was still nervous when I called her up. She is a Master Gardener in Aiken County, South Carolina, and because of this role she often presents educational presentations to students in the Master Gardener course, and to other related groups. As soon as I presented my ideas of an internship to help her with these presentations I was met with an enthusiastic “yes!”. Right away she began to name a handful of upcoming presentations, she said “which one would you like?” What a great way to start a meaningful internship!

That very afternoon we met for our first meeting. She had a presentation that she wanted us to work on right away, for a September 6 Master Gardener Class. We sat down and reviewed this and began editing it on the spot. She liked my ideas and suggestions on better PowerPoint design-which I have learned in this Masters Program. Sandy and I also discussed ideas for multimedia additions to the next two presentations. Together we decided on two projects to work on for the Internship.

First, we began discussing a PowerPoint on Healing Gardens to be presented to the Wagener Garden Club. She brought me a copy of the presentation she has been working to create on DVD and we reviewed it together. This particular topic demands that we include as much sensory information as possible because this is a vital element to designing, and understanding how a Healing Garden works. These types of gardens are meant to help the Alzheimer’s, psychiatric and other patients.

Second, we reviewed an older version of a presentation that shows images of Sandy’s own spectacular garden with beautiful music playing. The images fade into one another and it ends with an image of a sunset and a quote. We discussed how to not only update this, but make it more powerful in overall quality. This presentation is meant to show at nursing homes, assisted living homes, and the like to provide a touch of nature for people who may not be able to physically enjoy the garden.

After submitting the proposal, Professor Smyth suggested that we add a website to the project. Sandy and her husband were delighted at the idea. They have been planning to create one, but have not had the time to invest in it. This website will be an advertisement for Sandy’s private garden for people who are interested in coming to enjoy a beautiful and peaceful place to spend time in. This again will likely be geared to the elderly or disabled, but also to anyone who enjoys getting away from the city and enjoying a well-designed, private garden. Sandy and I met again to review the signed contract, and begin to discuss the ADDIE process. This was very helpful to both of us as we discussed assessing our learners, creating goals and objectives, and assessing our available resources. We realized we already had a lot of the tools and media that we will need; including photographs, nature music, research articles on the subject matter.

Now, Sandy is going to arrange a visit for us to an existing Healing Garden where we hope to take photographs of patients enjoying the space. I am working on finding further research: looking into articles on creating multimedia PowerPoint presentations, the role of handouts, and music/voiceover use with presentations. This is an enjoyable project already and I am excited to help someone so enthusiastic, and to help deliver quality presentations that will share beauty and education with others. Return to top