Wicked Problem Project: Finale

PART A: The Wicked Problem – A Need or an Opportunity

An Important Educational Need
For the past few months, I served on a committee piloting a new technology for Lansing Community College. The technology is AdvisorTrac, a web-based scheduling and tracking system for multiple advising centers, and the software is impressive. The committee prepared to implement the program at several of the student service centers on our downtown campus. As a member of the Career & Employment Services Department, and a primary support for on-campus student employment, I created a training solution that would educate the student employees working at these service centers on this new scheduling and tracking system. So, the creative solution for one of LCC’s educational problems (college-wide appointment and scheduling systems), has just unearthed another educational problem that needs to be addressed—the pedagogy of new literacies across multiple service sectors of a post-secondary institution.

Addressing this Educational Issue with Technology
In order to fully address the problem of teaching a new literacy in the service sectors at Lansing Community College, I first need to consider those who will be doing the learning—the employees. What do I know about them, and what are some safe expectations I can set taking into account their educational and technological backgrounds, as well as their current working/learning spaces? Having the opportunity to observe LCC employees in their workspaces, I know that they are provided with access to computers and the Internet, and that they are expected to have at least functional knowledge of both in order to complete their daily tasks. I also know that schedules are constantly fluctuating to accommodate meetings and courses. Taking this into consideration, I intend to create a solution through innovation, using a technology the college supports.

For my solution, I have chosen to create a course through the Angel Course Management System that will provide each employee with the access to AdvisorTrac learning materials, as well as provide me, the course administrator, with a way to monitor and assess the learning. Because Angel is already supported by the college and used by the faculty, my hope is that using a technology that faculty and staff are already familiar with will encourage them in the learning of a new literacy. This approach will also accommodate current work schedules and the learning can take place at the current work stations. In choosing Angel as my primary technology, I know that there will be many more technologies that I will need to employ to make this solution effective. For example, I plan on creating tutorials using the Camtasia Studio that can be uploaded to the course, and also creating discussion forums to encourage collaborative problem solving across campus.
Lansing Community College does have an Organizational Development Department that uses another learning management system to support professional development for college employees, but it is a more simple approach of presenting the information and assessing the learning, without the collaborative capabilities that Angel possesses. It would also be quite costly for the college to create a compatible training session for the LMS system because there is a sub-software system synced with the LMS called Lectora, whereas it is comparatively simple and much more cost-efficient to create an Angel course that is multi-faceted and has more potential for collaborative learning.

Logistics
An Angel course for the learning of AdvisorTrac will be created and assigned to the employees of three service centers at Lansing Community College three weeks before full implementation of AdvisorTrac. The course will continue to remain available to current employees and new hires after full implementation, and will be updated as needed. To get the course set up, I needed the assistance of the E-Learning Department as well as the Audio/Visual Department (to gain access to the podcast suites for the recording of the tutorials). I contacted both departments, and both supported the idea over the phone, so I made appointments to meet with both and further discuss best practices and approaches for this type of project.

Relevant Research and Resources
I used the Google search engine and searched for tips or case studies in which universities or colleges utilized Angel for Professional Development. Angellearning.com provided a summary of their services and suggestions on how to best utilize Angel for educational training. I also found and checked out books at the MSU library on teaching and understanding new literacies, so that I can better understand how to approach this pedagogy of new literacies, specifically those that are technology related.
• http://www.angellearning.com/services/education_training.html
• Baker, Elizabeth A. The New Literacies: Multiple Perspectives on Research and Practice. New York: Guilford, 2010. Print.
• Makitalo-Siegl, Kati, Jan Zottmann, Frederic Kaplan, and Frank Fischer, eds. Classroom of the Future: Orchestrating Collaborative Spaces. Vol. 3. Rotterdam: Sense, 2010. Print. Technology Enhanced Learning.

The Plan
During the following few weeks of CEP 812, I created the training materials necessary for educating on the AdvisorTrac system. I also met with both the E-Learning and A/V Departments to discuss strategies, approaches, and timelines for launching the course. Furthermore, I continued to read and utilize the resources listed above to increase my understanding of pedagogy and new literacies, so that I could best educate those in need of training. My goal was to have the Angel course for the teaching of AdvisorTrac up by the end of this course, which put our AdvisorTrac committee right on track for full implementation of AdvisorTrac at the beginning of April.

Profile of a Successful Project
A successful solution to the problem of educating student employees from multiple service sectors on a new technological literacy is one that is timely, effective, and cost-efficient. The AdvisorTrac committee is under a lot of pressure to implement this new scheduling and tracking system, mostly because our current program is faulty, yet I did not want to push early implementation of AdvisorTrac at the cost of its overall success. A big part of that success is making certain that the primary users (student employees) are properly trained and have a functional knowledge of the program. This Angel course will not only act as a host for user guides, manuals, and tutorials, but will also provide forums for collaborative problem solving and troubleshooting. Ways to measure the success will be through assessments to measure student learning in the form, correct use of the system, and the overall use of the discussion forums for troubleshooting and problem solving. My overall goal is to educate these students on a new technological literacy while motivating them to collaborate across sectors in the learning of AdvisorTrac for their respective service centers.

Wicked Problem Project: Part B – Application of TPACK
In Part A of the Wicked Problem Project, I relayed an educational opportunity presented to me, which was the pedagogy of a new literacy across multiple service sectors of a post-secondary institution. For this next step, I am going to explain how I applied TPACK to my solution.

1. What is the TP knowledge for the solution?
I chose the Angel Course Management System as the technology that will help me best facilitate the learning of AdvisorTrac for a few reasons, the primary one being that it is the CMS that my college supports, and all of the individuals doing the learning will be familiar with it already. So, in teaching a new technology, I think it is best to use technologies that students are already comfortable with, as well as ones that will be practical and functional. I also chose Angel because it will allow the different service sectors doing the learning to collaboratively problem solve during implementation while allowing them to still take ownership over their own learning. Angel is also multi-faceted and will accommodate different learner types, so I will be able to use multiple technologies within Angel to make this virtual learning experience as effective as possible.

2. What is the TC knowledge for the solution?
My hope in choosing Angel as my primary solution is that it will allow me to utilize many more sub-technologies to relay content, assess learning, and promote collaboration across campus. These sub-technologies include surveys, video tutorials, and shared documents. I want to have a multi-technological approach, so that students have content available to them that they can watch, print out, and listen to, and they can determine which one best meets their learning needs. I want the ownership component of this virtual classroom to complement the peer interaction so that learning happens and after a few weeks of collaboration, we have a united team that spreads across multiple service sectors ready to implement and support this new technology.

3. What is the PC knowledge for the solution?
By providing video tutorials within Angel, I am helping students experience the new technology before having to navigate it themselves the first time. For my group of students, I want to provide them with all the know-how, all the manuals and directions, all the video tutorials of the new web-based system, and then I want to let go and let them take ownership of first learning the material, and second sharing their knowledge with each other to best utilize the program. Individual exploration should come first in this learning process followed closely by collaborative problem solving and team building to effectively introduce and support this new technological literacy across multiple service sectors on campus.

Wicked Problem Project: Part C – Implementation

Wicked Problem Project: Part D – Findings and Implications
In Part C of my Wicked Problem Project, I showed the ways I was implementing my solution to the educational need I identified in Part A, which involved the pedagogy of new technological literacies. This entry will discuss the findings and implications after implementing my solution.

Formative: Did the project get implemented as planned?
My Wicked Problem Project is in the process of being implemented as planned. The Angel course I designed to help facilitate the learning of AdvisorTrac is currently available to members of the AdvisorTrac committee and the divisional dean for review. In another week, final revisions will be made and the course will be made available to LCC employees needing training. From there, we will use the course assessments and evaluations, as well as the observable literacy levels of those having gone through the course to determine how the training should be revised. The committee chair did inform me that the college will continue to use this course as an ongoing tool post-implementation to provide AdvisorTrac training for new hires. In addition to the media tools I planned to use in the course, I also explored new tools like Wimba and Prezi and was able to use these in the course to enhance the learning space. This was especially important as the scope of the class really did grow while I was designing it–the potential enrollment jumped from twenty users to over eighty. In addition, I was asked to expand the audience to also include another type of user, which was the consultant. The new media tools I added will help make the content more accessible to such a diverse audience, and the different options (video, printable handouts, audio discussion forums, live chat, etc.) should cater to many different learning styles.
Summative: Evidence of success in addressing the problem of practice
When I first set out to create a solution to fill this need for training on a new technological literacy, I determined that the solution would need to be timely, effective, and cost-efficient. This course has not only met this criteria, but surpassed it. In the matter of a few weeks, I have explored, identified, and utilized tools that were already made available by the college to create a multi-faceted course that will work in just about any course management system. Moreover, the components of this course have been carefully thought out so as to most effectively educate LCC employees on a new technological literacy. By creating this solution, I have hopefully made a tool that can be used to help solve this problem of practice, if only on a relatively small scale.

Approach
When a similar problem of practice faces me, I will approach it similarly to how I’ve approached this problem with a few exceptions. First, I will have the conversation to determine the scope of the tool that is the solution, as well as the potential uses for the tool. This will help me make sure that the solution meets not only all of the needs of the user group, but that I address the needs of potential user groups as well.

Lessons Learned
While working on this project, I learned how to utilize the knowledge base around me to make my work more effective—this is a lesson I will definitely take with me into future projects. I was fortunate to be able to work alongside people in LCC’s E-Learning Department who were patient and interested in helping me create the best possible tool for my user group. They showed me how to incorporate external tools into my Angel course, and how to create content that will be compatible with other course management systems.

In what ways will you endeavor to do the same project again, and what will you change or not do?
I will continue to identify needs and educational opportunities, specifically in this area of new technological literacies in the education industry. While my current position at Lansing Community College does not allow me to spend a large portion of my time on committee projects the scope of this AdvisorTrac course, I will continue to identify educational needs in my respective department and create innovative solutions using the tools and technology available to me. In future projects, I will also more clearly identify the long-term support needs of my solution, so that the tool will continue to be supported by as long as it is being utilized. In addition, I will look for new tools and technologies to suggest to my colleagues in E-Learning and the Center for Teaching Excellence in the hopes of being an innovative collaborator that endeavors to create meaningful and technologically advanced learning tools in the field of education.