Culminating Project:  EDTC 6329

Rather than writing a reflection paper, I am asking you to develop an artifact in which you  share what you have accomplished throughout this semester as you have been working with your client(s).  I know that many of you have had highly successful and enriching experiences in which everything seemed to flow nicely together.  As happens in these types of classes, some of you have had more challenges connecting with your clients and finding out what they wanted, and then meeting their needs.

That, in itself, can be quite an enriching learning and growth experience.

So, to conclude this class, I want a culminating multimedia presentation that showcases all that you have learned and done this semester including relevant links to your work and other information that you feel is pertinent.

This presentation can be a wonderful artifact to add to your ePortfolio as well as to the main wiki as a product that can be viewed by others in the course. Unless you need to maintain confidentiality for the materials you have developed, please note that the wiki is available for all to peruse, so please choose your comments and discuss your challenges carefully, relaying all information professionally and diplomatically.

In  short, you do not want to say something like: "That idiot that I worked with never returned my calls."

What you definitely want to do is to address challenges and what you did to overcome them.

These are the items that I want covered with some suggestions for what to include in your artifact. Please be creative in your presentation and entertaining as well as professional.  I suggest that you consider narrating at least part of your presentation and if you are using PowerPoint that you follow all the rules of professional design.  Most importantly, that means I want no information dumps on the pages.

Some suggestions on what I would like you to include follow:

Your client name(s) and position (Where they work, title, other pertinent information:

Audience analysis (Subject area, training topic, or grade level, etc.):

Your objectives for this course: Aside from taking the course for credit, what do you hope to learn in this process? What will you bring to the table and what do you want to accomplish by “taking on” an authentic project to be used by real-world learners.

Your task:  (what did the client want you to do?) How well did you meet the client’s needs?

Timeline of Activities and Division of Activities (if group project): Provide a timeline of your semester. What will you do and when? This may be a weekly time line or a project time line or a listing of what you plan to do first, second, third, etc. Think in terms of a student going through this in the future. This will be updated as you progress through the semester as life happens.  Keep in mind that you need to work with your client and some of the timeline will be predicated upon their needs..

Your ongoing feedback and contribution: What are some of the skills that you brought to the project that enhanced the client’s original concept?  In some cases, the client’s technology skills were limited and you were able to recommend a variety of activities or applications that could be enhanced through technology, thus making the project stronger. In others, your substantial knowledge of the ID process improved the course or project that you were working on. You may have had some additional insight because you were from the outside looking in. Thus, discuss the unique contributions you made to the overall project.

Collaborative involvement (who or what entity did you connect with through this project?) and ripples. Some of you will develop modules that “reach out” into the community and impact more than just the client and the client’s learners.  Who are the other parties that you worked with in the course of your project? What challenges did you face as you worked through this process?  In this section, I would like you to address technological challenges, content challenges and collaborative challenges and how you addressed these issues through your collaborative participation.  Examples of how you overcame these challenges should be included. For example: letters, Collaborate sessions, email, Google docs, wikis, Skype calls, etc. Some of you will create projects that will have a ripple effect and reach many individuals who in turn reach out to others. Please share how you have “changed the world” – in a big way or a small way. 

Communication: Share any communication that you may feel is relevant and will help others (as well as me) understand how you conducted yourself during the course of the projects

Evaluation:  What evaluation(s) did you conduct  in the development of your project?  Did you have the client assess the product and provide feedback or did you “test” it with other audiences? How did this evaluation assist you in improving the project for your client(s)?

Links to projects:  Please include pertinent links that show the products that you developed and explain what I (or an observer) will see when they look at the projects. The projects may be self-explanatory, and if so, just provide a few statements of summary.

The client:  If you have some feedback from the client, please include here. Also, discuss what you taught the client. Many of you were working with clients who were not highly proficient in technology and I have heard many of them bragging about how much they learned from you. I have also had some highly proficient technology users who also learned from you. Include that information here. You may also include letters of support here.

Your growth: this may be the most important component of the project – as you sit back and reflect about where you are now – compared to the beginning of the semester.

What did you learn from this project? Did you meet and/or exceed your expectations?

In the past, students have learned a great deal from this experience. I received feedback and comments from their clients throughout the experience and found that they also grew because of the time ed tech students spent with them.  Sometimes their growth came from discovering that they had only a fuzzy idea of what they wanted and became frustrated because they had to clarify their ideas – perhaps before they were ready. 

This last requirement is a time to think, reflect, celebrate and share. You may choose how to present this information in a multimedia format. You may have one PowerPoint-like presentation that includes everything within it, including the links.  If you do this, you need only provide the link to the presentation. You may have a digital story, websites you created, your story in your wiki, a series of tweets or ????  Please feel free to express and celebrate as you feel so inspired to do.

This “growth” report can be updated constantly via your wiki, blog or e-Portfolio so that you do not wait until the end to prepare the report.  You can embed videos of you discussing the project; interviews with clients; peer interaction. 

Please note:  I am very much interested in your growth throughout and I want you to constantly reflect on where you are, where you plan to go and how you ultimately get there.  In light of this, I am NOT requiring a formal paper in which you must follow APA guidelines.  I want you to discover how you grow throughout this process and how you are different than you were when you started.  Creativity in presenting information is more valued than anything that I might have prescribed that you do on a report.  In short form: No – there is not an example of what I am expecting.  Each report will be unique.