I’ve had something of a peripatetic journey through this MSc – starting full of enthusiasm in 2016, enthusiasm which lasted right up until the point where I was due to hand in a completed journal article, eportfolio and artefact in June 2018. I missed that deadline and I think a significant learning experience from this MSc has been – don’t miss your academic deadlines if you can possibly avoid it at all!! And I don’t mean any of that facetiously, what seemed like a good idea – to give myself some additional time to finish what had become a more complex piece of research than I’d expected at the start (and at a time which was more difficult than usual both professionally and personally) turned into a very drawn out and unsatisfactory process – once regular contact with classmates, lecturers and supervisors ceased it became far too easy to allow daily life to come between me and the work that remained to get the MSc finished. I started and stopped work half a dozen times, and each time I did this it took me slightly longer to get back into my research. And even when many months went by without me doing any serious work on either the research, journal article or artefact, it was there constantly niggling at the back of my mind – really not very pleasant at all.

Given the time lag since I started the MSc I’ve had to remind myself of the learning outcomes, which are broadly about acquiring scholarly and practical knowledge about elearning, putting that new knowledge into practice and also developing some additional technical skills.

My professional role is the same formally now as it was when I started the MSc. However, the nature of the work I do has changed considerably over that period. Partly that change is because of changes in the organisation (principally the advent of a new virtual learning environment, Brightspace, which required a huge amount of work to implement) but I think the MSc has had a significant impact on how I view my role, how I execute my role and how confident I am now about projecting my own ideas and taking on new and different tasks. Prior to starting the MSc my work on elearning principally revolved around providing instructional advice on an informal one-to-one basis either over the phone or by email, managing the communications about VLE processes, VLE administration and training co-ordination. I rarely delivered formal training and rarely designed any instructional guides. And on the occasions when I delivered formal training I was quite nervous about it – I was not comfortable in the teacher/trainer role, and also felt I lacked legitimacy in the role (given that my initial appointment had been to a more straightforwardly administrative post).  However, undertaking the MSc changed both of those concerns – the practical experience of presenting in class helped my confidence when training, and the fact that I was undertaking a qualification which specifically related to education and elearning helped greatly with the sense of legitimacy. More importantly, the academic content of the early modules specifically “Learning Theories” and “Instructional Design and eAuthoring” gave me new skills and strategies, and also changed my way of thinking about delivering training material.

Feedback I received for an early assessment on learning theories was really enlightening – it mentioned the need to move the focus of training away from covering various training topics during the session, and instead to focus on what actual learning was taking place, and better ways to support and facilitate that learning.  I wrote in that early assessment that I felt training was a mix of behaviourism and social constructivism – the need to repeat and just learn certain processes reflecting the behaviourist side, but the need for interaction and the exchange of ideas between peers reflecting social constructivism. As I started out to deliver more Brightspace training I kept Gagne’s Nine Events of Instruction in mind (some of these I would have been unknowingly applying anyway, but implementing the formal sequence was useful) but I also tried to adopt a more social constructivist approach –  facilitating a discursive environment where attendees were given the opportunity to outline their prior knowledge, their objectives for attending the training and any particular concerns they had in relation to the topic.  This approach gave me information which I could use to tailor the training to the needs of those in the room, and it also prompted discussion between participants and allowed them to learn from their peers.

Ideas about learning presented by Diana Laurillard and Helen Beetham really resonated with me. I’d never thought very much previously about how learning actually happened and found Laurillard’s conception of the process very useful (Laurillard,2012 p.59). I also found her argument for a synthesis of learning theories useful – I’m conscious of a mix of approaches which have their roots in various different learning theories in my own practice. I am increasingly persuaded by the power of active learning and the relationship of learning outcomes, tasks and learning activities outlined by Beetham really stayed with me (Beetham & Sharpe, 2013, pp 31-47). I hope to shortly put these ideas into practice in my own work and intend to design training which has a follow-up element which will require the participants to engage in some way with the material after they have attended initial training – the engagement to take a form which will demonstrate achievement of the learning outcomes, not merely attendance at the training. I’m hopeful that my training audience will see the benefit of this approach.

Some aspects of cognitivism have already influenced my training – particularly the importance of engagement for deep learning. For one online training session about the quiz tool in Brightspace I asked participants to review the training material in advance, to create a quiz and if possible to take it as a test student. About twenty people attended the online training and about half of them had actually reviewed the material in advance. I went through the training material from first principles anyway so some people were presented with content they were already slightly familiar with and for others it was completely new. The session was memorable however for the quantity of active engagement and the nature of the questions which arose. People who were somewhat familiar with the tool had quite developed and specific questions and it was clear that they had already grasped the basics of the tool. The feedback from this session was very complimentary and I definitely got a sense at the end of it that for the majority participants they had had a fulfilling learning experience and had achieved cognitive insight on the topic. (As an aside, while I would like to run more sessions like this it was demanding of time – both in terms of preparation and also in terms of time taken away from transmission of information during the training – if a flipped strategy was to be used regularly in training then all participants would need to engage in advance)

The module on instructional design and eauthoring also impacted my work substantially, concepts such as storyboarding and personas (in the context of the development of elearning resources) were quite new to me, and I’ve used both in the design of the elearning artefact.  Models of instructional design were also introduced – I’ve found ADDIE to be the most straightforward to use and again used it for development of the elearning artefact. This module also highlighted the proliferation of elearning tools available, particularly small, niche tools that serve a particular purpose such as Padlet, Animoto, Screencast-o-matic, Kahoot and over the course of the MSc I definitely found myself using these niche tools more regularly. I have a slight regret that I didn’t engage with more substantial eauthoring software such as Articulate Storyline however over the years my skills with social media tools, video and audio editing apps, photo editing apps, G Suite and other cloud-based softwares definitely developed. And, somewhat embarrassingly, I also became much more aware of the internet as a teaching and learning resource, and much more adept at searching for tools and tips online, and more open generally to trying out new techniques.

The need for universal design online, and the idea of cognitive overload also featured in this module. Part of my role includes communicating processes and practices around use of the VLE in TU Dublin. Many of the processes are quite complex and following this module I sought to simplify the way the information was presented, maintaining a very simple structure on the Brightspace website (in terms of general accessibility however I’m conscious that this site could do with more work). In email communication I tried to present only essential information at the top level, while also making more detailed information available to those who need/want it.

In some ways I’m hopeful that the educational research design module will be the one which has the most lasting effect on my practices. It really required us to think about our research areas in a very structured and focused manner – I’ve always struggled with academic writing and research, particularly staying focused on the research question and not straying too far away from it both in terms of literature review and the actual research and writing process. I found the focus on structuring the journal article very useful and used this to create google drive folders and documents related to each element of my research and writing. A small thing like adding these as folders of bookmarks to  my Chrome toolbar made this work more manageable and accessible. Over the course of the research and writing phase I updated those documents and that structure regularly and for the first time felt I didn’t lose complete control over the whole process.

I have found the whole experience of going through this programme very rewarding. It has provided a context and theoretical basis for much of work, and has provided new strategies and techniques for carrying out that work. It has also signposted new directions which I may take professionally. It has really been a very positive experience.

Beetham, H., & Sharpe, R.,(Eds) (2013). Rethinking pedagogy for a digital age: designing for 21st century learning. Routledge

Laurillard, D. (2012). Teaching as a design science: Building pedagogical patterns for learning and technology. Routledge.