Overview
The event that launched my learning career was the time I spent in China teaching K-12, undergraduate university students, and teachers in the summer. During that time I spent 2 years in rural China — very poor and developing at the time — and 2 years outside a major city on a new university campus. I bridged cultural and language gaps through developing presentations, producing videos, and creating printable materials on my small 12-inch PowerBook. Beyond that, the only educational technology I consistently had was a TV in each classroom. But I developed a love for the creative process, researching learning content, speaking, engaging with students, and seeing the fruits of my labor.
When I returned to the U.S. in 2007, it wasn't clear what the next step would be. But I knew I wanted to continue working with technology. So when I discovered instructional technology as a field of study and the possibilities with online learning and working across domains, I knew that was what I wanted to do. What started as a master's program became a doctoral program, and with that I carried teaching assistantships each term. I further developed my practice, my abilities with technologies, and weekly practiced what I learned in research and in my courses with students.
Artifacts
Over 8.5 years of teaching I created countless materials and multimedia. I attribute this to a very senior teacher in China who taught me early on to put something into students hands. So I leaned heavily into creating learning content. Over time, I learned how to create every kind of instructional material and produce it in ways that students felt motivated in the experience, including a strong sense of my care. Nonetheless, as I look at the materials I made long ago, I can on one hand still see and feel the excitement I had, but on the other hand I severely cringe in the design!
Texas Tech University
While at TTU I taught an upper-division undergraduate course entitled EDIT 3318: Applications of Technology in Education. For this course, I served as Instructor of Record for each term and section I taught. I taught this course primarily in-person, but also taught sections online and in a hybrid form for in-service teachers. Some of the activities that were part of the course were the following:
- Learning basic functions of image manipulation in Adobe Photoshop
- Building a PhotoStory as a self-introduction
- Creating an Xtranormal video animation
- Learning about and applying design principles to instructional materials design
- Learning and practicing Copyright and FairUse
- Developing an eLearning Plan
- Designing and building a WebQuest
- Creating a digital portfolio
China
I spent 2 years teaching in the small rural town Pingdingshan in Henan Province. After that, I then spent 2 more years teaching in the outskirts of Shenyang in Liaoning Province. It was the start to my career, but it was also a life. For that reason, you can get a sense of it from this story in pictures.
The video consists of 20 photographs with 2 seconds viewing time for each.
Impact
Over these 8.5 years I taught thousands of students. Some I know from China went on to study at major universities around the world and have their own lives, careers, and family in China. Others I taught at TTU are K-12 teachers across the State of Texas. And another that I got to know and really respected, moved to New York City and started a whole other career. I'm proud that I got to be a small part of their learning experience whenever I do any kind of learning design, they all continue to play a part in my thinking and practice.