Welcome to my eLearning portfolio!
My background and experience as an instructional designer, educational technology coordinator, and teacher are the perfect blend for creating online courses and elearning content. This portfolio will highlight my skills, education, and artifacts of work that I have completed in this area.
As a virtual college instructional designer, I designed and revised courses in collaboration with subject matter experts. This process involved aligning learning activities and assessments to course objectives and maintaining an appropriate level of rigor for the course level. One of my favorite things to do was (and still is) to create linear and branching lesson scenarios. Linear lessons allow the learner to absorb new information in a stairstep fashion with concept "self checks" along the way. Branching scenarios are an intriguing challenge that provides the learner with choices they must make. Each choice takes the learner down a path, in one direction or another, until they see the final results of their decisions.
In my role as an educator, I have taught online college and high school courses and faculty professional development workshops. Additionally, I have created and led face-to-face training for adult education and faculty training sessions. In all of these capacities, I analyze the needs of learners in order to create learning activities and assessments that align with course objectives and maintain a learner-centered environment. One example of my work includes a project to re-design and teach four online university business courses. This experience, from instructional design to instructor, has been invaluable and has given me a great deal of insight for designing online courses.
As a virtual college instructional designer, I designed and revised courses in collaboration with subject matter experts. This process involved aligning learning activities and assessments to course objectives and maintaining an appropriate level of rigor for the course level. One of my favorite things to do was (and still is) to create linear and branching lesson scenarios. Linear lessons allow the learner to absorb new information in a stairstep fashion with concept "self checks" along the way. Branching scenarios are an intriguing challenge that provides the learner with choices they must make. Each choice takes the learner down a path, in one direction or another, until they see the final results of their decisions.
In my role as an educator, I have taught online college and high school courses and faculty professional development workshops. Additionally, I have created and led face-to-face training for adult education and faculty training sessions. In all of these capacities, I analyze the needs of learners in order to create learning activities and assessments that align with course objectives and maintain a learner-centered environment. One example of my work includes a project to re-design and teach four online university business courses. This experience, from instructional design to instructor, has been invaluable and has given me a great deal of insight for designing online courses.
For over 15 years I was an educational technology coordinator. This position required that I stay up-to-date with the newest technologies, learn them quickly, and assist others in how to use them. Conducting teacher training was a main focus for both the technical "how to" side of technology as well as the pedagogical methods on how to implement technology in a meaningful way in the curriculum.
To sum it up, my knowledge of instructional design, adult learning theories, assessing learner needs, and use of educational technology is grounded in both formal education as well as practical experience. I find that analyzing learner needs and designing instructional strategies that help them connect to new information is a challenging and rewarding task and one that I plan to continue as an elearning professional and instructional designer.
Resume
To sum it up, my knowledge of instructional design, adult learning theories, assessing learner needs, and use of educational technology is grounded in both formal education as well as practical experience. I find that analyzing learner needs and designing instructional strategies that help them connect to new information is a challenging and rewarding task and one that I plan to continue as an elearning professional and instructional designer.
Resume