Annette Faith Robinson — My E-Portfolio
Place an image here, possibly a word cloud like from ABCYa. Left side and right side.
Maybe that one of me, on the left; and and IDT one, on the right.
AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL NARRATIVE
What field did you say you were in?
Reiser, 2018
Instructional Design and Technology (IDT)
Instructional Design
Learning Design
Educational Technology
Instructional Technology
Learning Design and Technology (LDT)
Educational Background
Growing up in Wales, UK, I received a General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) in eleven subject areas plus four at Advanced level (French, German, Latin, and Music). I went on to study Chinese (Mandarin) at the University of London, graduating with a BA (Hons). My upbringing and education were quite multicultural: An English kid in Wales, I began learning to speak Welsh at the age of 5; I traveled with my family across the United States at age 9, lived for 3 months in Mexico City, and attended a year of elementary school in Santa Barbara, CA; and spent an academic year studying Chinese in Beijing. I was in Beijing during the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989 – an education at another level.
Work Experience
Much of my experience has been in education, or associated fields. Positions have included database and literature review support in medical publishing; Registrar at the UK’s Chartered Institute of Linguists; Closing Verification Specialist in a mortgage company’s warehouse lending division; and running the Learning Resource Center at a small private school, alongside teaching their information literacy curriculum. I transitioned to Registrar at the same school, then to administrative support work in the California Community College system. During this time, I was also doing PhD-level proofreading and transcription work. For the past two years I have been providing administrative support at a private university in Florida, while completing the Master of Science in Learning Design and Technology at the University of South Florida (MS-LDT).
Dr. Lisa Anderson’s Technology Project Management class gave me an opportunity to reflect on the change journey in my professional life, especially as it has related to technology. I started out working with an older generation of technology, in the UK. I remember my first employer upgrading from 186 to 286 IBM computers. We had the green-text-on-black-screen MS-DOS operating system, 5¼ inch floppy disks, and my first experience of remote work was taking home a clunky 'laptop' computer that was more like a desktop PC in a briefcase. Later, I experienced the joys of working with the company’s Philadelphia office via emails exchanged on dial-up modem, and for the UK bar code authority (EAN UK, now GS1 UK) when they were getting started with broadband internet access.
Master's in Learning Design and Technology
Entering the MS-LDT program, I had experience of updated office and educational technology, working/creating ‘in the cloud’ and some MOOC participation. I was interested in virtual and augmented reality and was excited to be able to explore that a little, in Dr. Ahmet Colak’s Current Trends in Instructional Technology course, my final project being a vision of how an augmented reality application could work in K-12 education.
From wrapping my head around learning theories in Current Trends, through web design and interactive/digital media and instructional graphics with Dr. James Hatten and Dr. Glenn Smith, to the awesomeness of collaborating with classmates to Analyze, Design, Develop, Implement and Evaluate online courses and an educational game in classes with Dr. Yiping Lou and Dr. Smith, this has been an amazing experience that has given me a wealth of resources and know-how in the field of instructional design and technology. Dr. David Lamb’s Foundations of Educational Research class brought practice in developing and writing a research proposal; Dr. Wendy Dickinson provided a fascinating introduction to Big Data and Learning Analytics.
The program has given me wonderful exposure to technologies that are used, not just in K-12 and higher education, but also in the business world and corporate training. I gained valuable insights from Dr. Anderson’s comprehensive experience in the field of instructional design and technology project management, as well as thinking around a reply to the concept of ‘impostor syndrome’: “I know a lot about this field! I may not be an expert yet, but I can talk about it. I can share my opinions and my growing expertise and refine these in conversation and collaboration with my peers in the field.”
Looking to the Future
The MS-LDT degree has opened my eyes to potential career opportunities in both corporate and educational arenas. I am excited to continue building my skills in web design, learning design, instructional technology, and related areas.
Quote from:
Reiser, R. A., & Dempsey, J. V. (2018). Trends and issues in instructional design and technology (4th ed.). New York, NY: Pearson.
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