[Week 10]

[Week 10]

This week saw some major progress on our group project. We have finally established the structure of our instruction, much of the content, and are beginning some early stage prototype videos. At this point my principal concern is the development of professional quality in our videos. Because principles of public speaking are not sequential or cummulative in nature, instruction on public speaking does not need to be either! Still, we are creating structure in each video in order to create a consistent format, so that learners know what to expect out of each video. We have access to the software an hardware to make professional quality videos, the next step is learning how to do it! I am planning on taking some more lynda.com training, this time in video production.

Our design decisions have ranged from large scale to small scale, and many of them are fleshed out through a collaborative process where a group member takes a position on a design decision, and another member takes a differing view, and then as a group we debate the merits of both positions. This is certainly part of the learning process, and as a group we are able to overcome the conflicts, mostly by either abandoning initial positions, or finding middle ground.

One design decision we had to flesh out was the structure of feedback. In our project, learners have the option to upload videos of themselves practicing their speaking skills. To help them, other learners would give feedback. We could not decide if those giving feedback should have a detailed framework for giving feedback (in the format of a form) or general guidelines. On the one hand, a detailed framework would ensure that the learners received relevant feedback. On the other, people may feel intimidated if they were to receive such a form of feedback for their initial efforts. After much debate, we resolved the issue by finding a middle ground: learners could indicate whether they want formative of summative style feedback. If they requested formative feedback, those leaving feedback would leave general, and encouraging comments. If they selected summative feedback, those giving feedback would leave detailed feedback with a high level of expectation, and would use a structured feedback form.

While we have not yet designed the guidelines for feedback nor the feedback form, we think this will enable our learners to collaborate and assess each other by encouraging them to scal expectations to learner input.