Day 24

Never did get up to publishing to troubleshoot. I spent the day working on the handouts for Qwizdom. They're almost finished. Rosemary went over them and we discussed them and her suggestions for change and why. I have just a few changes to make. I still have to do the part about actually playing the games, but all the set up part is pretty well finished.

Now I have to turn my mind to the actual training. I will be presenting in their lab using the large Smart Board. Each participant will have a computer to follow along with and create some of their own slides. I have some thought about that part that I need to check out and see if it will be possible to do it that way using the software and discuss with Rosemary if it is a viable idea.

I discussed with her how the handouts should be done - exact to what we do in training or a more general version. She brought up the point that in the case of their trainings most of the workshops are presented in sign-no voice. That means that the people will basically be watching and doing along with the trainer without referencing the handout until later, so it needs to be more general. In this case the learner characteristics have a serious impact on the trainings. The learner's are visual learners. While they probably won't read the handouts word for word the screenshots will jog their visual memory. Learning how to do them has been very helpful during my internship.

The learners also come with varied computer skills and motivations. I have had to make sure that I have created a task analysis that does not miss any steps. I went through each step and wrote it down. After I typed them up and added the screenshots I went through doing the steps as I read them to make sure I didn't miss anything.

There will be no formal assessment. The results will be seen in how many teachers use Qwizdom with their students.

I finished up the afternoon doing a software evaluation and putting it into the TecEds software review. I did talk with Rosemary to make sure I was on the right track with the first one before entering it. With these not only is it important to look at the software from the standpoint of is it user friendly? is it interesting? does it run smoothly? install easily? but I also have to consider how deaf and hard of hearing students can use it. How crucial is the sound in it? What is the language level?

Tomorrow I expect to finish the handouts and think more about the training itself.