Ellen Reeder

IT 6750
Futures Reflection

Introduction

The use of communication technology (besides word processing) as a means of making a

living runs in my family. My grandparents gave up teaching school to become movie
theater owners in the 1940s through the early 1960s. My dad ran the projector at their
drive-in theater to put himself through college. Before she gave it all up to have kids, my
FUTURES REFLECTION

mother worked for the NBC affiliate in Tulsa during the 1950s as a weather girl and talk
show host (her show was called “Look in with Lee”). My brother has owned a sign making
business, and my sister is marketing manager, creating news promos, for a local network
station in Oklahoma City. And, my husband is a videographer, director/editor. So, it only
seems natural that I’m pursuing a Master’s Degree in Instructional Design and
Technology.

Current Employment

It’s 2009, and I’m working for the Association of Perioperative Nurses (AORN) in the
Center for Perioperative Education. I currently manage the review and approval of nursing
education for contact hours. I work with a dedicated, expert team of reviewers helping
AORN members, health-care providers, and industry clients obtain contact hour approval
for their education activities. When I began working at this position, the education
department along with our IT department and other IT contractors, were in the process of
developing a web-based application, similar to Turbo Tax. During this process, I was
responsible for writing the schema, a 50-page demonstration of the criteria for approval of
educational activities that must be included in the application. I learned how to work with
our software developers and also about design and how it must relate to instruction and
learning in application form. I really loved what I was doing.

In addition to working for AORN, I spent the last few years researching and writing a
novel. The Peach Basket League is about the true adventures of a group of farm-girl
basketball players during the 1930s and their determined coach, Sam Babb, who was my
great uncle. Writing a novel was easy compared to selling it, which requires diligence,
thick skin, and dedication to the story.

I love to write, and used to work as a copywriter/editor in the natural foods industry. But
now, I’m hoping to combine my writing skills with a knack for systems design and become
an instructional designer.
 Five years from now …

After working as a freelance instructional designer for the past year, I’m employed full
time again in health care! Two nurse educators with over 20 years of experience each
whom I’ve worked with in the past decided to start their own company called EduHealth
International. They asked me to be part of their education and training design team, which
includes three IDs, who also work as project managers, a developer/systems expert,
audio/video experts, and a graphic designer (Chen, 2008, p. 3). We work with volunteer
beta testers who test our programs in exchange for free CE credit. We all work from our
homes with daily synchronous meetings.

We just received our accreditation from the American Nurses Credential Center to provide
nursing education, and have applied for credentialing for providing Continuing Medical
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Education for physicians, too. We work with subject matter experts to develop web-based
and in-person continuing education for health care facilities, including ambulatory care
centers. Over the past few years, the growth in ambulatory surgery, with its fast turnaround
for minor to intermediate surgeries, has skyrocketed. We predict continued growth in this
sector for continuing education because of new regulations regarding patient safety
developed by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in conjunction with The
Joint Commission. Ambulatory care centers must now meet the same standards has
hospitals for quality and safety in the delivery of health care.

We provide CEs that help nurses and health-care facilities meet new required health-care
codes the government just enacted to prevent surgical site infections, malignant
hyperthermia, and other preventable deaths that the new Medicare for All refuses to
reimburse. We develop cutting edge and hot-topic education using our own web-based
authoring tool that includes using a continuous review/revision cycle between subject
matter experts and instructional designers, akin to the Rapid Prototyping model of
instructional design (www.thiagi.com/article-rid.html). Our adult learners bring rich,
varied, and relevant experiences with them, so we developed an evaluation and feedback
method that can incorporate enthusiastic and knowledgeable learners as subject matter
experts in future presentations – all organized through our authoring tool. The hierarchy
that used to exist between learner and teacher, at least in some of the adult learning courses
that we build, has almost disappeared
(http://thiagi.com/pfp/IE4H/april2004.html#Editorial).

In addition to the authoring tool, we also create guided Personal Learning Environments
(PLE) that provide tools that support continuous, learner-focused learning environments
(Attwell, 2006, p. 1). A product of Web 2.0, PLEs facilitate connections between people
and software applications, providing tools for creating knowledge as well as consuming it
(Attwell, 2006, p. 3). After an evaluation of specific work areas, we design the
work/learning space for facility employees. The tools include desktop applications and
social software; communities of practice; wikis; a diary for managing work; blogs for
sharing work; audio/video editor; photo editing/sharing program; bookmark sharing;
Skype; instant messaging; synchronous communication; access to latest research; access to
CE web learning; a dynamic feedback/evaluation tool; and email. Our design incorporates
 an interactive learning system that includes Dynamic Information Generation (DIG)
(Barker, 2009, pp. 9-13). Our criteria also incorporates several design features and
strategies such as sharing psychological and pedagogical values, problem-based
approaches, and scaffolding (Hannafin, 1999, pp. 121-122).

“An organization’s ability to innovate becomes the competitive edge in the global
economy (Clark, 2008, p. 7).” PLEs help healthcare facilities stay viable and innovative by
building fluid intelligence, giving rise to adaptive expertise (Clark, 2008, p. 13).
Challenging problems require diverse expertise. Open-ended learning environments such
as our guided PLE “employ tools, resources, and activities that augment or extend thinking
…. OLEs embed learning activities in contexts that foster thinking” that originate from
personal practical experiences (Hannafin, 1999, p. 120). We place a greater emphasis on
active learning that cultivates critical thinking, vital to a high functioning health care
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facility.
Fortunately, web interaction has become as common as using the telephone. Five years
ago, hospitals provided limited number of computers for nurses and other health care
professionals to use. Nurses were just beginning to use email, web browsers, and online
learning. They had to either schedule limited time at work for the required CE, or take the
course at home if they owned computers. There was little flexibility.

With the advent of rechargeable zinc-air batteries a couple of years ago, laptops and other
mobile learning devices such as E-books, Tablet PC, Personal Digital Assistant, and even
mobile phones and Smart Phones, last much longer without a need to recharge. This
technology, along with greater access to computers, gives nurses and health-care
professionals more learning options. Of course, hospitals were slow to accept the idea of
student-centered learning, but the flexibility allowed to busy health-care professionals
eventually convinced these staid professionals that a more fluid style of continuing
educations works best.

On the next page is a diagram showing the relationships among OLE foundations and
values (Hannafin, 1999, p. 122)
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 Reflecting Thoughts

Five years from now, fluidity and the ability to adapt will be key. Expertise will be in great
demand, but the experts will have to be able to adapt to changing environments.
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Associations are political and very staid, and have been slow to adapt. But at AORN,
we’ve just created a new Community of Practice web portal for members to socially
interact in blog posts according to their specialty. However, it’s yet to be discovered by
those creating the environment how education can be a part of that community, too.

I see health care, with its high impact to society and its fast-changing technology and
research, as a growth area for instructional design, and potentially something akin to an
open learning environment. I think that teachers and instructional designers will act as
guides, pointing out possible trends, showing students how to see things in different ways,
how to ask questions. That’s why, in my thoughts on the future, I call our products guided
Personal Learning Environments.

References

Attwell, G. (2006, June 1). Personal learning environments. Retrieved October 22, 2009
from The Wales-Wide Web website:
www.theknownet.com/writing/weblogs/Graham_Attwell/entries/ 6521819364

Barker, J. & Sabry, K. (2009) Dynamic interactive learning systems. Bond University.
Retrieved at ePublications @bond website: epublications.bond.edu.au/infotech_pubs/85

Changing roles: Don’t treat learners as learners (2004, April). Rapid Instructional Design.
Retrieved October 18, 2009 from The Thiagi Group website:
http://thiagi.com/pfp/IE4H/april2004.html#Editorial

Chen, I. (2007). Instructional design methodologies. In T. Kidd et al. (Eds.), The handbook
on research and instructional systems and technology (pp. 1-14). Hershey, PA: ISI Global.

Clark, R.C. (2008). Building expertise: Cognitive methods for training and performance
improvement. San Francisco, CA: Pfeiffer.

Hannafin, M., Land, S., & Oliver, K. (1999) Open learning environments: Foundations,
methods, and models (pp. 115-140). In C. M. Reigeluth (Ed.), Instructional-design theories
and models, Volume II: A new paradigm of instructional theory. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence
Erlbaum Associates.

Thiagarajan, S. (1999, October 1). Rapid instructional design. Retrieved October 18, 2009
from The Thiagi Group website: www.thiagi.com/article-rid.htm