EDCI 57300 Instructional Design Practicum Project Reflection

Katie Clayton
April 28, 2014


Identifying a project that will actually be launched to the public and working through the real
everyday challenges of making the project a reality was the most significant benefit for me in working on
this project. Completing a real world project, taught me that a seemingly "small" project is extremely
time consuming and can quickly become more complex than originally thought. In creating this course, I
have a much better understanding of how much time is required to edit video, add engaging interaction
and create effective assessments. In general I have a tendency to be optimistic and underestimate the
amount of time a project will take, completing this project was a real eye opener about the reality of the
time commitment necessary. While the target audience and need already identified, transitioning the
product from a face to face program to online was fantastic experience for the future. Additionally,
working through the complexities of the Purdue system in order to make this project a reality was
probably the biggest challenge but also the most rewarding.

Good Agricultural Practices (GAPs) course is a non-credit, certificate program for fruit and
vegetable growers in Indiana and is offered at a very low cost to consumers. The initial content and
materials were created by Purdue Cooperative Extension Service. Working with Extension audiences is a
bit different than other more traditional audiences at the University. Therefore, identifying the best
place to promote and house the program at Purdue was a significant challenge.

I was aware of two options for housing the course, Purdue Extended Campus or the Extension
Education Store. Within the College of Agriculture there is the Extension Education Store which houses
4-H and other Extension materials for free and for sale. In making this project a reality, one of the
biggest challenges was to identify where the course should be housed and who could handle the specific
needs of the program at the lowest cost to the program, including collecting registration fees, creating a
Blackboard Learn section for the course, and being able to enroll both Purdue users as well as non-
Purdue users in the course. Purdue Extended Campus? Or the Extension Education Store? It was very
helpful to have been in class with Chad Mueller the semester before getting started such that I felt
comfortable approaching Chad and picking his brain about the capabilities of PEC. After meeting with
both the Education Store and PEC, it quickly became clear that the Education store could not handle the
needs of the course, and PEC was the best option. PEC could handle the money, Blackboard Learn
section creation, and enrollment in the course for both Purdue users and non-Purdue users. The
Education Store on the other hand could handle the money but not the needs of the course related to
Blackboard. So the decision was made to work with PEC. I found it very rewarding to be in the meetings
with PEC and understand what all was going on and be able to add valid input.

I currently sit on the Purdue College of Ag Distance Education Committee, which has been
charged with making a recommendation to the Dean of how to move distance education forward in the


College of Ag. My experience with this practicum project has provided me with unique insight into the
specific needs of Extension audiences and the challenges faced in providing distance programs for this
audience. My exploration of the capabilities of the Education Store and PEC, allowed me to speak with
confidence about the possibility of enrolling non-Purdue users into Blackboard. I was also more assertive
in speaking up about not only the benefits of having instructional designers on staff but the need for
instructional design if the College plans to move forward with this effort.

After my experience working with PEC, I am very grateful to be fairly well versed in Blackboard
and video editing products including Camtasia. Because of my skills in these program and knowledge of
the content, I was able to work on my schedule of completion rather than feeling helpless and having to
constantly follow up with PEC. The one aspect that was helpful in working with PEC beyond the
registration, etc. was the realization that we could create an auto-populate, "you print" certificate of
completion and adaptive release it based on the assessment scores. This required inserting HTML code
into Blackboard, which is something I am not at all familiar with. Thankfully I was able to leverage my
contacts and make that a reality.

This practicum experience has provided me excellent experience and significantly developed my
project management skills! Although I am very familiar with the specific content of this project, I was
still responsible to an SME and truly functioned in an Instructional Designer role. Needing to have
approval and review from the SME, formative evaluation from my target audience and working with PEC
to make the project an accessible reality taught me the importance of consistent and frequent
communication. I also had to manage my own time wisely. While the course topic is directly related to
my work at Purdue, creating an online GAPs course was considered a special project, that I spent the
majority of the time creating and editing in my own personal time rather than at work. Balancing, other
work projects and moving the course forward was an excellent exercise in time management.

One of the most challenging and frustrating components of this practicum experience has been
working with the SME. Purdue Extension has been providing in person GAPs training across the state of
Indiana for numerous years now, with no significant changes to presentation content. These
presentations include photos of poor practices on farms as examples of what not to do for other
growers. Because this content has been delivered numerous times across the state for at least 5 years, I
did not think there would be any issues specifically related to content when transitioning to online.
However, after I had put in countless hours editing video, inserting interaction, publishing files, and
uploading to Blackboard, the SME in the final review had issues with including a variety of photos in the
online course and wanted significant portions of the content removed. Although I believed these photos
were one of the best portions of the entire training, SME approval is a necessity.

Project management and time management are the two ID skills, I feel I grew and learned the
most from this project. In the future, I believe I will need to continue to work on my skills of working
with an SME. I was very familiar with the content of this project and could make many judgment calls on
assessments, interactivity, etc. based on my own expertise in the subject. And simply needed final
approval from the SME on this particular project. In the future, working more closely with the SME will


be a skill I need to develop further, especially if the topic area is not one in which I have experience and
expertise.

Overall, the practicum experience was challenging but very rewarding. Working on a project
that will actually be launched to the public, with particular deadlines in place provided me invaluable
real-world experience in ID. I know have great examples and understanding that I can utilize in future
projects and for interviewing. Best experience of my LDT career to date!