From a formative evaluation perspective I have done a bang-up job at posting on my Blog this semester. In retrospect I could have viewed it more as a journal and then I may have done well. Isn't that really what a Blog is, a form of journal for public view, via this marvelous technological tool??? Technology...another means to an end-a way of accomplishing learning or tasks, but merely through another medium. I have four or five spiral notebooks full of comprehension of concepts, skills attained, and moments when I was able to see trees individually in the forest.

I will back log my moments of awareness and enlightenment of the semester in a very "unblog-like" fashion:

I was invited to an Instructional Design Community Conference last Thursday. M. David Merrill, Bryan Chapman, and Rex Allen were all keynote speakers. It was an amazing conference and very interesting and enlightening to be taught from the "fathers" and masters in the field of instructional design. I thought the highlight would be Merrill as he taught on Finding and Designing e3 (engaging, effective, efficient), but found I learned the most from Rex Allen. Maybe because he teaches more towards my learning style or even since he is geared more in the area of my interest. Either way I am more intrigued in furthering my education in this area than ever before. My main focus was on Designing Learning Experiences and I look forward to implementing all that I learned.

Life as an Instructional Designer

Life seems short this far along in the journey and yet I've worked in many fields in my 28 years of living. In high school, I started as clerk making and selling ice cream, took night classes to become a certified nursing assistant-placing me as an employee in a nursing home, and later as a supervisor of respite care. Janitorial work and renovating homes to save up money so I could then be called on a full time mission for the L.D.S. Church and herein found a life altering love for learning and teaching. In the past few years I have taught preschool, special education, Montessori school, and privately tutored an array of subjects and areas. My main passions and drives are those associated with positive interactions with others. I believe we are our best source of learning as we focus on absorbing all we can from our current situations and circumstances only to move forward with increase wisdom and knowledge from where we've been to facilitate where we are going.

Instructional Design is a great opportunity to apply these principles in the work force as well as in a new way of analyzing and viewing the world to assist others in accomplishing much good! It requires a lot more organized thought and cognition is key to success in this field. It has brought me back to the conclusion my mother tried to instill while I was yet a small child, "Use your brain, Sarah, that's why it's been given to you!"