Reflections of the assignments:
DAILY CREATE #1- CARP involved using a web tool titled Smore – www.smore.com. This site allows creation of flyers that can be used to advertise businesses, events, invites, and more. I chose to produce a flyer for a cancer event I was organizing in my hometown. The program allowed me to change fonts, colors, and format the flyer to an extent. CARP, which stands for contrast, alignment, repetition, and proximity, is a visual design principle. These concepts are used by design professionals daily. It helps the brain group common information to be comprehended. These principles are often used in marketing to present the advertisements to customers in a manner to increase sales. Learning about these principles was interesting. The web tool, Smore, we used to create the flyer was tuned in that gear of CARP. I made a flyer to advertise the event I planned and I think it turned out nice. The colors I used were green, representing St. Patrick’s Day timeframe. This event raises money for childhood cancer research. Childhood cancer has affected my family deeply. Two children in my family have been stricken by cancer with one being taken away from us at age 3. I love doing this event in my small hometown to raise awareness and money for a wonderful cause. This flyer helped me get that word out. I ended up using this flyer on my social media page for the event as well as sending it out to my friends via email. I tried using the CARP principles to convey the message and meaning of the event I was advertising. Everyone I talked to liked the idea. I have even talked with others about this principle. Next year I plan using this tool again.
https://www.smore.com/3sfjv the link to the Smore flyer
DAILY CREATE #2 Reflection – Mission Statement reflection – This assignment was hard for me because I don’t really have a true vision on where I want to go with my career. Since I have been in a very stagnant position I often do not think of where I will be later on in life. I picked up finishing my degree later in life thus my mission statement would have been completely different had I been a 20 year junior. I want to stay in the government to get that retirement but I also want to branch out of my sector and teach for a higher level than locally. I like that this assignment pushed me to look forward instead of looking forward to tomorrows shift.
LET’S PLAY REFLECTION – The Let’s Play assignments were interesting. For one, I had not done anything similar to this before. I was very shy growing up as a redheaded step-child and therefore did not like to get in front of the class to present anything at all. This carried over into college, even affecting my decision to deflect public speaking until my senior year. I still have to take that class!!. Once I began my career as a firefighter I learned to open up and share. When I became an instructor my first class to teach was a basic firefighting class. It went well. I can’t say great but it went well. The more and more I taught the less reserved I became. With this being the case I was nervous about recording myself oddly enough. I imagine it is the fact that in a recording you can’t correct yourself as easily as in live instruction. In my case for this assignment you couldn’t see my face so the personal interaction was lost. I liked the videos from the gentleman who did the WordPress instruction. You could see his face and his body language. This often helps increase learning and gives it a more personable feel. I liked this assignment and how it made me face my timidness to do digital instructional recordings. This assignment also introduced me to countless Web 2.0 tools available on the internet. I enjoyed overcoming my fear of recording my voice for instructional purposes. For some reason my voice seems annoying. This assignment forced me to hit this head on and tackle a long standing fear.
ON THE TOWN REFLECTION – Reflecting on the assignment of a daily create is touching for me. I chose two very tough subjects affecting my field of study. The subjects of seat belt use and firefighter deaths. The subject of firefighter deaths during operations is a highlight of my instructional career. I have put countless hours into teaching others how to save themselves if becoming trapped in a fire. As well as how to extract a firefighter who has declared a “mayday”. I am currently working on a lesson plan to teach fire chiefs how to command an incident with a mayday signal. I like that this assignment brought in principles of instructional design. This assignment helped me look at instruction in a while new light. Personalization, coherence, segmented and so on. These principles have been applied to me and I was unaware. Like one student said in the discussion board, she didn’t know they existed until the readings.
This particular create was done with a magazine cover photo that I found to be shocking. I liked what this picture did for the fire service. This 1993 photo moved the “old salty dog” fireman to reevaluate his internal drive. I don’t fight fires with the same aggression as I did 18 years ago. This changed because of my daughter being born. But this photo changed the people who taught me 18 years ago. In my opinion this article and photo has bridged a generation of firefighters to include the attitude of “take care of our own”.