Monday 31 March 2014

IS Students did a Great Job of Representing the Program at Digitech



At the Florida State University Digitech Event this year (Friday, March 28, 2014), several of our students presented their innovative projects and captured visitors' attention. Some of the projects include: 

  • Multimedia Learning: Animating in Articulate:  a learning tool for the Department of Education's Instructional Systems (I.S.) recruiting program. It is to be used as an entry point for students interested in the I.S. program, providing them with a visual and interactive method for digesting surface level information about our program. 
  • Rock Paper Scissor Lizard Spock: an instructional game consists of three sections: story, mini instruction and game with rich user interaction. The content of lesson was inspired by the episode of Big Bang Theory, in which Sheldon and Raj try to solve the conflict through this game.  



Friday 28 March 2014

Dr. Ke Received Research Grant to Design and Develop a Virtual Learning Environment for Children with Special Needs

Congratulations to Dr. Fengfeng Ke, who recently received a three-year $468,000 Spencer Foundation grant to design, and examine the learning effectiveness of a 3-D virtual-reality-based social skills training program to help develop the social competence and self-identity of children with high-functioning autism spectrum disorders.

The project aims to enrich the research area of technology for special education by examining a networked, versatile learning environment in which children with autism can engage in in situ, design- and play-mediated social skills training. The project will address both theoretical and empirical issues on the design of a computer-assisted, naturalistic, and immersive learning experience for children with special needs.

Wednesday 26 March 2014

Spring is upon us - Beautiful Stone Building



Look out for large clusters of flowers outside of Stone building in the beautiful Spring weather. 

Tuesday 25 March 2014

Training and Development Specialists - No. 3 on the List of Best Jobs for 2014

CareerBuilder and Economic Modeling Specialists Intl. (EMSI) released a list of jobs that are expected to grow in 2014. In addition, the pay isn't bad either! Among these hot jobs, Training and Development Specialists ranks number 3 on the list with 18.024 jobs added since 2010 (8 percent growth) and with a median hourly earnings of $27.14. 

You can find the full list here.

Our program offers a variety of courses and opportunities to prepare our Master and PhD students with knowledge and skills on this track. In addition, students could gain more systematic and in-depth knowledge through our two certificate programs with specific focuses on Human Performance Technology and Online Instructional Development.


Instructional Systems @ FSU

Monday 24 March 2014

It was a Deliciously Fun Sunday!

Every year the IS program organizes a picnic lunch in the warm April weather, either in a beautiful park, or at a professor's house. This year, Dr. Shute hosted this event with delicious (international!) food, joyful chats and fun activities! Check out some of the great photos!

Friday 21 March 2014

New Summer Course: Design of Learning Games



Dr. Fengfeng Ke will offer a new course online this summer. If you are into game based learning, this is the course for you!

EME5614 Design of Learning Games (2014 Summer, Online, Session C, currently listed as EME6635-0004 to 0007)


This course is designed to guide students to design and prototype learning games by understanding and applying the interdisciplinary principles of game design, psychology of play, education, and cognitive science. The course will review the design theories of educational gaming and examine how instructional designers can leverage digital culture to design a game-based instructional system. The course will also guide students to identify and implement  the foundational elements of game design (i.e., game setting, storytelling and narrative, character development, user experience, and gameplay), genres of games, and specific features of learning-game design (e.g., motivational analysis, instructional overlay), and exemplary web-based learning-game design and development tools (e.g., Unity 3D).
 
By the end of the course, students will be able to:
1.    Recognize the following elements of learning-game design: Integration between play and learning engagement, the balance between simplicity, efficiency, and playability against realism, and the balance between richness and complexity in learning game design.
2.    Describe basic game concepts, such as challenge, gameplay, setting, interaction model, perspective, players’ role, and game machines.
3.    Identify genres of games appropriate to various learners and learning contexts.
4.    Evaluate features of games appropriate for instruction and learning.
5.    Design a learning game by completing game world, storytelling, character development, user experience creation, and gameplay.
6.    Prototype a learning game using Unity3D.
7.  User-test the learning game prototype.

Thursday 20 March 2014

FSU IS App Now Available on the Apple App Store

Developed by one of our doctoral students - Taehyeong Lim, the first version of our FSU IS app is now available for free download on the Apple App Store. The current version features the IS news, people,  courses, links to IS networks, and additional helpful resources. We are still enriching the content, and an android version is also on its way.




Here are some related links to this app:

1. FSU IS APP's official website: http://fsuisapp.com
2. FSU IS APP's official Facebook page: http://facebook.com/fsuisapp

Tuesday 18 March 2014

Alumni Highlight: Gabrielle was on a Featured Article in the Tallahassee Democrat

Congratulations to Gabrielle, who was the focus of an article in the Tallahassee Democrat:


Graduated earlier from our program, Gabrielle has started her own consulting firm for over ten years focusing on improving motivation, performance and learning.

Way to go Gabrielle - you make us all look good!

Monday 17 March 2014

Social Media for Active Learning - a MOOC Course You Won't Want to Miss

This semester the EME6635 Open Learning and MOOCs seminar, taught by Dr. Vanessa Dennen of the Instructional Systems program, has been designing a MOOC on Social Media for Active Learning. The MOOC will begin on March 24, led by Dr. Dennen with the assistance of the students in this class. It's a free professional development course for educators at all levels, designed in a flexible, modular format. Participants are welcome to complete one or all of the modules -- and it's fine if you want to sign up just to check it out.



We would love to have our COE colleagues and friends joining us for all or part of the course -- and feel free to pass the information along to any person or group that might be interested.
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Social Media for Active Learning: A professional development MOOC
Dates: Mar 24 – Apr 20
Instructor: Vanessa Dennen, Associate Professor of Instructional Systems, Florida State University and a team of FSU Instructional Systems graduate students
Course Description:
This professional development course was designed to help instructors, trainers, and instructional designers learn how to better use social media to support learning, whether in an informal networking sense or by embedding social media into more formal learning contexts. The four course module topics are (1) social media curation for education, (2) developing social media lessons, (3) developing and using personal learning networks, and (4) privacy and ethical issues related to using social media to support learning
Whether you’re a newcomer to social media tools or you’re quite familiar with them, this course can help you find new and better ways to reach and teach your students, connecting them with the rich network of online people and resources, and helping them become active users and contributors within this network.
Since this is a professional development course, it has been designed with flexibility in mind. Each week we will focus on a new topic and will have new learning materials, a live chat, discussions, and a small project. You may complete the projects for each week – or just those that interest you most or best fit your schedule. You can earn badges during the weeks you choose to complete the projects, and you’ll be able to get feedback from our community of learners and teaching assistants.
For More Information, Contact: smooc.2014@gmail.com