Rationale Paper Mark Bishop, Masters Degree candidate November 9th, 2013 I am submitting this paper as part of my Masters

Portfolio at Boise State University to fulfill a graduation requirement. I currently work full-time in Quality Assurance for Hewlett-Packard on the Navy NGEN project. This means that I do not currently work in the educational field. I am married and my wife, Dalana, and I have five children. My wifes work in caring for our children and home have made this program possible for me. My goal for this program is to find work in the educational technology field at the university level. I want to do this because I find education intrinsically interesting (I love to learn), and because I feel it is a great way to contribute to society. This paper is my reflection on the different projects and papers I completed in this Masters program. Completing a portfolio fits this program well because the program is largely based on projects and the work on this portfolio has helped me to remember the lessons learned while completing these projects. This will help me apply what I have learned in my career. I believe one of the most important things I can do is to point out where I could have done better, and I could improve my articles. This artifacts in this paper will be organized into three general categories: skills, production, and educational knowledge. Educational knowledge (philosophy and research are the two main sources for educational knowledge) is the foundations of educational technology because it helps guide the application and use of technology in education. Skills allow educators to apply technology towards education. Production is the joint application of skills and educational knowledge. Baking Bread with Natural Yeast http://edtechdev.mrooms2.net/login/index.php Name: markbishop Password: Oneone.11 This article was one of my most challenging projects, but not due to the technology. Rather, the topic I chose, baking bread with natural yeast, was new to me and rather time consuming and difficult to master. But the bread was eventually quite good (the first loaf I made was albino, which is not too appealing in bread) and I learned quite a bit in terms of what makes a useful course. I learned that course layout is crucial to making the course understandable. I learned that video production takes at least as much work and planning as web development or writing. I also learned that instructional video works best when it concentrates on the subject exclusively and never the instructor.

The most important thing I learned from this project is the value of having a plan even when things dont go according to plan. This was often the case with this project due to the bread not going as planned. 1.1 Instructional Systems Design I had to systematically analyze, plan, develop, evaluate and implement this article. It involved planning and delivering four different lessons and required a large amount of preparation so that I could understand the subject well enough to build a good class for it. 1.3 Instructional Strategies My strategy for reaching the learner was to present the material in multiple ways using video and written instructions and require that they attempt the projects on their own. This is essentially constructivist in nature. 2.4 Integrated Technologies This project required the integration of video, images, and Word documents inside the framework of a Learning Management System (LMS). 4.3 Delivery System Management This article required that I become familiar with creating and administering a course via an LMS (Moodle). Copyright Lesson http://edtech2.boisestate.edu/markbishop/502/copyright.html I feel this article reaches the student in an engaging manner that will help them explore what could be a dry subjectcopyright law. It does so by reversing the paradigm. Instead of warning the student about the different ways they shouldnt violate copyright, the lesson invites them to figure out all of the different ways that they could hypothetically violate copyright. I learned two or three things when creating this page. First is to think deeply about how to engage the learner. Upon considering this assignment I decided that getting students to want to learn about copyright was going to be difficult, but that this would be key to actually being effective. After considering the situation I thought of reversing the concept, but this seemed risky. I learned, though, to follow my ideas (within reason). Although the idea seemed a bit crazy to me, this ended up being the article about which I received the most positive feedback. Finally, I learned that I am no artistdid you look at that artwork? But it was what the page called for so I swallowed my pride and posted it. 1.3 Instructional Strategies

For this assignment I strategically inverted the meaning of the assignment so as to engage the learners. 1.4 Learner Characteristics In order to decide on a strategy I had to consider who I was trying to reach. I had in mind generally that this would be a class used for youth 12 to 19. These typically have limited attention spans and more narrow areas of interest. If I had been attempting to teach copyright law to pre-law university students I would used a different approach. 2.1 Print Technologies This assignment includes a Word document that the user can print and use as a worksheet. Designing Web Courses http://edtech2.boisestate.edu/markbishop/webclass/webclass.html This course is about designing web-based courses. (I know, it almost seems redundant.) It was synthesized from the different projects which I had completed earlier for this class. I believe it was one of my most valuable articles because it so clearly outlined the importance of feedback. The first incident in which feedback clearly helped was in the design of one of my assignments. As a tagline I wrote that, Communication works best if your students are alive. I was trying to make the point that often we design courses for hypothetical students instead of for real, living people. Of course, it doesnt read like this, and the look on my wifes face (she was my reviewer on that assignment) let me know that perhaps I should revise this line. Next, on this assignment for my rough draft I turned in this web page (http://edtech2.boisestate.edu/markbishop/506/webclass.html). I was tired, and just wanted to get things done. But I knew that it wasnt good enough because it didnt give the learner a big enough view of the graphics. Both my instructor and classmate reviewer expressed what I already suspected and convinced me to rework the web site during the last week. It still isnt perfect, as the tab panels are still too small for horizontal designs, but it is much better. Good feedback can make a real difference in improving outcomes. 1.1 Instructional Systems Design For this assignment I had to decide on a topic, analyze what areas of this topic I should pay attention to and what I thought about them, design assignments and graphics which addressed these areas, and then design web pages to deliver these to the learner. Evaluation caused me to revise my designs. 1.3 Instructional Strategies

For this course I chose to base it around models, analysis, and development. Models are important for understanding the process of creating a course. Analysis helps the course creator to decide where to put their efforts. Development is where the rubber meets the road. Although there are many different aspects of course creation, these were the ones that I deemed important for some just starting to learn. 2.3 Computer-Based Technologies The delivery mechanism was changed from a simple HTML webpage to a jQuery powered webpage with tabbed panels. This allowed the learner to have a clearer view of the designs.