deep learning – The Budding Techcomm Blogger

At the start of this blogging assignment, I decided I would do a review of Dreamweaver and what shall forever be known as “the Dreamweaver project”. Two months later and twelve days before the Dreamweaver project deadline, the best review I can come up with is that Dreamweaver and HTML/CSS coding are an apt metaphor for the difference between understanding and doing.

The background

The background is simple. We created a storyboard for a small website. Now we have to develop this website in Dreamweaver. I have never designed a website nor used Dreamweaver before. I have enough knowledge of HTML and XML to understand most of the code when I read it. I thought that knowledge, access to w3schools.com, and more online research would be sufficient. How naive!

The process

I am now on my third attempt. First, I tried to create the website from scratch. The most accurate description for this attempt is a big, sarcastic “LOL”. Anyway, my template was almost correct, but I was stalling, I did not see how to untangle the situation, and I had to expect as much trouble with every feature I created.

I proceeded simultaneously with my second attempt (building the site as a table) and third attempt (using the only vaguely similar Dreamweaver template available) to see which one would be more efficient to handle. The Dreamweaver template won. My template index.html is not perfect, but I can improve it later on. For now, it’s functional and I have to move on.

Still, I have to downgrade my ambitions for this project from my storyboard. I asked my brother for his opinion on my storyboard because he is experienced in coding and web design. He is that person who will answer your questions with an obnoxious “Oh! That’s so obvious! Just do [something that is definitely not obvious].” So, hearing him say “You couldn’t start easy, could you?” was a relief.

I have had this feeling that expectations for this project are too high. Designing the storyboard with skewed expectations of my abilities, the learning curve, and the usability of Dreamweaver set me up for a world of failure and frustration.

Understanding vs doing

Like with any language, understanding the HTML/CSS code of a website and “writing” a website are two massively different things. My usual strategies for learning to write in a language would broadly include:

Mastering the rules (grammar, syntax, keywords, etc.)
Reading as much as possible to increase my vocabulary and internalise a natural writing style
Writing content using what I have mastered and increasing complexity progressively

Based on my experience so far, coding is different from most languages I learnt before. There may be several, slightly different ways to code the same feature, but I find beginners have less freedom for creativity than with other languages.

For example, when in my third year of Russian, I had to write complex text analyses with a limited vocabulary, a pocket dictionary, and no Internet. As a beginner, I had to find ways to express myself with these limited resources. I had to rephrase my thoughts in simpler terms or terms that I could access. This is one of the hardest exercises I have ever done, but also one of the most useful for communication and learning in general.

I have tried to reproduce this process with this project without success despite access to incredible resources. I improve by small increments but reviewing how I solved each issue, I find that I solved my biggest issues through pure luck instead of identifying the root causes. I am trying to improve my skills by monitoring and analysing my progress, but I cannot consider luck as progress. A crucial piece is missing and I think it is a deeper understanding of HTML, CSS and web design rules, like how each coded feature interacts with the rest of the code. I would need a lot more time and overseen practice through e-learning courses for this.

Conclusion

No doubt the Dreamweaver has provided an opportunity for deeper learning, forcing me to evaluate and adapt my strategies. Unfortunately, the main strategy I can think of is to spend more time learning about the code and Dreamweaver through e-learning courses, but time is not an option anymore.

How much time would I need? My summer development project is coming up and I am supposed to build a much more complex website with Dreamweaver and WordPress. I have to keep in mind the overall development project and my priorities – the first is content design of a learning resource for the web, the second is WordPress hosting. The tool used is a secondary consideration. There’s the lesson of the Dreamweaver project.

This week’s lecture on the depth education model resonated with some worries I have been experiencing lately.

Since I started the MA, I have had more difficulty to make the instructional design aspect of the programme my own. I have been able to relate the “technical communication” part to my background, my expectations and my research into the industry so far. On the other hand, instructional design has required a shift in mindset. After all, my teaching experience is limited to tutoring other students in college and training new translation project managers.

I paid attention during lectures, I read the recommended contents as well as other resources, I found links and common patterns with technical communication practices. But I struggled to project myself in the role of instructional designer and to apply instructional design theories outside the framework of our assignments. I understood the theories, but I felt like I couldn’t go past the surface of these theories. And so, I felt unprepared to apply them.

The depth education model

With their brief comparison of deep, surface and achievement approaches to learning, Garrison and Cleveland-Innes (2005, p.137) provide a concise definition of the depth education model:

“Students employ varying degrees of three different approaches to learning: deep, surface, and achievement approaches. In a deep approach to learning, material is embraced and digested in the search for meaning. Surface learning employs the least amount of effort toward realizing the minimum required outcomes. Surface learners are motivated to complete the task rather than assimilate the learning. Achievement approaches to learning are reflected by an orientation to the external reward for demonstrating learning. Strategies for the achievement orientation focus on the activities that will result in the highest marks.”

In the blog post Why Deep Learning (2018), Elliot Seif argues that a deep approach to learning is more likely help students to develop the skills and attitudes required in the modern economy, like problem-solving, communication, thoughtfulness, leadership, etc. Both the teacher and the student are involved in enabling deep learning, but in my case, there was no doubt that I was responsible for my predicament.

During this week’s lecture, as we discussed a few of the attributes of surface learners and deep learners, and how assignments in our programme are designed to encourage deep learning, I thought about my proposal for our summer development project and how it was an obvious medium for deep learning. More importantly, I realised that I had already found a strategy to solve my problem while writing my proposal.

It’s all connected

See, I had to change course three times in the last three weeks of drafting my proposal. Long story short: my learning resource went from being a website to an e-learning course and back to a website, and I had to tweak my topic a couple of times. Flexibility and anxiety were certainly the keywords during those three weeks as I had to analyse and structure always-evolving contents in different ways: for an educational website and for an e-learning course. It wasn’t easy, but it was a great exercise in adaptation.

What is the link with the depth education model? Well, I felt like a surface learner of instructional design despite my best efforts to be a deep learner. In the last few weeks, however, with the proposal and thinking about what to include in my e-portfolio, I started imagining ways to present the same content on different platforms and for different audiences (e.g., how to get from a memo or a report to an e-learning course or a micro-learning video on the same topic).

I think this is the way for me to develop my instructional design abilities. I was just too caught up in everyday work and worries to be aware that I had already found a solution to this issue. Now, I need to learn how to apply this newly-found awareness to the design of deep learning activities for others.

References

Garrison, D.R. & Cleveland-Innes, M.(2005) “Facilitating Cognitive Presence in Online Learning: Interaction Is Not Enough”, American Journal of Distance Education, 19(3), 133-148 available: https://doi.org/10.1207/s15389286ajde1903_2.

Seif, E. (2018) ‘Why Deep Learning?’, ASCD In Service, 24 September, available: http://inservice.ascd.org/why-deep-learning/ [last access 23 February 2019].

Tag: deep learning

The Dreamweaver project