Instructional Design

Matt on February 1, 2017

My colleagues and I were excited to present our eportfolio design to the participants at the Re-Bundling Higher Education: High Impact ePortfolio Practice Conference at Guttman Community College.  The full title for our presentation was “ePortfolio as Book-Ends in a Transformative General Education Program.”   Check out the slides here and below are some photos.  One of my faculty […]

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Matt on January 23, 2014

In 1997 I spent a year teaching English as a second language in Japan. Throughout the first semester my students would ask me, “How can I improve my English quickly?” As a young teacher, my response was vague and revolved around working hard and practicing everyday. I was trying to learn Japanese myself and I […]

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Matt on January 23, 2014

Early in my career as an instructional designer, I studied Dick and Cary’s “Systematic Design of Instruction.” I still rely on its simple procedural framework to define for the uninitiated which steps should be tackled first. As a new designer working in a corporate consulting firm where rapid meant better, I learned Michael Allen’s “Guide […]

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Matt on January 22, 2014

Mercy College is a mid-size comprehensive college in the New York metropolitan area. We are members of the Next Generation Learning Challenges grant to produce Open Educational Resources (OER). Our institution provides an affordable education to a community of students who are the first generation to attend college. Providing low cost and high quality OER […]

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Matt on January 22, 2014

I was asked recently to summarize my technology experience. It turned into this inventory: On a daily basis I use a MacBook Pro, an HP Probook, an iPhone 5, and an iPad 2 (retina display). I regularly use a Flipcamera, a Canon T3i SLR camera, a Canon – VIXIA HD camcorder, and a TASCAM handheld […]

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Matt on January 20, 2014

The Online Learning department at Mercy College launched a 20-minute student orientation for the Blackboard learning management system. The orientation required all students to watch an instructional video and then practice what they learned in an interactive exercise. There are four segments, each with one video and interactivity. Students were blocked from taking their classes […]

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Matt on October 10, 2013

The head librarian at our Bronx campus asked me a favor.  With her as executive producer, I played director and editor on this fun intro video for the Bronx Campus:

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Matt on July 28, 2012

Below is a digital story I created called “Learning to Listen.”  On the surface, I decided to tell it because I could use it as an example of the kind of story that my future students would create. But personally, I decided on this story because the moment, when my colleague John gave me the compliment “Your […]

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Matt on December 6, 2011

A group of Mercy College colleagues and I went to UMass for a NERCOMP Special Interest Group (SIG) conference on Digital Storytelling.  My piece consisted of telling the story of how a few people at the college that were interested in storytelling championed a major project across almost every school at the college.  It was a real […]

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It began with a meeting, well a gathering of educators.  The Faculty Learning Community never has a meeting, it’s a ‘doing’.  In this gathering, we highlighted Digital Storytelling as a kind of authentic assessment that could replace a traditional research paper in the Freshmen Seminar course.  This lead to a strong partnership with myself and […]

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In Dec. 2011, I did a presentation telling the story or ‘Evolution’ of digital storytelling at Mercy College.  But about 8 months prior, I had a chance to practice telling this story at the NERCOMP annual meeting in Providence, RI.  I was going to be on a panel moderated by none other than Bryan Alexander, […]

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In June 2010, I joined a team from Mercy College that made a cross-country trip to LA for the Faculty Learning Community Facilitator and Developer Institute.  We were all prepared to become learning community facilitators.  Each year, Milton Cox and Laurie Richlin, offer this intensive, week-long, institute in a community oriented environment. The conclusion of institue inculded […]

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Matt on April 26, 2010

After hearing great things about the site http://prezi.com I finally had an opportunity to put it to the test. My favorite part is the non-linear brainstorming. I was able to jot down ideas then try to connect them. I realized I missed some point and could easily add them later. It has some limits and […]

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Matt on April 2, 2010

Each semester the faculty at Mercy College gather together for a full day conference, we call it Faculty Seminar Day.  The Faculty Center for Teaching and Learning, a faculty-driven center, selects the theme, organizes the event, and delivers a highly valued service to the college community. The Spring 2012 began our close relationship with Melissa Peet […]

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I filmed and produced the following for the March 16th ‘all-hands’ faculty seminar day.  Although only 3 minutes, all were happy with the impact.

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Matt on March 1, 2010

I’ve been playing around with Slide Share (http://slideshare.net).  In the embed below, you can see a presentation I uploaded for the Faculty Learning Community Institute.  Draw back to this method is that video is not supported within slideshare.  Prezi handles video, but it’s not powerpoint. Here is my presentation stream on SlideShare.

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Matt on April 28, 2009

On Friday, I was fortunate enough to attend Duke’s CIT Showcase, with keynote speaker Jim Groom.  His approach to blogging was something I’ve been thinking about for the past few months.  It’s great to see that I wasn’t the only one and that he’s been thinking about it for a number of years. In a […]

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Matt on April 4, 2009

Design Philosophy: I love to K.I.S.S. (Keep It Simple, Stupid) Summary of Experience: 5 years experience in instructional design and e-learning courseware development 5 years as highly creative teacher immersed in a variety of international cultures Proven ability to produce e-learning courseware in a deadline-driven environment by managing virtual teams across international time zones and […]

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Matt on April 3, 2009

Three of my favorite courses are listed below, with a small screen shot, and goal statement. For details, follow the links to earlier posts. Course Title: SATCOM and the Battle-Smart Warrior Goal: Teach new naval officers the importance of satellite communications (SATCOM) Check out the SATCOM Details post. Course Title: AED Refresher Training Goal: Refresher […]

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Matt on March 25, 2009

Course Title: SATCOM and the Battle Smart Warrior Interactivity: We created a branching activity where the learner could select his/her own path through the content. The animated character delivers a conversational style lecture, asks questions, and makes jokes. Interactivity: We designed a game for the SATCOM learner to complete four different missions. When a mission […]

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Matt on March 15, 2009

Automatic External Defibrillator (AED) The picture below shows the first scene in a complex activity. Learners watch a video of an emergency scenario unfolding. Several times during the video, there are critical decisions to be made by the emergency team members. At each of these decision points, the learner is asked to make a choice. […]

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Matt on March 10, 2009

Cleanroom Hazards This course was an introduction to Lab Safety at a semiconductor manufacturer. Working with a team of artists, we created a typical cleanroom common to semiconductor manufacturers. There are 6 “hotspots” or areas that the learner can navigate to, discover the hazards, then return to the main lab. One hotspot is highlighted in […]

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Matt on March 4, 2009

I served as Lead Instructional Designer for the following courses: Client: Applied Materials Application Lab Access Course 1 Application Lab Access Course 2 Client: BOC Edwards CELLAWISE: Safe Cellar Management Gas Delivery Equipment Training Medical Gas Safety Client: Chevron Texaco Electrical Safety Training (NFPA 70E) Electrical Safety, Qualified Person Client: Cisco Systems AED Refresher Training […]

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Matt on February 11, 2009

Here some simple rules I follow when creating presentation materials.  Powerpoint can be death, so use it wisely: Keep It Simple: Use words, not sentences Keywords make the point Speaker fills in the details Less is more. Use Headlines in the titles: Key words explain the slide Titles should summarize slides Bullets: 4~6 Bullets per […]

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