ADDIE Reflection

As I place the finishing touches on project A, and release her as a completed project, I am filled with feelings of satisfaction, relief, and gratitude. What a great accomplishment, to work through the steps of the ADDIE framework, and finalize an instructional project from concept to completion. My project was an instructional module and assessment tool, for the Texas Great Pyrenees Group, dog rescue, which offers adopters the opportunity for 24 hour access to the agency, to begin their quest into dog adoption. The goal of my client, was to create an environment where their adopters were better informed about the dogs needs, and give them the opportunity to see for themselves, if they can make the sacrifices needed, in order to adopt the large breed. My greatest takeaway from this project is detail! The ADDIE framework forces you to confront each of the obstacles that you are surely to encounter along the way, whether that be budget, technology, learning needs, or concept. By working directly with my client on a monthly or weekly basis, throughout the first 9 weeks of this semester, I’ve been able to probe deeper into the needs and deficiencies that the client has been experiencing, and was granted an opportunity to creatively offer them an alternate method of education to their potential adopters.

I admit that there were some weeks where I felt a bit repetitive in the process, and somewhat confused about how to make forward momentum in the project that week, but that was most likely due to the nature of my project, as a slightly irregular learning module. Going into project B, I feel that many of these steps will need to be consolidated in order to meet the deadline for a second project submission in 6 weeks. I have thoroughly enjoyed working with the client, and seeking out innovative ways to meet the project goals, while respecting budget constraints and seeking out various types of technology needed to deliver the product. It’s a satisfying feeling to launch a project, and feel the excitement of a satisfied client as they take it on a test run! My hopes are that this will be a useful tool that can be incorporated into the TGPR adoption process, and help them find successful matches for their beautiful dogs.

As I prepare to navigate into the beginning of project B, my thoughts have been drifting in and out of the ADDIE framework, in my mind, and how to approach this project. I would like to use a different technology for this project, in order to diversify my portfolio, and work through a different technology platform. I believe that efficiency will be vital to meeting the deadline, and after working through ADDIE from beginning to end, I’ll have a better grasp on the types of questions I need to ask the client, in order to drive the project successfully forward each week, in order to better facilitate the condensed timeline on project B. The part that really helped me organize my finished project, was the design document. Once I had that put together as a road map of goals, it really helped shape every decision made from that point forward. I initially planned on using Talent LMS for project A, but once I determined that it required a user to set up each ‘student’, this created a conflict for the client, and I was able to make the decision to change to an open platform Google slide document, that wasn’t restrictive to users, in order to better suit the clients’ needs. My weakest point in this process, was in my full grasp on the parameters of this project from the beginning of the semester. I went all the way to the implementation/ evaluation step before realizing that this was to become a fully working instructional module, and not just the design document. Moving forward into project B, I will certainly start integrating the creation of the electronic project, simultaneously with the design document, while working through ADDIE, so that I can test out the limitations of technology while I am designing. By doing this, I believe it will improve my efficiency and help focus my project on the correct solution from the beginning.