week 1 reflection

State what networking communities you have chosen to join.

• I am already a member of the eLearning Guild.  I am now connected to OLC via LinkedIn.  I also joined the IDC on LinkedIn and signed up to receive their newsletter.

State your learning goals for the networking activities (skill/competency, learning trend, and learning/instructional theories).

• Skill/competency: Apply research and theory to the discipline of instructional design. 
• Learning trend: High-velocity learning
• Learning/instructional theories: situated learning theory (Lave) and information processing theory

Briefly describe your interactions this week, including what specific learning goals you had for the week and how you attempted to achieve them.

• My goals for this week were to just get acclimated to learning theories and models.  I feel like this week was a good introduction for me in learning more about them and starting to see how they might interact with each other and content.  

What did you learn from your interactions and how can you use that learning in the future?

• Darryl's question to me about the cultural context in learning theory really prompted me to look at what theories might try to address that aspect as well.  It was also nice to know that other IDs also feel weak in the area of theories and that I'm not alone in that.
• Andrew's post and concept map showed me how the theories can really flow into each other in a sensible, organic way.

What are your impressions of the learning communities you've chosen to engage in?

• I find them really valuable as helpful tools for articles and research.  I know there is also a lot of opportunity for networking, although I have not yet engaged them in that way.

What will you do differently next week to improve your connections to the community and/or achieve your chosen learning goals?

• I want to continue to adjust my concept map to show more of the overlap between theories and to incorporate more of the flow between them.