How dos one change a picture in here anyway? in word press it is so straight forward, but here I have this huge picture of myself! It's like I've built a cyber shrine to myself :)

If I don't figure out how to change it for a smaller one I will have to start my own cult!

I decided to try making an infographic for my first topic: Learning Theories. My master's program was focused entirely on learning theories and design principles, so learning theory is a new animal for me. Ithe material can seem quite dense, so the process of creating the infographic will help me (I hope) aument my understanding o the material by allowing me to internalize the concepts as i go about finding relationships, and trying to decide on an oganizational and hierarchical scheme.

This is just a mock up (wire frame), and i am almost certain that my final will probably not look anything like this one :)

By the way, I used an open source software app called "Pencil" for wire-framing. It is really easy to use and runs on multiple platforms. I recommend it to anyone looking for a free and easy to use wire-frame application.

Infographics Topics.

Not sure how much detail we need, so I'll list he topics, and if necessary I'll elaborate based on any feedback.

1 - The difference between Instructional Theory and Learning Theory. I think it would be useful to have a visual to represent  what instructional theories are and aren't, and how they differ from learning theories, and other types of theories.

2 - Complex Adaptive Systems. Complexity Sciences and Chaos Theory have become important for educators to understand learning environments and how to apply a systems view to educational situations. It would be useful to have an infographic that explains those concepts and shows the analogies in education.

Infographic

I have been following Nicholas Negroponte's One Laptop Per Child Program on and off over the last few years, and I thought this infographic was pretty good. I do like that the author chose a color scheme that is faithful to the color scheme used for OLPC's marketing materials and to the colors used for the designs of their laptops.

I thought they grouped elements very well, and the graphics are pleasant in appearance. I did take issue with the orientation of the graphic. It is very long on the vertical axis, and does not work well for display on computer screens since they use landscape orientation. The portrait orientation of the infographic would not necessarily be an issue if the infograohic is intended to be displayed in print as a poster, but because of the conflict of proportions it is like trying to fit the proverbial square peg in a round hole. It seems that the designer did not use empathic design principles to understand how the user would interact with the information of the infographic. http://pinterest.com/pin/178173728978784582/ 

Hi all, this is my second semester in the IST EdD program. I'm not much of a blogger, so I apologize for the plain look on this blog. 

My name is Manuel Ricardo Flores, but I go by my middle name, so you'll see me signing my name as "ricardo"

A bit about me; I have a bachelors in liberal studies with a minor in education, and a masters in learning design and technology from some fancy university. I currently work for Cañada College in Redwood City California as an instructional designer/distance education coordinator.

Although I work in a community college my interests are broad, and I try to challenge myself to work on projects that lie outside the scope of my current work. 

I love  a strong cup of coffee as much as I love listening to NPR. My hobbies include tennis, running, doodling, and building electronics projects.

I look forward to all the learning we will do together in this class!

ricardo