Website Building-Reflections on Self-Directed Learning.

Reflections

Reflections on Self-Directed Learning (SDL) in general

In general, SDL is the best thing that has happened as a result of the creation of the internet. The content and subject matter are seemingly endless. Anyone with a growth mindset and an internet connection can train a pet, learn about philosophical ideas, fix a washing machine or build a website. SDL utilizes adult learners’ natural propensity to be Problem-Based Learners (Kurt 2020)

What a wonderful world we live in.

The challenge is to have the necessary skills to properly assess the training in terms of adequacy to solve the problem presented by the learner.

The instruction needs to be:

  • Specific to the task or problem to be learned
  • The instruction quality needs to be adequate to achieve one’s requirements.
  • The technology needs to work and be understood

The learner also needs to be active.

One can not discuss self-directed learning without mentioning Knowles’s Andragogy and later Garrison’s Self-Directed Learning (SDL). In general, their theories indicate that learners need to set goals, find resources, create, plan and evaluate their own results. To do this, the learner is best to be self-motivated and use technology well. (Valamis, 2022)

It is essential to analyze if the training meets your needs. It doesn’t take long to go down the proverbial rabbit hole looking for the specific teachings for the issue that requires solving. Alternatively, if one can’t find the exact training they need, the learner needs to seek out generalized training that can be adapted to their needs. This, inevitably, is the issue with SDL. It has been my experience that most SDL training is behaviouristic in its approach to instruction. The training typically follows Skinners Operant Conditioning: doing this will create this positive result; don’t do this, you will not get the desired results. (Culatta 2022) With this type of instruction, if one’s goals do not precisely match the training provided, the learner may not gain the required outcomes they had set for themselves. If one spends the time upfront to research the training or if it’s complicated, multiple training that best suit the requirements of the learner.

Reflections on Carri Dils Build a Site with WordPress (2022)

The behaviouristic approach that Dils took was excellent in teaching the basics of WordPress. Dils utilizes Vygotsky’s scaffolding methods setting small manageable steps in order to provide the desired website outcome. (Serhat, 2020) Had I stuck to the course, I would have a fully functioning website, but it would not have met my needs. Consequently, I deviated from the course without the knowledge to fully implement the site’s goals.

The course developed my knowledge as advertised. I am comfortable with my ability to do the essential skills. But there are a few disconnects. I have not mastered WordPress. If we place my learning into the illustration below by Serhat (2022) of Vygotsky’s construct of the Zone of Proximal Development, my knowledge level is clearly in the middle

Zone of Proximal Development: a bullseye graphic. What I can do in centre, What i can do with help in middle cercle, What I can't do.
Image: Serhat 2022 Zone of Proximal Development

There is a disconnect between what I want to do and what I have learned to do. I am in the Zone of Proximal Development. At this point, my constructivist friends Piaget, Vygotsky, Bandura, and Dewey, would suggest that I need some social interaction. I would agree with them as I need to find a mentor, teacher or knowledgeable friend to assist in achieving the last few pieces to achieve my goal.

Conclusion
Learning Process
Introduction
Learning Reflections
Conclusion
References

Website Development: A Step-by-Step Demonstration

The following is a chronicle of my fun and frustrating journey as I pursued my goal of creating a website.

I began my learning journey by signing up for a WordPress account and playing around with it. After deciding to pay $80.00 for a personal account and the accompanying logo package, I checked out. It was late in the day, so I shut down and went to bed. A few days passed, and I went back to it. I logged in. It didn’t work; I tried again, didn’t work.

I was stressed, so I went back to the beginning and started with the course WordPress.com Essential Training – Build a site with WordPress.com(2022). As every good training should, it starts with the chapter “introduction.

The training had me start by opening WordPress and logging in (you’re getting ahead of me, you have to wait for the rest of the story) I logged in using a new username and password and started the course.

The course is well structured, and its layout starts with a walkthrough of the administrative areas, including how to set up your profile and adjust your account, security, privacy and notification settings. It also has tabs that provide suggestions on how the instructor would set things up and why.

I completed these tasks and moved on to chapter 3, which included an overview of the behind-the-scenes setting, including configuring general site settings, optimizing site performance, writing settings, site discussion settings, reading settings, and hosting configuration.

So far, so good. There is a multitude of settings, but with the instructor Carrie Dils easy to listen to the voice along with a thorough explanation of what and why these settings are there, I’m moving forward. I can stop and reverse the videos so I can see what’s going on if I miss something. It is logical but time-consuming, taking almost an hour on settings in addition to the time required to go back and understand some of the pieces, so this section took about two days of fitting things in when I could. I’m finally where I want to be right from the beginning, creating content.

Creating content

Chapter 4 in the course is when we start making content. I started by following the course but then jumped to setting up my website, starting on the Homepage and Safety Jobs Section, which aligned with my learning goals.

     I realize that I have been doing all the setups on the free site, and I need to get signed into the account I had already paid for with its higher functionality. I sent a message to WordPress Support within a day, and they sorted out the problem. I had mistakenly used one of my other e-mail addresses as the login without realizing it. With work, school and personal email addresses, it is easy to mix up which address is used for which sign-ins.  I try to block time to work on one thing at a time, but when things get busy, I end up putting out fires in several different areas of my life, creating cognitive overload (Sweller, 2011), and mistakes happen. The next stop is transferring the completed work to the free version. I compare the settings between the old and new sites, switching and toggling as I go. I realize that I am understanding more as I re-do things and return to the training video to confirm the settings; once the setup is to my liking, time to move the content over.

     This was also challenging; the way the website functions is in functional blocks.  When I tried to move the content over, it didn’t go well.  The formatting was lost as was the function of the blocks.  I read in the help section that I could “point” the paid site to the unpaid one. Another approach is an import and export function, or I could simply copy and paste the material, which seemed the easiest. I first tried the Ctrl-A Ctrl-C (Yes, I have a PC) approach. Time for Plan B. I switched things to the HTML view, copied that, and transferred it into the site. BINGO, that worked.  I also tried to write some of the content in a word processor, an I had the same issues.  The copy and paste function did not play well with the functions of the blocks, and the website reverted from block mode to classic mode. The transition of modes leads to further formatting issues. Once this was discovered, I completed everything within WordPress.

Back on track 

The course then walked me through how WordPress displays the content I wanted to use. I developed the website relatively quickly, and the site came together into something I’m proud of. There are some functions that I found I did not understand. The course did discuss many concepts and showed basic functioning. However, I wanted more functionality than what the course described.   The following is what I would have liked to see. 

The block layout margins do not necessarily align, and there was no clear explanation of why.  

 

There was some confusion regarding
the blocks, as there are over 150 different blocks, and understanding their functionality is daunting as they are not titled. No explanation is provided in the WordPress editor, which is limiting.  The course did point to WordPress documentation on what the blocks do.  

Image: Build a site with WordPress.com. (n.d.).

Another essential concept is the use of categories and tags, which the course describes well. 

Build a site with WordPress.com. (n.d.).

 

 

However, I struggled to correlate the use of categories with the appropriate blocks to produce my desired result. I wanted to use the categories to place updates as posted content in specific parts of the website. But I am only able to produce a link. The course did not outline how to do this. It is unclear if this is a more advanced function or if WordPress has this ability.

Despite the challenges I encountered, I understand the essentials of WordPress.  The course provided an excellent starting point for creating a WordPress website. If I had followed it step by step without experimenting with different WordPress functionalities, I would have had an excellent basic website/blog. The course accomplished its stated goal with the rigger and detail that I expected.  

Demonstration of what I have Learned

I invite you to look at the rest of my website to see what I have learned.  Despite the issues expressed above, I’m excited to share my results.  I have the essential groundwork and structure.  Moving forward, I need to build content, and I will continue to improve the site as time allows.   Overall, I have a few tweaks to make, but I  have a site that will meet my goals.

 

Please check out the rest of the site.  

humphrey-learning.com or hit the home page button on the top to see what I’ve accomplished. 

Follow the next link for my reflections on the self-directed learning process.

 

Self-Directed Learning Reflections

 

 

Learning Process

Introduction

Learning Reflections

Conclusion

References

 

Build my personal website Process -Tools

Choose the Authoring Tool

After determining the website contents , the next step was to decide how best to start the process. I googled website authoring tools and was overwhelmed by the 17,300,000 options.

Screenshot of google search 17,300,000 results

(Image Google screenshot, 2022)

Instead of using Google, I gravitated to the most scientific methodology ever; I drove past a street sign advertising Web Development using WordPress and looked up the program.

According to wpbeginner.com,(2022), WordPress was created in 2003 and powers 43% of all websites on the internet. It begins as a free service and provides some basics such as block editing and templates, but as you progress, you discover the paid versions offer more and more amenities, called plugins, which make your life easier. Before deciding which course I should enroll in; I reasoned that I should begin where I wanted to end up. I decided to pay for a personal site.

Choose the Learning Tool

I discovered that there are a dizzying number of options available to learn how to best use WordPress. I settled on using a LinkedIn course linked below:

WorkPress.com Essential Training – Build a site with WordPress.com.

I also, at times, used the help function within WordPress.

I chose LinkedIn training for a few reasons:

  1.  Price: I have a complimentary subscription to the Linkedin Learning platform.
  2. Target Audience: It is advertised as Essential training for beginners.
    This matched my knowledge level.
  3.  Reviews: A rating from 269 people of 4.7/5, and when reading the comments,
    they indicated that it was perfect for beginners and “easy to follow”
    (Whartion-Brown, 2022)
  4. Does what it says: After scanning the course chapters, it provides both lessons on the setup of the site and how to add different content types.
  5. Instructor Presence: Listening to Carrie Dils the instructor, I found the instructional presence inviting and knowledgeable. 

The Learning Process Step by Step

Learning Process

Introduction

Learning Reflections

Conclusion

References

Website – Process Tools

Website Selection

I googled the best software to create a website and become quite overwhelmed with the choice. I settled on the software that I had been watching for a while; WordPress.

WordPress offered a few things that I look for in software. The first is longevity according to wpbeginner (2022) The software has been around since 2003, and 43% of all websites on the internet are powered by WordPress.

I also knew that it was expandable to allow for retail sales allowing if, in the future, I wish to provide distance training that I would be able to do so.

Self-Directed Training Selection

Once I confirmed the details of what I needed to learn, I was finally ready to select the training requirements. I did a quick needs analysis, determining I needed training that could provide me with basic knowledge as I have no knowledge of how to use WordPress. The following were my requirements.

Base level knowledge from getting to know what WordPress can do to managing reader interaction and where I can go for more instruction.

To find this, I went to Linkedin learning and found WordPress.com Essential Training Build a site with wordPress.com