ACE recently launched a graduate assistantship for students in our instructional design, instructional technology or educational technology programs. In this guest blog post, Erin Kemps, one of our first graduate assistants, shares her experience and how it completely transformed her career goals.
The new ACE graduate assistantship program is one of the best opportunities the college offers. It allows students to work closely with ACE’s very own Training and Development Team to create online microlearning courses and presentations for ACE faculty. Over the course of five weeks, graduate assistants use a wide variety of digital tools to bolster their skills in course authoring and digital media presentation through real-life experience in the field. And for me, it turned out to be a program that would open my eyes to new and exciting career aspirations.
During my first meeting with the ACE team and the other graduate assistants, I was tasked with choosing from a list of training opportunities that the team wishes to produce for ACE staff and faculty. I was also given an option to come up with my own training topic as long as I could explain why that subject or category was one that should be addressed.
I chose to make my course on productivity apps and how they can help people better manage their day. Honestly, I surprised myself by how much I enjoyed researching the latest and greatest tools out there – some of which I now use myself – and putting that information together in a clear, concise way meant to teach others on the subject. While my previous course assignments had given me a good understanding of digital tools like Rise 360, this project allowed me to dig deeper and learn the inner workings of the platform, taking my digital skills to the next level. In addition to using Articulate 360, Rise 360 and Storyline 360, I got access to Vyond, which I used to create my own animated videos to enhance my training course.
Along the way, the ACE Training and Development Team provided excellent support, answering questions and providing a multitude of resources. They gave us guidance on everything from how to make image backgrounds transparent to some of the more intricate workings of Vyond and Articulate 360.
By the end of my graduate assistantship, I had made a complete, polished training course that I’m proud to have in my portfolio. (You can see it for yourself here.) I can say with absolute certainty that participating in the graduate assistant program has been one of the highlights of my time here in the M.Ed in Educational Technology program. It gave me a new direction for my career and having experience in one of the tech world’s leading course-authoring platforms is invaluable. If you get the opportunity to participate in the graduate assistantship program, I suggest you jump on it!
If you are an ACE student and you are interested in applying for the graduate assistantship, please complete the graduate assistantship application form.
