About
Alex Davis is a musician, audio/video recording engineer, and instructional designer currently working in Greenville, NC as East Carolina University School of Music’s Coordinator of Audio Services. His passion for equipping learners with the tools to wield arts technology has driven him to earn his M.Ed in Learning Design, & Technology from University of North Carolina Charlotte.
Alex’s newly launched YouTube series, Studio Play (2022) serves as a music creation & production technology playground where he freely moves from whim to whim and narrates his process in an unstructured masterclass-style workflow. Unscheduled episodes most often occur in the middle of the night.
Philosophy
Project-Based Learning
I believe that the future of fine arts and communication technology education lies in meaningful experiences that learners create for themselves in pursuit of project goals. These assigned and self-generated project-based learning experiences, modeled after the instructional design philosophy of problem based learning, present students with real-world challenges that enable learners to creatively pursue tools and techniques as solutions for those challenges.
To truly empower learners, we need to equip them with the ability to align project goals with measurable objectives and assessment criteria by which the success of objectives will be measured. Using the “guide by your side” methodology, instructors simply help students craft that vision around industry standards of quality and affirm and/or redirect what students discern as best practices for that project goal. Once this vision is clearly established, learners and instructors can identify what needs to learn in order to achieve those goals. This process provides a framework for life-long pursuit and fulfillment of vision. I believe not only equips learners with the most relevant tools to accomplish their goals, but enriches their lives as they feel the intrinsic value of accomplishment.
Gamification
Learners want control of their learning journey. Gamification provides us key tools to provide this agency:
Choose Your Own Adventure: By creating responsive digital learning tools, instruction can meet learners where they are and inform instructors (through tracking data) on what content attracts (click counts), motivates (ongoing interactions), challenges (time spent & further explanations pursued), and integrated into the learners’ toolboxes (learner-evaluated efficacy).
Topic Based XP (experience points): University-created courses, workshops, projects, alongside community-created and learner-created projects all offer key experiences for learners to develop their skills. Rather than simply awarding students credits on courses completed, breaking XP into topic-based categories allows students to “level up” production skills across multiple course offerings and projects therein, extra-curricular projects, technical work-study experiences, and more.
Service: Learners who take the time to help others (by developing topical instructional content) are awarded both more XP for those topics and leadership XP.
Stat Blocks: As learners build XP in various categories they create for themselves stat blocks that provide vastly more information about their expertise and interests than a degree. These stat blocks help learners track their progress and provide a scoped out view of how these overlapping projects can build and develop complimentary skills. From an executive production level, these stat blocks show the skill sets of the learner population at any given time which allows for the development and implementation of large scale productions that utilize a wide variety of skills.
Micro Credentialing
As topic-based XP is gained and learners develop stat blocks in related topics, micro credentials provides an effective way to measure a complete group of related topical knowledge. This allows stat blocks to overlap and combine in unique ways reflecting student experience and interest, while also providing a way to quickly identify capabilities to peers, project-leads, and future employers.
Projects
Click to play SSSSS
Click to play the good frame game!
Instructional Designs
Creating A Gamified Project Based Learning Environment for Fine Art and Communication Technology Micro-Credentialing - ELDT 6492: Capstone of Instructional Design
State Society for Respiratory Care Membership - EIST 6170: Human Performance Technology
Training Recording Graduate Assistants - EIST 6110: Instructional Design
Additional Instructional Design Content
Resume
Next Actions
Rest
It’s time for me to “sharpen the saw” as Steven Covey would say in 7 Habits of Highly Effective people.
Create instructional video “ecosystem”
Since I have started at ECU I have made numerous instructional videos and many of them are already outdated because of changing recording systems, computer operating systems, interfaces, etc. What I would like to do is utilize the project based learning environment for students in the course and graduate assistants who would like to earn extra XP and leadership XP to re-create create instructional videos using basically the same instructional design, but updating the recordings to be accurate for the new interface. This would give them a chance to “teach” the concepts and also to update the instructional materials.
design Projects in-progress
Live Streaming with ATEM ISO Extreme SDI (panopto)
The Gamified Project Based Learning Experience (instructional game/outline in Articulate Storyline)
Development projects in-progress
MUSC 2280/6395
Project 4b - Vertical Editing & Comping
Additional Interactive Panopto Assignments
EQ
Loudness & Dynamics
Reverb, Delay, & FX
Implimentation projects in-progress
Gamified Stat Blocking for Graduate Assistant Team
Extra 25% for training
50% for shadowing