Erik Van Dusen’s ETEC 565 ePortfolio

Summary of My Flight Plan

Seems as though it was just yesterday when I posted my flight plan to my ePortfolio. Truth be told, nearly three months have zoomed by and now it is time to reflect on my ETEC 565 experience. It might make sense to first re-introduce myself. My name is Erik Van Dusen. I’ve been teaching for nine years in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada. My teaching assignments have included both Kindergarten and grade eight. Two years ago, I became interested in educational technology and set out to find a graduate program that would help me to better understand how to integrate technology into my teaching practice. I was lucky enough to stumble upon the MET program at UBC and, after two years of studies, was excited to see ETEC 565 added to the course list because it seemed most applicable to my learning goals and career development.

At the beginning of the course, I set three major goals as part of my flight path. They are as follows:

1. Develop skills in evaluating and selecting technology tools and multimedia and assessing their potential benefits for teaching and learning so I don’t fall into the trap of simply using technology for its cool factor.
2. Learn to develop units or courses using a Learning Management System (LMS) to allow me to take advantage of their affordances and to shell my units so they can be used from year to year, perhaps even by colleagues.
3. Learn how to incorporate video-conferencing into my units of study so I can go beyond the walls of my classroom in order to invite experts to connect with my learners.

The ETEC 565 readings, toolkit and module learning activities, resources, along with the course community, allowed me to achieve my goals. I now feel more prepared to select and evaluate technology tools to be used or not used in my teaching practice. I think being introduced to several critical frameworks for helping to select and evaluate technology was most helpful in this case. My favorite is still the SECTIONS framework (Bates & Poole, 2003), something that I’ll likely use for a long time and pass on to my colleagues. By using Moodle for several assignments in ETEC 565, I have gained a great deal of LMS skills. I feel fairly confident that I could use Moodle to develop some courses to use with my students. While I completed only two modules of my Moodle course in additional to a quiz and a splash page, I want to try to find some time this summer to finish the unit and test-drive it in September. Regarding my third goal about video-conferencing, I think I’m ready to take the plunge! I played around quite a bit with Skype during and after a toolkit activity and I really appreciated seeing Adobe Connect in action during a Moodle demonstration because my school division’s technology consultant mentioned it as a nice video-conferencing option. In the end, I couldn’t be happier about the strides I’ve taken to address my learning needs in ETEC 565!

My E-Learning Toolkit Experience

I loved the E-learning toolkit activities. What an excellent opportunity to bridge the technical skills and theory required to integrate emerging E-learning tools. This is, in my humble opinion a feature missing from most university courses. The E-learning toolkit component provides a certain level of authenticity and an opportunity for hands-on learning. Kudos to the ETEC 565 course designer(s)! Each toolkit page hosted theory, examples, resources, and a chance to explore the tool first hand.

I completed every toolkit activity available to me, though I did not always post a reflection on my experiences. I learned a great deal, even in areas in which I believed I was quite knowledgeable. A great example of this was when I explored the toolkit activities for web design and HTML authoring. While I’ll be the first to admit that I need help in the area of HTML coding, I have a great deal of experience developing websites using WYSIWYG editors. I was amazed to learn that my website designs have many flaws and shortcomings. Some of my websites could even be describe as “websites that sucks”. Now that I have some training, I can address my website woes in the future and pass some of new knowledge onto my students and colleagues.

Speaking of other people, I am ashamed to admit that I have not once taken into consideration making my websites usable by people of all abilities and disabilities. The toolkit page on accessibility was another valuable learning experience for me. My websites and learning designs do not meet the guidelines published Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. Again, a real eye-opener and now it is up to me to apply my new knowledge within my teaching practice.

What I think is interesting is the fact that the E-Learning toolkit activities did so much to help me achieve my aforementioned course goals. All three of my goals would likely not have been achieved without the opportunity to explore, create, and build. Now that ETEC 565 is coming to an end, I am hoping that I can still access the E-learning toolkit resources. Furthermore, I’d love to be able to share this resource with my colleagues!

Self-Assessment Using SECTIONS Model

Students

Generally speaking MET students are technology savvy and willing to make their work public, at least to fellow students and instructors. I am no different and therefore I have found WordPress to be an appropriate technology selection given that it allows me to easily post my work, view the work of others, and lets me engage in the type of reflective practice that seems so important in the learning process. Although it would be rare for a MET student to have a lack of technology skills, it is possible and in my opinion, WordPress provides a fairly gentle learning curve. On the other hand, there is plenty of opportunity for the more experienced web designer to put their skills to use and create flashy dimensions to their blog pages.

Ease of Use and Reliability

Like I’ve already mentioned, WordPress is not a difficult tool to use. The interface is user-friendly and mistakes can be edited very quickly. The auto-save function saves plenty of headaches and adding media such as images, sound, and video is easy. With the embed codes provided by many multimedia sites, adding media is almost seamless. As a visitor to my ETEC 565 blog, you will be treated to easy navigation and an appealing presentation layout. Interaction is also simple and clear as leaving a comment to a post can be done with one click of a button and some keyboard strokes. The set up of the blog was easy as well, although UBC Blogs had already done some of the work for me. Outside of ETEC 565, I’ve used WordPress with the same amount of success and reliability. I’ve never experienced and technical difficulties or glitches.

Costs

You can’t beat free! Hosting content is free with WordPress. Likewise, visitors can also access your content for free if you’ve given them permission. This is certainly an attractive drawing card for institutes looking for an affordable blog hosting option. I should mention, however, that there might be costs associated if institutions want to host their own WordPress platform on their own servers.

Teaching and Learning

In my opinion the ETEC 565 blogs work best with constructivist teaching approaches. When you look at my ePortfolio, you loads of self-reflection and it is apparent that the assignments were very open-ended and learner-centred. If you spend a few minutes viewing several of the ETEC 565 blogs, you will discover that each student came up with unique products and there is a wide variety of ways used to present their work. Each site looks slightly different and yet none of them are right or wrong.

Interactivity

I am thinking to earlier in the course when we learned about Anderson’s (2008) assertions that effective course design should include opportunities for interactions to take place between teachers, students, and content. Certainly, these types of interactions are supported and encouraged through the use my ETEC 565 blog. I’ve been visiting the blogs hosted my ETEC 565 classmates to view their work and to leave the occasional comment or question. I’d like to think others are viewing my blog once in a while and I’ve been fortunate enough to read some of their comments regarding my work.

Organization

If I were to use an ePortfolio approach in my classroom, I’d first have to clear my plans with the school administrator, parents, and likely my division’s educational technology consultant. Their approval and consent are required to do almost anything involving online interactions. Access to computers during the school day would have to be increased and this would mean purchasing more machines or restructuring the computer cart schedule. A positive change, or benefit, that would result from using Portfolios would be the amount of paper saved by hosting materials online.

Novelty

WordPress has been around since 2003 and is now the largest self-hosted blogging service in the entire world. Although online tools come and go relatively quickly, it would appear as though WordPress is here to stay for a while. During the past semester or two, I’ve noticed many other MET students and instructors making use of WordPress to host ePortfolios like the ones created for ETEC 565.

Speed

Assuming that one has ready created and designed the content for their course or blog, mounting the materials could be done in as little as a few days. Remember that editing a WordPress pages is possible by cutting and pasting from another source. In ETEC 565, the tasks that took time were the assignments themselves, as opposed to the quick mounting of the finished products to my ETEC 565 blog. Once posted, material is very to edit and modify.

Next Steps in Terms of My Practice in Educational Technology

As I have already mentioned, my first step is to apply what I learned in ETEC 565 into my regular classroom duties. I’d love to have my Moodle course ready to go by September and I can’t wait to start using Skype to bring in some live presenters from abroad. I also feel that it is incumbent upon me to share my new skills and knowledge with other educators who are interested in ways to integrate technology across the curriculum. I can do this casually by offering to help out around my school, but I can also take a more formal approach and offer a professional development session or two during the year at the division/provincial level. To really show off my news skills, maybe I can look into designing a workshop that I can deliver using Adobe Connect. To my knowledge, online professional development workshops have never been offered within my school division; I would be the first!

During the next school year, I’ll still be very busy finishing up my MET program. While I have only three more courses to complete, I am somewhat nervous about being out of the MET loop because I want to keep my knowledge of E-learning technologies current and I want to stay aware of cutting-edge teaching practices. To this end, I think it is crucial that I stay connected to the MET program, instructors, and students through Twitter, Facebook, and the MET Ning group. Additionally, through ETEC 565, I have put together a nice set of tools and skills that I must keep up to date and sharpened. It wouldn’t make much sense to become complacent and let my tools rust over a time of inactivity. Best to take care of new tools and skills, use them often, upgrade them when necessary, and remember to always put them in a safe place. A safe place just might be within my ETEC 565 ePortfolio or by using a social-bookmarking site.

Looking down the road a little, I have aspirations of one day working outside of the classroom in a leadership position. My dream would be to be in a role where I could influence and help others to integrate technology into teaching and learning and show them the importance of doing so. While I don’t believe that technology is the sole cure for all of education’s woes, I strongly believe it make learning more meaningful, relevant, and engaging for our students.

References

Anderson, T. (2008). Towards a Theory of Online Learning. In: Anderson, T. & Elloumi, F. Theory and Practice of Online Learning. Athabasca University. Accessed online 8 July 2009 http://www.aupress.ca/books/120146/ebook/02_Anderson_2008_Anderson-Online_Learning.pdf

Bates, A.W. & Poole, G. (2003). Chapter 4: a Framework for Selecting and Using Technology. In Effective Teaching with Technology in Higher Education: Foundations for Success. (pp. 77-105). San Francisco: Jossey Bass Publishers.

Please below my first attempt at my comprehensive multimedia inventory. At first, I slightly misunderstood the assignment and created a generic list of multimedia resource sites from where I could take images, audio, and video. Check it out:

Multimedia Inventory Draft 1

After discussing my inventory with a few group members, they recommended that I share information on the specific multimedia resources I used for my LMS thus far. Below is some information in response to their recommendation.

1. Youtube videos: In order to set the context for my LMS novel study, I wanted to share some awesome videos from 1960s America. The video clips are mostly commercials, which were purposefully selected to stimulate dialogue about 1960s American culture. Locating the files was very easy and came at no cost. I simply cut and pasted the URL links into my content module, a process that took about 2 minutes per video. Copyright has been cleared.

Here are the links to these videos:
Music
The Beatles Successful pop and rock band and mentioned in the novel.
Elvis Presley The king of rock and roll.

Toys
Chatty Cathy Doll Commercial
Frisbee and Hula-Hoops Commercial
Slinky Commerical

Soft Drinks
Coca-Cola Commercial
Pepsi-Cola Commercial

Cars
1966 Ford Mustang Commercial
1965 Corvair Commercial

Movie Stars
Paul Newman Famous actor mentioned frequently in the novel.
Paul Newman and James Dean Rare footage of the two during a screen test

2. Images from Flickr Creative Commons: In an attempt to make my modules more visually appealing and engaging, I searched Flickr CC for some images relevant to my novel study. I also found a great image to use on my splash page! Again the process of cutting and pasting the files took only several minutes and the images are licenced under Creative Commons. There is no cost to use Flickr Creative Commons. Here are the links to the images I used:

Old School Coke Machine

1960s Domestic Interior

Harbor Blvd. 1963

The Outsiders Splash Pic

I think I’ve finally finished my course requirements as they apply to the LMS, although I’m not sure a LMS is really ever finished. When I first learned that ETEC 565 students would be required to create a LMS I was both excited and nervous. Excited because I think the use of LMS in education is on the rise and it would makes sense that as a person interested in advancing my career in the area of education technology, I’d do well to develop my Moodle skills. Nervous because learning a new technology is seldom easy and requires a great time commitment. In the end though, I found that using Moodle is quite and easy it has many affordances that could lead to improving the learning experience of my students.

In conclusion, I am really happy about the opportunity to learn about Moodle. I feel that I’ve developed a great deal of technical know-how along with some pedagogical theory through this assignments. This is of course important to me as learning to use Moodle was one of my goals I set in my flight path.

Think about an example of how multimedia have been used effectively to enhance your learning.

In ETEC 531, MET students are charged with the task of creating two multimedia productions that respond to any post-unit question. The productions are to make use of images, video, and sound and must between 3-5 minutes.

I’ll be the first to admit that the content and reading material for ETEC 531 has been difficult for me to understand. Because it is heavy on theory, I find some parts to be somewhat boring to read. However, by experiencing the content in a multimedia format, it is easier to understand, far more engaging, and stimulates more of my senses. It is almost as though education is converging with entertainment. I say this because in this digital world, I have become accustomed to being entertained by multimedia where ever I go; you can’t escape it. What does this say about many educational resources that are still heavily print-based? No wonder it is so difficult to engage my students in book reading!

Nearly every multimedia project I have viewed from ETEC 531 has been fantastic and left me worried that I didn’t have the skills required to complete such a task. Nevertheless, I managed to create two productions that I am comfortable submitting for assessment. If you’re interested, you can view my second multimedia production here.

The digital storytelling activity was awesome. What a great opportunity to be exposed to over 50 storytelling tools! While I wrote a rather lengthy entry on my digital storytelling page describing my experience and how I went about selecting my storytelling tool, I will add some more thought here as now I’ve the opportunity to view the stories created by my ETEC 565 classmates.

• Our definition of literacy HAS to change in the 21st Century and seeing the vast array of ways to tell a story in this activity really drives that point home. Telling a story is no longer reserved for pencil and paper drafts, especially in education discourse. We need to broaden our horizons quite a bit if we want to meet the learning needs of our young readers and writers. This includes giving students the opportunity to view and represent knowledge in new ways. Using my story as an example, I would have bored my readers to death if I had written a report about traveling around Norway with my sister and mom, but I like to think that by presenting my story using a blend of images, audio, text, and effects made my story interesting. This is, I think, the reason I would use a digital storytelling approach in my classroom: to allow students a multi-modal means of expressing themselves.
• Using a storytelling tool like Animoto should be easy, but it wasn’t and I ended up running into all sorts of roadblocks that would have driven me nuts if I was standing in front of my class while using the program. Issues such as account problems, files being incompatable, and a lack of control over editing caused delays and problems. Just when I thought I had it figured out, one my classmates informed me that my embed would not play on my blog page. I suppose running into problems like this is normal when trying to integrate technology though and usually I can get things ironed out to save a lesson or a unit.
• Of added value to this activity was viewing the stories created by my classmates. I learned so much from their creativity and expertise and the discussion forum allowed us to delve deeper into the potential of digital storytelling. There some talented individuals in the ETEC 565 community and the course is set up so I can learn from my classmates not just my instructor and the course readings.

To close, I’d like to include an excerpt from my Digital Storytelling page where I draw from some relevant resources in order to situate my thoughts on digital storytelling in pedagogy.

According to Warlick (2008), what it means to be literate has been redefined in the 21st Century. To Warlick, our concept of literacy can longer be centered upon reading, writing, and arithmetic, but rather on the “3Es- expose what is true, employ the information, and express ideas compellingly ” (2008). My social studies will indeed need to utilize these skills as they gather information about their culture and decide how best to convey that information to an audience. Students will no doubt discover that not all of their research sources provide factual, verifiable information and they’ll need to learn new skills in determining what qualifies as a reliable source. My students will also learn that there exists no one correct way to express ideas.

For those who argue that there still needs to be an emphasis on reading and writing, there is research that shows that digital storytelling improves traditional literacy skills in addition to digital, and media literacy (Ohler, 2008). This makes perfect sense when you think about it. After all, how can my learners conduct research without reading and writing? The difference here I guess is allowing students to tell their stories in a language they know and understand: electronic media. With the monstrous amounts of digital content available to my learners, partaking in remixing and reusing, or the ‘Mashup’ (Lamb, 2007), should appeal to my grade eight students. As a teacher, it’s exciting to imagine what kind of dynamic storytelling will take place.

The switch from a traditional research assignment to a digital story also makes for a more authentic learning experience. One reason is that students have been charged with telling a story from someoneelse’s point of view. How can one begin to do so without a strong understanding of what it is like to walk a mile in their shoes so to speak? Authenticity is also achieved through the creation of a digital story that will be shared with an audience. Here students are playing the roles of researcher,anthropologist, screenwriter, director, editor, etc. Hopefully they will gain an appreciation of what it might be like to work in one of these fields. Lastly, we should not ignore that publishing to an outside audience makes the learning process very meaningful. All too often students arrive at school, hand in their assignments to a teacher for evaluation, and then leave for the day. There is little excitement or sense of accomplishment when you are merely creating for your teacher alone. Engagement, in my opinion, is too often gauged on the common student question, “So, who will be seeing our assignments?”

Earlier in the ETEC 565 course, we learned about the importance of interactions in effective learning designs (Anderson, 2008). Additionally, within the 565 discussion forums, we see first-hand how interactions among a community can enhance the overall quality of the learning experience. The digital storytelling approach I want to implement in my social studies course calls for students to support one another with their assignments. My vision is that students will serve as an editing circle, providing feedback on the story drafts. I’ve used this approach in my writing courses, yet I have difficulty having students buy into the concept. The reason for this is likely because students don’t want to spend long periods of time reading peer-written essays. Essays simply do not interest the 21st Century learner as much as multimedia assignments do. Students these days seem to require a visual and audio dimension in nearly media source they consume.

References

Anderson, T. (2008). Towards a Theory of Online Learning.  In: Anderson, T. & Elloumi, F. Theory and Practice of Online Learning. Athabasca University. Accessed online 8 July 2009 http://www.aupress.ca/books/120146/ebook/02_Anderson_2008_Anderson-Online_Learning.pdf

Bates, A.W. & Poole, G. (2003). Chapter 4: a Framework for Selecting and Using Technology. In Effective Teaching with Technology in Higher Education: Foundations for Success. (pp. 77-105). San Francisco: Jossey Bass Publishers.

Lamb, B. (2007). Dr. Mashup; or, Why Educators Should Learn to Stop Worrying and Love the Remix. EDUCAUSE Review, vol. 42, no. 4 (July/August 2007): 12–25.  Accessed online July 8 2009 http://www.educause.edu/ER/EDUCAUSEReviewMagazineVolume42/DrMashuporWhyEducatorsShouldLe/161747

Ohler, J. (2008). Digital storytelling in the classroom: New media pathways to literacy, learning, and creativity. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.

Warlick, D. (2008). Redefining literacy 2.0. Worthington, OH: Linworth Books.

Why was this the right tool for you to use to tell your story? Explain how you purposefully selected your tool. (5)

The decision to use Animoto as my story-telling tool was made after great consideration. When one is selecting from a list of over 50 story-telling tools, he/she needs to apply some sort of framework to make sure the tool selected is the best fit for the job. Since learning to make informed decisions about the technologies used in teaching practices is one of the key objectives of ETEC 565, I knew I could refer to one of my favorite readings from earlier in the course to guide me. The SECTIONS framework (Bates & Poole, 2003) is still my favorite and I thought that several components of the model apply to the selection of technology to be used in this activity. Here are some highlights:

• Ease of use: Following a standard registration process, Animoto will create an account for you and users will be ready to start creating projects within minutes. At the core of my digital story were the photos I took while traveling in Norway. I was looking for a tool that makes uploading images simple. Animoto made this process easy and clear. From there, the user-friendly interface allowed me to organize my photos, and add small amount of text. I was also aiming for a fresh and dynamic story that incorporates cool audio, but I didn’t feel like spending a great deal of time hunting down music that didn’t break copyright law. Animoto allowed me to select a tune from its existing library and even automatically added the credit to the musician within my video-awesome. Transitions are taken care of by Animoto and while some might argue that they’d prefer more control over their project, I loved leaving the editing duties up to the software. In conclusion then, Animoto makes the grade in terms of ease of use.

• Costs: Animoto is free to use, but standard accounts do come with some restrictions. For example, an upgrade is required if users want to create a video lasting more than 30 seconds. I did, however, find a way around this. Animoto offers special accounts to educators looking to test-drive the tool in an educational setting. As I understand the trial lasts six months, and students are given a special access code so they can overcome some of the restrictions of a standard account. I had to apply for this type of account and it took Animoto about a week to approve my application. This is something to consider if you need quick access to the service.

• Interactivity: Simply put, in order to tell my story, I needed to be able to use my own images, add some text, add some music, and host on the web a creative and dynamic production that other could view. Telling a story using images and audio does not exactly qualify as traditional story-telling formats. Animoto made it possible to represent knowledge and tell my story in new ways. It enabled creativity, interactivity with content, and the ability to publish my product to an audience- an authentic story-telling experience.

I want to mention that Animoto was not the first tool I tried during this activity. I gave serious consideration to Bubbleshare, Joggle, and Rock You. All three of these tools had many positive features, but, in the end, each had a shortcoming that hindered the goals of my project. For example, Bubbleshare, although advertised that it allows audio to be included in  slide shows seemingly does not have an audio feature anymore. We all know how important audio is to setting the overall mood of a multimedia presentation; this I could not overlook.

Selecting appropriate technologies is becoming easier for me as the course goes along. I am also gaining a solid appreciation for the importance that Bates and Poole (2003) put toward educators learning to effectively evaluate the vast array of technologies available to them. Selecting the right tool for digital story was crucial for this activity and a decision like this has the potential to make or break an excellent learning activity.

Describe how a story-telling approach would work within a course you teach or would like to teach. Use sound pedagogical arguments (10)

Background:

As part of the grade eight social studies curriculum, Culture is a core unit of study. Traditionally, like many other teachers, I’ve assigned each student a culture to research. Students are to use a variety of research materials, but the task is to submit a final written report for evaluation. Engaging students in this activity is difficult at best and, to be perfectly honest, even I’m bored of reading the written reports. How can I design a new learning activity that will engage learners and still immerses them in the research process? Perhaps using a digital storytelling approach is appropriate given the learning context. Here’s how I see the approach working:

Description:

* My students would still need to research their assigned cultures based on the criteria I establish. What changes is the product they will work to develop. Students will choose from a short list of digital storytelling tools in order to produce their own multimedia presentation that shows a typical day of life for a person within their assigned culture.
* Digital stories will be 3-5 minutes in length.
* Digital stories will include audio and visuals.
* Digital stories will not break copyright law.
* Students will create several drafts/iterations of their story. As part of the editing process, they will share their drafts with their peers and teacher to receive qualitative feedback. The final iteration of their digital story will be hosted on the web as part of a class culture wiki.
* An evaluation rubric will be used to assess the stories. The rubric will be provided to students before they begin the activity.

Rationale:

According to Warlick (2008), what it means to be literate has been redefined in the 21st Century. To Warlick, our concept of literacy can longer be centered upon reading, writing, and arithmetic, but rather on the “3Es- expose what is true, employ the information, and express ideas compellingly ” (2008). My social studies will indeed need to utilize these skills as they gather information about their culture and decide how best to convey that information to an audience. Students will no doubt discover that not all of their research sources provide factual, verifiable information and they’ll need to learn new skills in determining what qualifies as a reliable source. My students will also learn that there exists no one correct way to express ideas.

For those who argue that there still needs to be an emphasis on reading and writing, there is research that shows that digital storytelling improves traditional literacy skills in addition to digital, and media literacy (Ohler, 2008). This makes perfect sense when you think about it. After all, how can my learners conduct research without reading and writing? The difference here I guess is allowing students to tell their stories in a language they know and understand: electronic media. With the monstrous amounts of digital content available to my learners, partaking in remixing and reusing, or the ‘Mashup’ (Lamb, 2007), should appeal to my grade eight students. As a teacher, it’s exciting to imagine what kind of dynamic storytelling will take place.

The switch from a traditional research assignment to a digital story also makes for a more authentic learning experience. One reason is that students have been charged with telling a story from someone else’s point of view. How can one begin to do so without a strong understanding of what it is like to walk a mile in their shoes so to speak? Authenticity is also achieved through the creation of a digital story that will be shared with an audience. Here students are playing the roles of researcher,anthropologist, screenwriter, director, editor, etc. Hopefully they will gain an appreciation of what it might be like to work in one of these fields. Lastly, we should not ignore that publishing to an outside audience makes the learning process very meaningful. All too often students arrive at school, hand in their assignments to a teacher for evaluation, and then leave for the day. There is little excitement or sense of accomplishment when you are merely creating for your teacher alone. Engagement, in my opinion, is too often gauged on the common student question, “So, who will be seeing our assignments?”

Earlier in the ETEC 565 course, we learned about the importance of interactions in effective learning designs (Anderson, 2008). Additionally, within the 565 discussion forums, we see first-hand how interactions among a community can enhance the overall quality of the learning experience. The digital storytelling approach I want to implement in my social studies course calls for students to support one another with their assignments. My vision is that students will serve as an editing circle, providing feedback on the story drafts. I’ve used this approach in my writing courses, yet I have difficulty having students buy into the concept. The reason for this is likely because students don’t want to spend long periods of time reading peer-written essays. Essays simply do not interest the 21st Century learner as much as multimedia assignments do. Students these days seem to require a visual and audio dimension in nearly media source they consume.

Conclusion

Implementing a digital storytelling approach in my social studies course will:

* Help students develop both traditional literacy skills and digital literacy skills

* Make the learning experience more authentic and engaging

* Immerse students in ‘Mashup’ culture

* Foster meaningful interaction among a community of learners

* Make learning social studies FUN!

References

Anderson, T. (2008). Towards a Theory of Online Learning. In: Anderson, T. & Elloumi, F. Theory and Practice of Online Learning. Athabasca University. Accessed online 8 July 2009 http://www.aupress.ca/books/120146/ebook/02_Anderson_2008_Anderson-Online_Learning.pdf

Bates, A.W. & Poole, G. (2003). Chapter 4: a Framework for Selecting and Using Technology. In Effective Teaching with Technology in Higher Education: Foundations for Success. (pp. 77-105). San Francisco: Jossey Bass Publishers.

Lamb, B. (2007). Dr. Mashup; or, Why Educators Should Learn to Stop Worrying and Love the Remix. EDUCAUSE Review, vol. 42, no. 4 (July/August 2007): 12–25.  Accessed online July 8 2009 http://www.educause.edu/ER/EDUCAUSEReviewMagazineVolume42/DrMashuporWhyEducatorsShouldLe/161747

Ohler, J. (2008). Digital storytelling in the classroom: New media pathways to literacy, learning, and creativity. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.

Warlick, D. (2008). Redefining literacy 2.0. Worthington, OH: Linworth Books.

As part of module four, the class was asked to collaborate in a wiki environment. Turns out that there was a problem with my user name and I could not log in to edit the wiki or participate in the discussion, however I still contributed by having a classmate post for me. Working in a wiki environment is not completely new to me, so I can reflect on this activity along with my prior experiences. Here are some wiki thoughts:

• What I value most about wikis is the idea that many people are contributing to a single document; a valuable way to promote social-constructivism, and most importantly knowledge building. Section B of ETEC 565 had the opportunity to share their wisdom and insight to produce a response to several prompts. There is, I THINK, far more value in this type of exercise than to simply have students provide individual responses sent to the instructor. Learning is a social activity and the more social the better!
• The discussion feature of the wiki allowed a forum to share and discuss ideas and the document portion seemed to be the canvas on which those ideas were painted. This seemed to be an efficient system. I also like the ability to revert to previous drafts of the wikis, a neat feature for safety and recovery.
• I think it is time that people rethink their attitudes toward wikis. I’m referring to the notion that a wiki can’t be considered  reliable source of information. Wikipedia has always been slammed for this, but I think Wikipedia has many safeguards preventing false info. After all, when false info is published in an encyclopedia, it remains forever; when the same happens on Wikipedia the page is flagged and investigated.
• The fact that my username did not work reminded me that technology, despite best intentions, does not always; there are issues inherent with trying new tools in the classroom. All too often, I have planned great plans that use technology only to have technical issues that hampered the learning experience. Still, we must persist and move on.

Description

In addition to creating an exam for my LMS course site (see assessment page), I also chose to add a student survey to Module #4. The Constructivist On-line Learning Environment Survey (COLLES) in Moodle is a set of statements that allows learners to identify their preferred learning environment or their actual learning environment (Cole & Foster, 2008). I have elected to use a combination survey that covers both. In total, the students will respond to 50 survey items during class time.

Rationale

Timely and effective feedback is a vital component of any learning design (Gibbs & Simpson, 2004). In my experience, feedback is mostly given by instructors to students and  opportunities for students to provide feedback to instructors are often ignored. The COLLES survey provides an excellent chance for students to reflect on their learning needs and to share that information with their instructor. Feedback then, in the same way in which it can support student learning, may also promote instructor learning. Because my LMS course site is my first, I value the opportunity to illicit student feedback about the effectiveness of my course design. I want to know what is and is not working well and I want to know this early enough in the course so that I may make changes to improve the learning experience for my students. The COLLES survey, in my opinion, is also about getting to know my learners and assessing their learning styles and tastes. In my rather extensive experience as a student, I  have come across only a handful or two of teachers who were interesting and willing to give their learners a chance to give formal feedback to them for the purpose of improving a course. I’d love to give my learners this chance, which is why I’ve chosen to position the survey at the half-way point of my course. I foresee students willingly using the survey during class time and appreciating the opportunity to share their opinions. Moodle made it easy to add the survey tool and I’ll be able to view and download the responses.

This is, of course, not the only assessment activity I have designed in my LMS course. I have already included assessment tools for several other modules. I just wanted to take a chance and try something new here.

References

Cole, J. and Foster, H. (2008). Using moodle: Teaching with the popular course management system. Sebastopol: CA. O’Reilly Media Inc.

Gibbs, G. and Simpson, C. (2005).  “Conditions under which assessment supports students’ learning.” Learning and Teaching in Higher Education Accessed online 24 June 2009 http://www.open.ac.uk/fast/pdfs/Gibbs%20and%20Simpson%202004-05.pdf

Introduction

I was thrilled to learn that I had to develop an exam for my Moodle course. While I rarely give my students exams outside out mathematics, I usually cap off my novel studies with a written exam. Many of the questions I formatted into my Moodle course on The Outsiders (1967) are questions taken directly from my hard-copy exams that I use each year. My exam assesses general reading comprehension, characterization, literary themes, and symbolism. These are all foundational curriculum objectives at my grade level. In the end, I developed an exam that contained:

• 25 Multiple Choice Questions
• 10 Matching Questions
• 2 Short Answer Questions
• 2 Essay Questions

The exam is programed so that it will be automatically graded, save for the two essay questions which require manually grading. I have set a time limit of 90 minutes for students to complete the exam. I also took the time to pre-programme post-exam feedback for the students based on their overall performance. My final question included an embedded image.

A Few Thoughts

• Formatting the exam was relatively easy, but could have been much easier. For example, although I consulted two Moodle guides and tried various approaches, I was unable to create more than one multiple choice question at a time. I was hoping to be able to edit many multiple choice questions on one page as opposed to formatting them one at a time-what a pain.
• Moodle’s definition of a short answer question is at odds with mine. In order to take advantage of auto-grading, short answer questions need to be designed in an closed-structure, with designated accepted answers. In my opinion, a short answer question should require students two write two or three sentences as a response. An essay question should require several paragraphs. Therefore, if one is only looking for a one or two word response, perhaps a cloze procedure is a better choice.
• Three cheers for auto-assess! This will save me a great deal of time. I’ll only have to manual grade a small number of questions before I provide additional feedback and send the marks to the grade book. This is certainly one of the benefits to using a Moodle exam over a hard-copy exam. No problems here!
• I like the idea of shuffling the questions to discourage cheating. If my students complete the exam during class time like I had planned, I want o make sure they are providing an individual effort. Something else to consider is that my students know how to use Blue-tooth file transferring between Mac machines. I can just imagine some of them using Blue-tooth to collaborate on exam answers.

In the Future

• I’d like to find out more about how one could adapt a Moodle exam to meet the needs of all my learners. Each year, I have one or two students who require a scribe in order to complete a written exam. I wonder if I could use a text-to-speech tool in Moodle to faciltiate this.
• What can one do about students who are absent from school during the exam? I suppose the student could take the exam from home if possible, but what if they can’t? I am concerned about this if the exam is set for a selective release and has a time limit. Can one simply edit the release date to accomodate one or two students who missed the first exam?
• A with any learning technology, there is always a chance that it will fail us when we need it most. While I enjoy a certain degree of flexibility in my teaching environment, others do not. What a nightmare it would be to have an exam scheduled during a time when the server failed or a blackout occurred. I guess always having a back-up plan is a good idea.

References

Hinton, S.E. (1967). The Outsiders. New York, NY: Viking Books.

The course readings and module content regarding synchronous and asynchronous communication tools helped influenced my decisions about which tools I would include in my Moodle course and how these tools will be used. I will include on this page a brief description of the activity and the tools I set up within the course shell and also a rationale of the decisions I made. The course instructions were to design two activities, but I got carried away, couldn’t help myself, and added a couple more. Hope this is okay. To set the context here, please recall that my Moodle course shells a novel study on The Outsiders (1967).

ACTIVITY # 1

A Discussion forum where students have been instructed to post their personal reflections to the chapter readings. I will repeat this discussion forum for each of the course modules. I configured this forum to allow each person to post one discussion, but I require everyone to respond to at least two of their classmates’ posts. I have been clear about what content is to be included in the discussion posts, but students will have a great deal of personal choice because they are free to take up a wide range of topic. This is the nature of personal reading responses. To support my learners with this, I have included an assessment rubric in the course materials in response to Anderson’s (2008) assertions regarding effective online course design.

Why I chose it

Teaching students to write personal responses to literature is an accepted teaching strategy in language arts instruction. Traditionally, in face to face settings, students publish reading responses in notebooks or journals and these are submitted to instructors for assessment. What is lost here is the possibility for the students to learn through valuable social interactions that Anderson (2008) asserts should take place between teachers, students, and content. I was looking for a tool that would allow students to exchange and share their reading responses throughout the duration of the novel study. As the instructor of this course, I need to also be able to interact with my learners as they make connections with literature.

What this tools brings to the educational experience

My personal experience as a student has allowed me to recognize that there is much value in using forum discussions even in face to face settings. Posting reading responses to a forum for the learning community to see will encourage interactions between the instructor and his/her students. In a face to face discussion immediate responses to ideas are required;however, the asynchronous forum allows students time to think and reflect on content before posting a response. In my opinion, this increases the quality of the exchanges and alleviates some of the anxiety that learners sometime feel by being put on the spot when face to face. Of course, forums also support two-way communication making students active participants in the learning process.

The tool’s limitations

The danger of using discussion forums is a lack of participation by learners. If students are not participating in the discussions the potential benefits of the forum may never be realized. The forum in Moodle requires learners to read and write responses and offers little alternative for those who struggle with literacy. Students who have difficulty writing for example may not be willing, or capable, to publish posts.

Does it work?

Yes, I tested my forum and they all work.

ACTIVITY # 2

A Wiki activity on characterization. Working in groups of four, students will design a wiki about the characters in the novel study. The idea is that this activity is on-going and edited as we progress through the course. The wiki will become a resource for my learners and a study guide for the final exam. I have already structured the wiki so that it includes the main characters of the book. I have also provided a resource to introduce students to wikis. The wiki will be assessed as part of each students’ participation mark.

Why I chose it

Characterization is an important element in literary works and is commonly taught in novel studies. The Outsiders (1967) introduces its readers to many characters in great detail. Keeping track of all the characters and what role they play in the plot is a difficult task, so I wanted students to create and maintain a document that could record their notes as we make our way through the novel. I don’t feel, however, that students should tackle this lengthy and difficult assignment individually, so I chose a wiki to enable student collaboration. This will help to divide the workload among learners. Again, with a few clicks of mouse, I added a wiki activity to my Moodle course. The ease of adding the tool factored into my decision regarding its selection.

What this tool brings to the educational experience

When I think wiki, I think fast, efficient collaboration. Providing students with a mechanism for working together towards a common goal will hopefully engage them in the task and make them active participants within a learning community. A wiki allows for asynchronous participation, so, like the discussion forum, provides a tool for interactions to take place over time. As the instructor, I will be able to track and evaluate individual contributions to the wiki to ensure the workload is being shared. The students will be able to develop their work under peer review, which is important.

The tool’s limitations

Compared to other wiki authoring sites, the Moodle wiki interface is not as user-friendly. Wikispaces, for example, makes it much easier to navigate and edit wikis. This is important because it is quite possible that a lack of technical skills of a student might impede their ability to participate in the activity. Also, I do not like how the Moodle wiki does not have a space for groups to discuss the collaborative document. Most wiki services have a discussion tab to facilitate this.

Does it work?

Yes, tested and the wiki works.

ADDITIONAL ACTIVITIES

• Chat forums have been established to enable synchronous communication. I created private chat rooms for groups in order to facilitate group discourse. Here, students can collaborate and discuss group projects. Another chat room has been created to allow all students come together in order to discuss the course or simply to hang out and form community bonds.

• Lastly, as a bonus, since I already downloaded SKYPE during the e-learning toolkit activity, I am planning on using this communication tool to “bring in” an outside expert to present to my learner. The expert who has agreed to visit us using SKYPE will present on the topic of “street gangs”, very relevant to the novel study of course.

Rationale:

The selection of these tools was made after careful consideration. In my opinion, and consistent with several of the course readings, proper selection of instructional tools is the key to effective course design (see Anderson, 2008; Chickering & Ehrmann, 1996). Forums, chats, and wikis all encourage interactions on several levels: learner-learner;learner-knowledge;learner-teacher. These tools also help to establish the learning community.

Moodle made it very easy to add these activities to my course design and I’ll be able to track student progress with no problems. I’ve elected to assess the discussion forum activity by activating the grade option and using the “separate and connected ways of knowing” scale. I have also chosen to read the tracking highlights of unread posts. Regarding the chat rooms, I can view past chat activity at any time. Because I won’t be assessing chat, I need only be concerned with the appropriateness of content, although there might some value in reading the chat archives to follow progress and check for understanding. Moodle will allow me to monitor the wiki activity as well. I can also browse the wiki history to see who is contributing to the group effort.

Limitations

The problem with chat is that it requires all participants to participate at the same time. My students all live in the same time zone, so the physical distance that can be problematic in some settings does not apply here. Still, with conflicting personal schedules, it may be difficult to find a meeting time that works for everyone. Text chatting, is also very slow. It may be difficult to get my learners to buy into Moodle chat when so many other attractive options are around, such as cell phones.

In my experience, forums can be problematic for some learners who have difficulty expressing themselves in writing. This might discourage them to post written responses that are viewable to the entire class. Again, with the other online options available to teens, I’m not sure that they will be big on hanging out in Moodle as opposed to popular social-networking sites.

Concerns

I think my students will enjoy working with the communication tools that I designed into the course and they certainly have the skill set to do so. If I’m worried about anything, it’s the level of participation that will be seen. How will I encourage my students to take part at a level that will enhance the learning experience? I think I have already began to address this by providing clear participation expectations.

References

Anderson, T. (2008). Teaching in an Online Learning Context. In: Anderson, T. & Elloumi, F. Theory and Practice of Online Learning. Athabasca University.

Chickering, A.W. & Ehrmann, S.C. (1996). Implementing the Seven Principles: Technology as Lever. American Association for Higher Education Bulletin, 49(2), 3-6.

Hinton, S.E. (1967). The Outsiders. New York, NY: Viking Books.