Delphine's e-Portfolio for ETEC 565A

Synthesis Reflection
Precis of My Flight Path
In order to cope in a digital world that is ever changing, I recognise that I have to be more than aware of the NETS standards if I want to succeed as a digital age professional. I hope to “facilitate and inspire student learning and creativity” by exposing them to digital tools that I have mastered and assessed for use in the classroom. I am looking forward to being empowered to “design and develop online digital age learning experiences and assessments” through exposure to more Web 2.0 tools other than the wiki. I am desirous of modelling digital age work and learning. Through the acquisition of competency in using the Moodle Management Systems (LMS) I hope to create activities that are relevant to my subject area. I hope to learn more about the legal and ethical issues involved in the use of online materials.
Finally, I am expecting that I will be growing professionally as I become more comfortable and confident in using the digital tools. I work at a teachers’ college in Jamaica. Due to financial instability and the global recession, the government has embarked on many approaches to reduce government spending. As result the colleges will no longer have the support entities they used to rely on. They will now have to develop their own programs which will be market driven. I have already volunteered to be a part of the pioneering work to design courses that will utilize the resources acquired through the e-learning project in Jamaica which are presently under utilized.

Reflection on My Toolkit Experience Overall
My toolkit experiences were a mixture of ups and downs. The earlier activities were beguiling; creating a kind of short lived false sense of confidence and competence with technology as I created my first DVD of my youngest child of 10 months.
However they prepared me for the unforgettable experiences with the digital story and the Moodle online course. I am now realizing what labour intensive means when someone has no prior knowledge. I thought those early experiences were labour intensive!
I found that the e-learning toolkit was very comprehensive but I relied on the videos by LMikwychok as I laboured to create the lessons on the Moodle course site. There were times listened to her over and over. I told myself that I was following the instructions but I was not getting the desired result. The truth is if I had had time to go through the kit, think about it for a few days then click on the specifics on the day I would be really creating, then I think my experience would have not have been so labour intensive. Perhaps it might have been better to do this despite many external problems facing me. The external factors were really bothersome. Sometimes as I struggled to finish a procedure, then it would have to be aborted by either the electricity being shut down or the Internet being disconnected. When trying to create the quiz, I remembered the computer being so slow that I went and cooked dinner before the site would load for me to work with it. Anyway, I managed to complete the quiz and it was nothing compared to what I experienced trying to create a Moodle lesson with branches.

But my experiences were not all “downs.” I struggled through the processes but became quite efficient with some of the tools. After using Prezi to do my digital story, I found out that some of the other tools seem easier to use now. I was able to test run a few of them including Joggle, One True Media, Photo Peach and Slide to see how many minutes could be used to make a story in a workshop setting. I eventually used Photo Peach to create a digital story for my splash page for the course but found out many hours later that it could not be uploaded to it. This came about because I really did not read much about this from the toolkit and did not pay keen attention to what some of my classmates were trying to say about this out too. Anyway, the positive is that I found ways of overcoming the problems I faced and used the Moodle Weekly Online Wiki sometimes when the toolkit could not help me trouble shoot. Despite my heavy labours, the light at the end of the tunnel is that I am really more technologically competent. Before entering the program, I wondered whether I would really use technology or theorize about technology. So far the MET program has exceeded my expectations in terms of developing my competency in creating concept maps, digital stories, blogging and now for this course the development of an e-Portfolio with the Moodle online course a part of it. This course in particular has allowed for an in depth exposure to tools I thought I would never be able to use or never even heard about.

What are the next steps for me in terms of my practice in educational technology?
I have already started to create digital stories to be used in some of my classes. I have also downloaded videos which are relevant to some of the courses that I teach. I hope to create a personal library of these so that sometimes when I am out assessing student teachers on teaching practice. With my new digital camera and water proof one to come, I am planning to do more videotaping of classes for the creation of mashups for use in the classroom.
I have already sharing with members of my department but I understand that when finish my MET I will be called upon to do workshops where I will assist in service teachers to use the technology in their teaching. In the meantime, it will be back to school to complete six other courses with UBC. Despite the technical difficulties I have faced I intend to try to keep current on the available resources. Learning has never stopped for me and I think I will always be learning about new technologies beyond MET. MET has certainly stimulated me to continue experimenting with new technologies. I feel pain sometimes but in the final analysis I considerably and everything becomes possible – Like autumn in Jamaica
I had a wonderful teaching experience using a Youtube video to teach “Ode to Autumn” by John Keats.