This flight path comes with an introduction to my teaching background and my initial vision of how ETEC 565A can help propel and deliver my vision of integrating digital tools into my classroom.

It is probably best to introduce myself just a touch before I embark on my 565A Flight Path explanation.  I’ve been teaching for six years at an elementary school in Richmond, BC.  My experience has ranged from teaching music, ESL, and span from the intermediate grades all the way to the primary grades where I have found my home in a Grade 2/3 classroom for the past two years.  Each year that I have taught, I have been enrolled in coursework that has inspired me to bring ideas from my coursework right into my classroom.  The synergy between the two, provides an opportunity for reflection and expansion of my own teaching practice.

Initially, when I taught music, I built websites to explore the possibility of having students learn to play and practice their instruments comfortably in their home with recordings of songs and combined it with tools to help them to read music.  It occurred to me that when students are learning to read music, often hearing the tune can allow them to visualize notes better than just to learn the counting pattern.  I applied this in my band and my classroom music programs where I also taught guitar and recorders.  The results were fantastic, as students learned to play pieces with great enthusiasm.  In retrospect, I’m not sure if I had done more harm than good with my method of teaching them how to “read” or simply “listen and parrot” music.  In the end, I concluded that many of them weren’t going on to be musicians but wanted an opportunity just to play and experience an instrument.  I felt I had done an acceptable job.  In some ways, I had brought joy to practicing at home.

My next step was moving forward with a group of Grade 3/4 students.  With a group of capable students, I embarked on classroom wiki site that we built collectively.  My vision of a site to collect our work was quickly overwhelmed by the positive energy of my students.  Their enthusiasm propelled the site to an interactive space online that was visited multiple times a day in the morning, during the day and in the evening.  It was setup as a part of a project for a course I was then taking at UBC.  It was an experiment that grew every week I showed it to my coworkers.  Students came back everyday wanting to add a new section, contribute to existing areas and working to improve upon the overall look and feel.  One day a student asked if they could create a book review section, this turned into over 50 books being reviewed over the course of the year.  Movie reviews, food reviews also stared to flourish.  Microblogging also no longer became a requirement, it became something they enjoyed.  I was so taken back by the growth that for me, that the momentum carried itself over well into the middle of the next year.

I have since moved to Grade 2/3 classroom and am attempting to visualize the Wiki as a platform to help promote literacy skills especially amongst struggling readers.  The past year has been filled with challenges as general computer skills were difficult to overcome.  I have since been reluctant to reintroduce wiki’s and have been looking for a more flexible platform to integrate a literacy learning space online.

ETEC 565A couldn’t have come at a better time as I have recently been inundated with many different web services that I could introduce to my students the idea of being able to build my own course site using Moodle is appealing.  Even with only a rough notion of how to evaluate different services based on my experience the pros and cons list are often so lengthy that I am lost in my on decision making process.  Each day the list gets longer with a different service to evaluate.  The truth is that until student’s use it, it’s difficult to truly get a sense of whether student’s enjoy it and what challenges they may encounter.  But doing the appropriate research is important first step in building a solid foundation.  Already within the first week having a few frameworks to evaluate software has been useful.   I’ve recently acquired an iPad from my administrators to explore it’s use within the classroom.  Using SECTIONS from Bates and Poole (2003) and the Seven Principles from Chickering and Gamson (1987) to evaluate the 50+ approved district apps, helped me go through them more effectively.

I’m eager to learn about Moodle and to learn how building my own course site can allow my vision of a incorporating a more digital aspect to become a reality.

References:

Chickering, A.W. & Ehrmann, S.C. (1996). Implementing the Seven Principles: Technology as Lever. American Association for Higher Education Bulletin, 49(2), 3-6. Accessed online 11 Mar 2009
http://www.aahea.org/articles/sevenprinciples.htm

Chickering, A.W. & Gamson, Z.F. (1987). Seven Principles for Good Practice in Undergraduate Education. American Association for Higher Education Bulletin, 39 (7), 3-7. Accessed online 11 Mar 2009
http://www.aahea.org/articles/sevenprinciples1987.htm

Bates A. W. & Poole, G. (2003).A Framework for Selecting and Using Technology. In A.W. Bates & G. Poole, Effective Teaching with Technology in Higher Education (pp. 75-108). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. 4.