May 16 2009
Assignment #1: Flight Path
As a high school science teacher, I have many questions to consider when I engage in instructional design. How am I going to address the curriculum? What learning theories and corresponding pedagogy should I subscribe to? How am I going to address the needs of diverse learners? How am I going to create engaging lessons with educational value? Additionally, I need to consider which educational technologies I should employ. With the commercialization of educational technology, today’s teachers have more technologies available to them than ever before. In this burgeoning digital age, educators not only have a wealth of new, educational technologies for their tool kit, they must also prepare their students to be literate and competitive in a digital world.
As a biology teacher, I am well aware of the fact that if a species does not adapt to a changing environment, it will become extinct. Similarly, in the rapidly changing climate of the digital age, if a teacher does not adapt their teaching practice, they will have difficulty staying relevant. Being an adaptable teacher, keeping my teaching practice relevant to my students, and being competent at preparing my students for success, are some of my motivations for undertaking a Masters in educational technology.
I am interested in learning more about online education, and would consider teaching online in the future. However, for now I would like to incorporate more digital technology in to my traditional face to face classroom. In order to incorporate more digital technology into my practice I must:
1. Be aware of what it “out there”
2. Evaluate each technology according to my pedagogical goals, and
3. Become competent and confident in using those that I choose.
I am hoping that theoretical frameworks covered in Module 1: Selecting and Using Technologies will give me a tool kit of criteria with which to critically evaluate potential technologies and find those that are in line with my personal pedagogy. It is my hope that Modules 2-5 (presentation tools, interaction and evaluation tools, social media, and multimedia) will expose me to (good) current technologies and that the assignments and activities in these modules will give me practice with some of them, thus fostering competence and confidence.
I think that the learning technologies that I could most easily incorporate into my current practice are asynchronous communication (e-mail, wiki, blog), a teaching website, digital assessment, social software, and multimedia. However, I am most excited to learn about developing LMS such as Moodle.
With respect to resources for needed for mastery, all I need is access, some direction (in the form of tutorial), motivation (in the form of assignments) and time to play around.
