Alix’s Exploration of Learning Technologies

This Final ETEC 565 Reflection can also be found on the “Synthesis Reflection” Page.

1. Flight Path Précis

In module one, I was prompted to prepare a “flight path” that included my goals for ETEC 565A. I began by contextualizing the current teaching climate. I remarked that, “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.”  I expressed the need for a digital age teacher to be able to select amoung potential technologies with purpose and pedagogy in mind. My motivation for pursing an MET in general, and ETEC 565A specifically is to help me to be “an adaptable teacher, keeping my teaching practice relevant to my students, and being competent at preparing my students for success”.

As specific goals for this course, I suggested,  “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 felt that I need to:

– Be aware of what it “out there”.

– Evaluate each technology according to my pedagogical goals.

– Become competent and confident in using those that I choose.

– Develop a tool kit of criteria with which to critically evaluate potential technologies and find those that are in line with my personal pedagogy.

– Be exposed to (good) current technologies and gain practice  with some of them.

I predicted that the resources I needed for mastery, was” access, some direction (in the form of tutorial), motivation (in the form of assignments) and time to play around.” I will discuss the extent to which I  reached these goals in the next section.

2. Tool Kit and Assignment Reflection

Over the past 13 weeks, I participated in a series of activities that helped me to work towards the goals outlined above. In ETEC 565A, I…

– Read significant articles related to theory, pedagogy and educational technology.

– Became a member of an online community.

– Engaged in online discussion fora related to pertinent case studies.

–  Completed a number of assignments including:

– working collaboratively to build an LMS assessment rubric

– contributing to a wiki

– using free software to create a digital story

– developing a multi-media LMS with considerations for communication, assessment, and social learning

– Obtained practice with various tools and considerations via the online tool kit

– All the while, reflecting on all of the above through an e-portfolio.

Some Tool Kit activities I completed included an introduction to Moodle, Web Design and HTML,  DVD authoring and Accessibility. In the Moodle activity, I became oriented with this LMS and gained the confidence to explore the affordances on my own. In the web Design and HTML  activity, some “Dos” and “Don’ts” when designing a website and how to assess a website. I have to admit that my html knowledge is still minimal and I still use wysiwyg editors. I learned that my Mac has an application for authoring DVDs  (and its limitations).  And finally, through the accessibility tool kit, I was better able to understand the frustrations that my friend with a visual impairment has with access to online resources.

Through the readings, discussions, assignments, reflections, and eLearning toolkit I feel I was exposed to many new educational technologies, gained experience and confidence in using some (e.g. digital story, wiki, LMS), and am better equipped to critically evaluate potential technologies.

3. Applying SECTIONS

SECTIONS is framework for assessing educational technologies. In the following, I will consider  the SECI criterion to assess my experience developing my e-portfolio:

S – Students: An important element of a teacher’s practice is reflecting. Through reflection, a teacher considers what is working well in their practice, what isn’t, and helps them to apply changes with informed purpose.  As a teacher and a student in  ETEC this  e-portfolio assignment encouraged me to  gain practice with reflecting in an online journal.

E – Ease of use and reliability: Developing a reflective e-portfolio in wordpress was very easy for me as I had previous experience with wordpress.  Saving posts and pages could be slow at times, but was usually reliable. Because this blog is hosted by UBC, I am not sure what my access and privileges will be when I am no longer a UBC student.

C – Costs: what is the cost structure of each technology?  What is the unit cost per learner? No cost to me, unless my tuition fees went towards supporting UBC hosting the wordpress blogs.

I – Interactivity: Through RSS feeds, the ETEC 565A community was able to link to and access each blog. Members were able to leave comments and feedback on postings.

4. Next Steps:

As I discussed in my flight path, I would like to incorporate more digital technology in to my traditional face to face classroom. My purpose for pursuing an MET is to become a competent, proficient, and critical digital age teacher. Although many of the ETEC courses I have taken to date have moved me closer to my goal, 565A has given me the most practical experience  with educational technologies.  In my flight path, I predicted that the resources I needed for mastery, was” access, some direction (in the form of tutorial), motivation (in the form of assignments) and time to play around.” ETEC 565A delivered theses resources. I have improved my digital literacy, and feel more confident to use digital technologies in my classroom.

Specifically, I plan to use Moodle to support and enhance my f2f courses. My next steps are to talk to my school’s IT staff to see if we can host Moodle at my school. Moreover, I plan to introduce my colleagues to the affordances of Moodle as an LMS to support and enhance a teaching practice.

In general, I feel I now have more tools with which to critically assess new educational technologies for social, communication, assessment, creative and multi-media affordances.

Here it is! My digital story…

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MUSfYWv6CBM[/youtube]

or is can be viewed here or at this url :

Rationale

A. Tool Choice:

To create this digital story, I used an online application called “One true media” (http://www.onetruemedia.com). One true media is an online tool that allows you to combine photos, video clips, and music to create montages. I originally chose this tool to create my story because the software does not need to be downloaded (space on my computer  is at a premium). Additionally, I was attracted to the clean looking interface, with a simple “3 step” process to creating a montage. The process did prove to be simple and for the most part, I was very pleased with my tool choice.

Affordances:

1. Graphics: For the graphics, I was able to easily upload CC photos available on Flickr (http://www.flickr.com). Alternatively, you can upload photos and video clips from any URL or, directly from your computer.

2. Audio: One true media has an extensive library of music available, but songs can be uploaded as well.

3. Text: You are able to create “text slides” to intersperse with your photos.

4. Design: A selection of “styles” are available that provide a template of transitions and graphics to add “wow” factor to your montage.

5. Sharing: The finished project can easily be embedded in blogs or directly posted to YouTube/Google video.

Limitations:

1. Not entirely “free”: Although the tool is free, there are certain “premium” options that are only available for a fee. These premium options include certain desirable templates and font options for text slides.

2. No narration option: There is no tool to add narration to the montage. As far as I can tell, I would have to record my narration with Garage Band, save as a “song” and then upload the audio to “one true media”.

Conclusion: Simple, easy and enough “wow” to keep students’ attention for 2 minutes. Because the purpose of my digital story, “ Natural selection in 5 simple steps” was to be simple and succinct, one true media was sufficient to produce it. Although I did not feel limited by not using the premium options, I did feel limited by not being able to add narration to the story.

B. Application in my practice:

On February 2,  2009 I attended a “technology” themed professional development session featuring Jason Ohler (http://www.jasonohler.com) as the keynote speaker. His lecture discussed using digital technology to help students tell stories. Jason Ohler advocates using digital story telling as an approach to literacy. Ohler writes:

“Being literate in a real-world sense means being able to read and write using the media forms of the day, whatever they may be. For centuries, consuming and producing words through reading and writing and, to a lesser extent, listening and speaking were sufficient. But because of inexpensive, easy-to-use, and widely available new tools, literacy now requires being conversant with new forms of media as well as text, including sound, graphics, and moving images. In addition, it demands the ability to integrate these new media forms into a single narrative, or “media collage,” such as a Web page, blog, or digital story.” (Ohler 2009)

Moreover, Ohler discusses the role of the instructor.

“As our students migrate to new media, we must blend the essential aspects of more traditional media with the offerings of new forms of media. While students may be tech savvy, I have found that they often need help navigating the new-media maze to create narrative that is coherent, relevant, and meaningful, regardless of the media they use. Thus our role as instructors is more important than ever.” (Ohler 2009)

After the session with Ohler, I posted to following on my blog (http://agrayburdett.wordpress.com)…

“I feel inspired to create an assignment for my students where they use digital technology to create stories about the various topics we are covering (e.g. circulatory system). This would be an alternative to an assignment that I normally would do where the students simply write and recite their stories. Some concerns I have is the availability of the hardware and time necessary to complete this type of assignment.”

I felt inspired by digital story telling because the practice is consistent with pedagogical principles. For example digital story telling fosters the learner and knowledge centered environments reccommended in Anderson (2008).

1. Learner centered: Anderson describes a learner centered environment where “a teacher makes efforts to gain an understanding of students’ prerequisite knowledge,including any misconceptions that the learner starts with in their construction of new knowledge. Further, the learning environment respects
and accommodates the particular cultural attributes, especially the language
and particular forms of expression that the learner uses to interpret
and build knowledge.” Digital story telling allows students to showcase their unique talents, skills, and knowledge constructs, while working through, and developing new ones. Moreover, the  students interpretation of new concepts is displayed in the production, allowing the instructor to pick up on potential misconceptions.

2. Knowledge centered: According to Anderson (2008),  “In a knowledge centered environment, students get the opportunity to reflect upon their own thinking; automacy is a useful and necessary skill for expert thinking, but automacy without reflective capacity greatly limits learners’ capacity to transfer their knowledge to unfamiliar contexts or to develop new knowledge structures.” I already employ “translation” activities frequently in my practice. In these translation activities, I ask the student to “translate” new knowledge into another form. For example, they can turn the new information in to a skit, poem, song, drawing, comic etc. Rather than just memorizing the information, students must reflect on their learning. I find that when the students have to actually think about what they have learned, they develop deeper knowledge constructs than from rote memorization. Digital story telling is just one more option I can add to my repertoire of “translation” options. Moreover, using digital technology may motivate my students as the production have “wow” factor.

My original concerns about digital story telling after the Jason Ohler session surrounded organizing the cameras, computer and software I thought were necessary to produce a digital story. After completing this assignment however, I have learned that expensive equipment is not necessary. Although cameras are required to produce original works, there are many free CC resources available for students to rip, remix and burn. I feel much more confident and prepared to include digital story telling in my practice.

Citations:

Anderson, T. (2008). Towards a Theory of Online Learning.  In: Anderson, T. & Elloumi, F. Theory and Practice of Online Learning. Athabasca University.

Ohler, J. (2009). New Media Literacies. Academe, June 2009. Published by the American Association of University Professors.

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.