My Etec 565a Portfolio

Précis of Flight Path

My name is Marc Aubanel and I am new to education and to Learning Management Systems. I am the Academic Director for Game Art & Design as well as Visual & Game Programming. This is my first class in the MET program. In the classroom, I use very sophisticated software for designing creative works. I am a luddite when it comes to digital classroom tools. I use paper lesson plans, paper tests and am not using technology to complement my students’ education.

I am interested in the deployment of an LMS in a blended classroom. I want to find out different ways and strategies of handling student assessment. I am looking for positive ways to integrate social media and multimedia into my classes. I am going to experiment in the classroom to see what works.

Reflection on Flight Path

I underestimated the amount of time this course would take on reading, posting, writing and working on assignments . I had less time to work on the LMS and e-learning toolkits than I would have liked. My study habits are rusty and I didn’t work smart. I read all of the required readings twice, but didn’t take notes or highlight text. This made referencing the readings more time consuming.

I also missed at least one important detail each week. I planned out my time and tasks well, but would get slightly confused with exactly what the assignments consisted of. I need to make sure that I document each objective and deadline, rather than committing them to memory. John was very understanding though, and kindly pointed out each time I did this.

I am a slow reader and a slow writer, and would find myself putting 5 – 6 hours a week on the lighter weeks, and 10 – 11 hours on the busier weeks. This didn’t leave me much time to work on the Moodle site or on the toolkits. I probably put more time into the message boards than required, but the format really does stimulate conversation. In hindsight it took a tremendous amount of time away from other activities.

I wanted to look into Action Script 3 and become more proficient in flash. I did not find time to improve my action script skills but did get a chance to look into HTML 5 and CSS3. A lot of flash’s unique features are now supported natively in browser and I was happy to see that you can build a rich, interactive website with no flash plug in required.

Reflection on e-Learning tookit

I typically used the e-Learning toolkit when I ran into trouble. Anytime I hit a roadblock, I found the toolkit very useful. On our second module group rubric the Edu Tools evaluation site was indispensable. The web design & HTML authoring tool-kit was full of useful resources I have not seen before.

I supplemented the above with my own e-Learning regimen that I do in my spare time:

1. I am tutoring students outside of school hours in C programming (looking at other people’s code is really improving my programming skills).
2. I am slowly learning Python so I can write productivity tools faster.
3. I am learning the Google Apps API and more javascript.
4. Due to the above I am reviewing and have a better understanding of the HTML Document Object Model (DOM).
5. I am slowly learning object-oriented programming techniques.

I have a suggestion for improvement:

There could be more activities for kinesthetic learners. I need to actually perform the task rather than read about it. I find walkthroughs, screencasts, and step by step instructions very useful.

For example, in getting help with HTML and CSS I found http://www.w3schools.com/ to be most useful in helping me with the various HTML coding bits that I needed to do for the class. Not only do they break it down syntax by syntax, but they have code samples and a sandbox to play in. Having a sandbox area to experiment with HTML & CSS would be beneficial to this class.

Even though much of the course can be done without any HTML knowledge, to be able to create a very simple webpage through scripting alone and not relying on design tools (iWeb, Dreamweaver etc…) is beneficial. Learning what an interpreter does and how it parses, makes fixing problems that much easier. I can’t imagine debugging a web page without having a basic understanding of the syntax. The other advantage is that you can view the source on any website in the world and get better insight to how they have implemented their web page.

Some of the assignments did require us to code (I don’t see how you would have implemented the GUI otherwise) – and from teaching it – overcoming the student’s fear is a big part of coping with technical challenges.

Reflection on the Class

We need to ensure when designing courses that we offer more than one approach to teaching and learning within the same course. For instance, we need to ensure that there is well-structured, relevant information easily available to students, but also that there are opportunities for students to seek out new or different information. This information should be available in a variety of media, such as text, diagrams, and video, with concrete examples explicitly related to underlying principles. (Bates & Pool, 2003, P. 87)

I learned a lot about myself, the relation between technology and education, and the strong influences of my schooling. The most influential part of this class for someone in his early forties, was a deep reflection of how I view technology and education. I was not aware of how powerful an imprint my schooling had on how I perceived learning – even learning today.

I have been brought up by computers and have been surrounded by technology my entire career. My thoughts on education are stuck in the ’70’s & 80’s and I really did not see the potential of these tools from an academic level. Every time I explored the possibility of using technology to help in my classroom, it was like a light bulb going off. I am embarrassed that it took a course like this to illuminate the power of technology to solve problems.

Every time we learned a different part of the process, I thought of structuring my class differently. My thinking before taking ETC565a when it came to my class, was very linear and dependant on synchronous learning. I was opened up to a world of asynchronous learning for my students that has me excited.

The reading selections were relevant and topical. This was my first foray into academic writing about technology and education. It did highlight the enormous change the internet and computer has brought on. Articles that were even just a few years old showed their age, and remind me of how rapidly the world is evolving.

The other surprise for me was the module on story telling. I can take my love for the movies and telling stories to create meaningful classroom activities. To date I have been so reliant on Powerpoint to construct my narratives and have now been introduced to a variety of fabulous tools such as Prezi and Xtranormal. These new tools allow me to make more dynamic, interesting and personal presentations. I was also surprised by what I could do with a cell phone video camera and simple consumer based software.

It was an eye opener to experience different points of view when it came to internet privacy and sharing. Having come from a litigation intense environment, especially where minors are involved, I was surprised to see how conservative my views were next to my peers.

One element that became clear during the many postings, is that access to technology is a huge issue both throughout Canada and internationally. Even though Bates & Pools relegated it to the Student portion of the SECTIONS model (Bates & Pool, 2003), there is clearly a digital divide between a lot of students home access and school access. Technology needs to be a part of the classroom to properly prepare students for what lies ahead. Access appears to be getting worse, rather than getting better.

One suggestion for the class in the future is to have more teamwork projects. I have had lots of failed attempts professionally in using online asynchronous tools. We ended up abandoning the digital tools because of the ease of collaborating face to face. In this class, we did one group exercise, which in our case highlighted the problems of working asynchronously online as a team. I felt we collectively did a poor job and we could almost have a module on collaboration tools online.

It would have been nice to have one or two more synchronous activities. I know this is challenging online with students in different time zones. A single video conference as the only synchronous activity seemed light. I prefer learning on my own time and schedule but the occasional social real time outreach would be nice.

Next Steps

Up until this course I have been hesitant about using the eCollege (we call it eCompanion internally at school). It felt monolithic, daunting and inflexible. I realize now, that this was all in my head. I am going to take the work and structure I have done on the Moodle page and move it to eCollege. I will start next semester with some simple quizzes and message boards. I will take baby steps over the coming quarters to fully build the blended class that I think it can be.

I am going to expect more from my students – when it comes to presenting their ‘work’. The storytelling module is a fascinating insight into an area that I think our students really need to consider. Our school has them working towards a portfolio that shows off what they can do professionally. Their ability to communicate their skills in an interesting manner is crippled. After seeing what we could do, at various skill levels, in using simple tools to tell a story was another light bulb that went off. My students should be doing this as part of their schooling at Ai.

After being depressed at reading about the failures and challenges of student assessment, I am very interested in how video game design can directly help in this area. Upon reading, it became clear that it not only described good scholastic assesment versus bad ones, it described good game design versus bad game design.

A good game estimates where the skill level of the average user is, provides new challenges for all, gives immediate feedback to success and failure and allows for repetition. All of this can be applied to learning. The time on task principle (Chickering & Gamson, 1987), the frequency and detail of the feedback (Gibbs & Simpson, 2004-05), giving students the opportunities to practice skills (Gibbs & Simpson, 2004-05) all can apply to games. Due to Drew’s suggestion, I am going to read What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy, Gee, J. P. (2003) over the holidays.

Food for Thought

The one aspect that is missing from the SECTIONS model (Bates & Pools, 2003) is related to how schools on restrictive budgets can utilize the best technological resources available.

I propose SECTIONS-C. The one aspect the model does not look at is change. Does the subject matter you are teaching change over time and how rapidly? Strategies for topics that don’t change like math, physics and chemistry can capitalize from open source models of development. A single teacher’s budget within a school is constrained, but when added to the thousands of teachers across the country, the budget is cumulatively quite large.

A big consideration when evaluating learning technologies and the opportunity cost is based on how long your work will persist and be relevant. The longer your content can persist, the greater the potential for open source large scale collaboration. We can take best practices from across the country and really build world class course materials.

Change also applies to how schools typically build curriculum and work together. Greater collaboration across the country is possible, but only with the right infrastructure and investment in technology in schools. I hope the future prospects for the students of tomorrow were as good as the ones available to me during my formative years.

References

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.

Chickering, A.W. & GamsonN, Z.F. (1991) Applying the Seven Principles to Good Practice in Undergraduate Education, San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Gibbs, G. and Simpson, C. (2005). “Conditions under which assessment supports students’ learning.” Learning and Teaching in Higher Education Accessed online November 29, 2010 www.open.ac.uk/fast/pdfs/Gibbs%20and%20Simpson%202004-05.pdf