Michele Brannon-Hamilton's Blog

After completing my UBC master’s degree, I was able to take one of my projects and turn it into a reality. I’m currently designing online student services for a local college. I’m going to use this blog to write about my journey through the design and implementation processes.

A Sense of Community

It didn’t matter that I lived in Ontario and went to school in BC. I still felt like part of the UBC community because I had connections with people who made me feel like I belonged. I could log in to my Master of Educational Technology (MET) courses each day and know I would find friends, mentors, classmates, and instructors there. I was able to discuss, connect, collaborate, create, and belong to a safe, caring community.

At first, the newness of online learning was overwhelming because there was so much to do and so many posts to read but it soon became apparent that I wasn’t in a race to do it all and there were always people there to help. In fact, logging in became addictive because I didn’t want to miss a thing. This is the feeling I wanted to create at my own college.

Our College Campus

Currently, the people at our college create a similar feeling on campus. Staff and students like being there because there is a sense of community apparent in the hallways. I wanted to bring that community online to reach the students who couldn’t be on campus or who couldn’t access our services in a face to face environment.

The Idea

If I could design a virtual community for our students, we could provide a place for students to interact, connect, and collaborate with our staff, other students and our resources. I would use constructivist principles and base the design on educational pedagogy. I could almost hear one of my professors saying, “pedagogy before technology.”

Once the idea started, the project soon grew beyond my expectations but first I had to do an environmental scan to determine if the project was really feasible. I used the notes from ETEC 520, Planning and Managing to figure out my next steps.

Next: the Environmental Scan

What a wonderful opportunity it was visiting the University of British Columbia in May for graduation! I decided to finish my journey through MET on campus because I wanted to meet the instructors, connect with classmates, and visit the campus. I’m so glad I did!

My husband and I arrived in BC the day before graduation so we would have time to visit Vancouver and find the campus. I was stunned by Vancouver’s beauty, especially the UBC campus. We stayed with a dear grade-school friend of mine who lived minutes from downtown, the ocean and the campus. It was the first trip we’d ever taken without the kids.

Graduation was spectacular. Because I took all my courses online from Ontario, it was a bit unnerving arriving at the ceremony alone. However, within minutes I’d met classmates and was caught up in the excitement. The gracious staff made sure everything went smoothly so we could concentrate on having a great time. I wasn’t surprised since the whole MET experience had been extraordinary.

After the ceremony, the MET professors threw us a graduation party where I met classmates from Canada, India, China, Jamaica and Japan! Putting names to faces was such fun because after 2 years of studying, I felt like I knew my classmates well even if I didn’t know what they all looked like. It was wonderful meeting the professors in person too.

The whole MET experience was life changing. I grew as a person by learning about educational technology and collaborating with professionals all over the world. I would never have guessed that an online education could be so engaging and interactive.

I have also advanced my career as well. I turned my 2nd assignment in ETEC 520, writing a plan to incorporate educational technology into a college, into a new job – eLearning Resource Consultant – at my local college. I’m now researching and designing a virtual learning commons.

If you’re interested in hearing more about my ideas, please connect with me on LinkedIn or follow me on Twitter @MicheleBrannon. I’d also love to hear your ideas. As I learned in MET, we all have so much to learn from each other!

Is this the end or a new beginning? Although I finished my MET degree two months ago, I’ve decided not to end my educational technology journey for several reasons:

First, I enjoy blogging and I like to share my new found knowledge with those who have similar interests.

Second, I want to stay connected to the MET and UBC communities.

Third, I think blogs are great way to communicate ideas.

Fourth, I believe educational technology is an ever-changing field. Therefore, I want to continue to research and share new information as I learn.

Thanks for joining me. For a summary of my two year journey through MET please visit my ePortfolio Quest at
www.brannonhamilton

Despite my good intentions, it’s been awhile since I posted a blog here. In ETEC 500 Research, I developed a research proposal investigating how blogs can be used to learn. Ironically, I discovered that most people eventually stop blogging. I wanted to be one of those people who continued but time constraints put blogging at the bottom of my priority list.

Now the list has gone bottoms up and blogging has become the priority! Why the change? In a word – ePortfolio! I’ve come to the end of my academic Master of Educational Technology (MET) journey and it’s time to reflect on what I’ve learned in the form of an ePortfolio. Besides creating an end product, the ePortfolio, I am learning that the process is just as important. In this case, process means reflection. Therefore, I’ve decided to use this blog to reflect on the development of my ePortfolio. In turn, I will link the blog and the ePortfolio together. Since one could not really exist without the other, this blog will be my primary artifact linking all that I have learned theoretically with all that I am now able to do practically.

I hope you will join me in the next chapter of my eStory, a book full of discovery, mystery and yes, even horror!

Welcome back to my educational technology blog! I’m currently taking courses in research methods and business ventures. It’s week four and I’m finally starting to grasp the new concepts and course design. We’re using the learning management system (LMS), Blackboard Vista, for the research course which I’ve become quite familiar with since these are my 7th and 8th courses. However, our ventures course takes place in a blog which is a new experience.

Although I’m familiar with the layout and design of blogs because of my time here, it’s a different experience taking a course through a blog. My first challenge was following the course chats. In our LMS, we could follow various discussions and threads with ease. In the blog, posts are organized by tags and categories. Each new post is added by date. I found it confusing until our instructor suggested we use an RRS reader to help us figure out which posts we had read. I’m now using Google Reader which does help you differentiate between the old and new but it doesn’t sort posts by subject so I’m back to trying to read via the blog itself. I’m 400 posts behind but I’m hopeful that I will catch up! I will keep you posted.

Although this was my fourth course in the MET programme, I found this essay the hardest to write. I think I over researched my topic of blended learning and had a hard time deciding on a specific angle. I ended up writing about using Moodle in a blended literacy classroom to create a community conducive to learning.

I am attaching my final paper to this post. Please leave comments below.

https://blogs.ubc.ca/brannonhamilton/files/2009/12/mbrannonhamilton-Final-Paper-511.doc

As we wind down the last week of classes, DLG 8 Psychology and Phenomenology leave you with good tidings. We have created a jibjab elf video for your enjoyment.

 http://elfyourself.jibjab.com/view/6nV3DoYDOoyM5jC6jsZ9

Michele

While working on my final essay about blended learning classrooms, I am drawn back to the sociology module and how technology affects students and teachers in a classroom. In fact, sociologists remind us that nothing happens in isolation because one thing always affects another.

In Kerr’s Toward a Sociology of Educational Technology, Kerr points out that “technology changes constantly” and that today, “internet connectivity” is important. In the 1990s, online learning became important partially because the internet and online education “became more affordable” (p.113). As a sociology undergrad, I was taught to look at the effect of one element on another because nothing happens in isolation. Therefore, I understand how technology can affect more than just the people who use it. For example, even though technology will benefit some people because of its affordability, there are still those who cannot afford it. This leads to what is commonly called the “digital divide” or the inequality that results from the gap between those who have and those who do not (p.113).

Sociologists also encourage us to look at how technology might affect the various areas of society. Can it be used to fix “social problems” or will it lead to new ones (p.113)? As Kerr points out, technology may “[affect more] areas other than those intended by its creators” (p.113). This idea reminds me of the far reaching effects of throwing a stone into the water and watch as the ripples move outward away from the source.

Overall, sociology is important to the study of educational technology because it shows us how to evaluate the effects of technology on individual people, classrooms, institutions, and society as a whole.

Kerr, S.T. (2004). Toward a sociology of educational technology. In D.H. Jonassen (Ed.), Handbook of research on educational communications and technology (pp. 113-142). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

It’s hard to believe that another course has almost ended. It was a whirl wind of information combined with the flu! I enjoyed the readings but the most interesting feature of this course was how it was structured. After the instructors taught the first modules, the class was divided into groups and given the task of teaching the rest of the course. What an exciting challenge. Each group came up with original and effective ways to present a variety of information that covered the foundation topics of the course. I learned a lot.

Beyond the learning that happenend in this class, I experienced a camaraderie with some of my classmates. I’ve taken 4 courses now but the dynamics in this class were different. I wonder if it was the weekly chats. I wasn’t looking forward to meeting online each week but once it started, I found myself looking forward to the chats because I felt like I was part of an actual classroom.

The discourse groups were another great experience. I found I was able to get to know the members of my group in a way I hadn’t experienced in other classes. Perhaps it was the amount of work we created together which translated into a lot of time or maybe it was how we communicated. We met in Vista, in email, in Google.docs, after the weekly chats and live synchronously one night using webinar software. Putting a name to a face or voice made it more personal and seeing our photos in the Halloween Monster Mash made it more fun. Even after we were done our group work we still met just to chat!

So once again I’ve found this course very valuable in a way that goes beyond the reading and learning that was required. Perhaps the community interconnectedness that I felt was the true value of the course.

Well it’s taken me several months to figure it all out but I finally feel like I have control over the organization of my blog. Last term I figured out the difference between a page and a post so that I was able to see the difference between pages (permanent, non-movable) blog entries and posts (added by date) entries. This entry is a post which means it will move down when I add the next post. Anything I add as a page, stays where it is.

Now I’ve taken my blog organizational skills to a new level. I’ve developed categories and leveled my pages. By adding the categories ETEC 511 and ETEC 565, I am able to categorize each of my new entries according to the course that inspired me. This allows readers to find the entries they want quickly and easily.

Next, I added page headings so my ETEC 511 and ETEC 565 pages would be separated and easy to read. I also left the pages about, home and flight path on their own because they tell important information about me. The final page is called teaching online. In November 2009, I started teaching my first online class and I am going to use this blog to write about my teaching journey.

Please take a look at my new structure and read my new postings. My ETEC 511 page is currently a work in progress but I will update it as quickly as possible.