Michele Brannon-Hamilton's Blog

Just in case I missed something, I wandered back through the course Toolkit and sure enough I found something I wanted to add. I haven’t mentioned the importance of starting this blog and setting up my Moodle course.

Blogging
Yes, blogging is a requirement of this course but really it was the nudge I needed to get me started on something I’d planned on doing for ages. I’ve been freelance writing for several years and got caught up in the excitement of blogging from the beginning. I even get a weekly newsletter from http://weblogs.about.com/ but instead of setting up a blog, I put it off – waiting for the right topic or the right opportunity.

ETEC 565 gave me the topic I needed and the opportunity was thrust upon me. Now, I can’t imagine not writing a blog. Blogging gives me a chance to think about what I’m learning and then put my thoughts onto a page where other like minded individuals can find it.

Moodling
I’d been introduced to Moodle two months before I began MET and thought it was an interesting way to connect learners in my literacy field. I took a workshop where I learned the basics of using the program but I knew when I finished that I’d just skimmed the surface of possibilities.

In ETEC 565, I ran into Moodle again and it’s here that I’ve had the chance to really explore its potential. Our first task, setting up the ‘welcome page,’ was like a test for me. Would I remember enough from the workshop to get started? Well, I remembered a bit and the ETEC 565 Toolkit helped me the rest of the way.

Our second task, setting up a “discussion forum,” seemed more familiar. I think I was more comfortable with this task because I could appreciate its use in an online classroom. I’ve taken online courses that join participants and I’ve taken those that don’t. In the field of literacy, I can see the potential of this tool. Students can connect with one another while working at home. Getting to class can be a real barrier for literacy students so the potential is exciting. The only problem I can foresee is getting students with different literacy abilities to chat together online without feeling self-conscious. One solution might be to split the class into different groups according to ability.

Overall, I find blogging very useful to my own career and personal growth and I find Moodling very useful for my students. Together, I will be able to use these tools to create material for self reflection, networking and curriculum design. I’m very excited about the future of possibilities.

I enjoyed searching through the various communication tools available to instructors in Moodle because it gave me a good overview of what exists for instructor/student communication. It was interesting to match the tools I liked best with my instructional goals. The challenge was picking the right tools for the right reasons.

Although I like the idea of a wiki to connect students to each other and the instructor, it didn’t seem like the right tool for literacy learners because it invites the sharing of writing which may intimidate some students. Instead, I chose the discussion forum and the chat tools.

I wanted to start with something very basic so the students could connect easily without a lot of technical confusion. I worked in the literacy field for many years and found that students can easily become overwhelmed because of negative school experiences. Instead, I could use the forum to answer questions and help students along the way. Students could connect with others at their own literacy levels which promotes a sense of independence.

I could use the chat tool to personalize my class and connect with students immediately. Literacy classrooms are very learner centred and instructors try to develop a sense of community early on.

As an instructor, I found the forum tool very user friendly. It was easy to set up new discussions and I could see where the date could be set easily. This tool would give me a lot of flexibility while also allowing me to control when discussion topics would close. I think the discussion tool is a great way to keep the lines of communication open throughout the duration of the course.

The chat tool was equally easy to set up and I would use this in the beginning, middle and end of the course to stay connected to my students. The only thing I didn’t like was the time issue. I would have to find a time that suited most of my learners.

I think what surprised me the most was that I hadn’t considered the importance of keeping connected with my students online. In the classroom it was obvious. Recently, I created a writing course for literacy learners and now I want to go back and add in the chat tool and perhaps change my discussions. Overall, setting up these tools was a very enlightening experience that I think will benefit my students in the future.

Please see my communication tools page for more information about the forum and chat tools.

Everyone benefits from the synchronicity of communication “between an instructor, learners, and content” (Toolkit) because togetherness allows for the quick exchange of ideas. Of course there are problems like the students in one class being in several different time zones. Many students take online courses for the anytime anywhere features they can’t find when attending an actual classroom. It’s easy to see why synchronicity alone cannot create the kind of interactive classroom many instructors conceptualize.

So enter asynchronous communication tools. Instructors use these anytime anywhere tools to join all involved without the constraints of time or location. Users communicate freely and conveniently.

But can this ease of use backfire? With synchronous tools, communication is defined with a start time and an end time. Not so with asynchronous tools. In theory then, there is no end. Discussions can be endless and like anything that is endless, it can be overwhelming. How many messages should a student post or answer? Participation guides may say to answer a few regularly but when is few not enough?

In ETEC 565A, there are 1895 messages (as I write this) compared to ETEC 532 which has 729 messages. Does this mean one class is better than the other? If so, which one?

Of course, quality outweighs quantity but if students don’t read all the messages, they might miss something important. So in the end they may be left to wonder how these non-constraining asynchronous communication tools have managed to tie them to the discussion board with such unrelenting constraint!

After completing my LMS proposal, I reread the group rubrics we created. I wanted to know if I would see things differently after delving into the depths of writing a proposal.

Several things became apparent. I understood the purpose of the rubric in a new way. I saw it as a tool to convince someone to purchase what I was suggesting. In ETEC 520, we learned that tying your idea to the organization’s vision could make or break an idea.

Yes, the rubric was a tool to evaluate an LMS but it was also a measuring stick. Would my LMS achieve what I needed for the school? Would the faculty buy into the idea? Would it be easy for the students to use? How much would it cost?

By tying the LMS proposal to the rubric, I could see how they needed each other to complete the picture I was trying to sell. So what picture did we create?

I noticed a few buzz words appear across our work: cost, active learning, collaboration, communication, interactivity, assessment and feedback.

We also had some interesting points to make: Group 3 mentioned record management which would be important to the organization and the instructors. Group 5 mentioned considering teachers, students and organizations when choosing a LMS.

Group 1 reminded us of the importance of communicating with each other. Group 2 used a method of scoring that would encourage purchasers to pick the LMS with the best overall qualities. Group 4 used the categories content, interaction and management which encompass some of the details mentioned by all groups like cost and collaboration.

Overall, we created the categories needed to write a comprehensive proposal. Inadvertently, we used WebCT/Vista to do many of the things we claimed a good LMS should do: create, discuss, collaborate, communicate and learn. Kudos to us!

I was the first one at work to jump into Vista and Microsoft Office 2007. I figured why fight it. I was teaching computer literacy classes to senior citizens and they were throwing questions at me that didn’t seem to make a lot of sense: “How do we shut down the computer? How do we print?” It wasn’t that I hadn’t heard these questions before but they were coming from my advanced students who should know how to perform these simple tasks. I mean suddenly they can’t remember how to shut down the computer? Obviously something wasn’t right.

It took about one minute on my new Vista based laptop to discover that I didn’t know what I was doing either. Where was the start button? How do you print and where is the “File” toolbar anyway?

Suddenly, I was a newbie and I still had to go to work the next day. How would I face the students? After the initial panic subsided, I noticed the teeny tiny question mark symbol in the top right hand side of the screen. It was HELP!

I typed in “print” and found that the cute flowery symbol at the top left of the screen actually hid the secrets of file. Honestly, I would have sat there all day and it never would have occurred to me that the flowery thing ‘did’ anything.

Today, I’m very happy with my Vista operating system and all things Office 2007 related which can only mean one thing – they’re going to change it all aren’t they?

I like to think of fonts as the added decorative touch on an otherwise bland text-based page. You can do so much with fonts like change the size or the style. If you don’t like the colour, you can change that too.

What fonts don’t do well is translate from program to program or format to format. That means I can create a well-developed page with underlined headings and italicized key words but when I move it to a new location, the design may be lost in the transfer.

I found this out when I designed a course in Moodle. I forgot that Moodle was web-based and Word wasn’t – that means my stuff morphed when I cut it out of Word and pasted it into Moodle. Font changed itself and spaces between paragraphs disappeared. I cut, pasted and resaved but to no avail.

Since then, I’ve discovered a few useful pointers that I’d like to share. One, create your pages in a web-based program to avoid these problems altogether. Two, check your pages in more than one browser. Three, ask for help and search online for answers. There are many great Moodle sites online with people who will help you if they can.

Words can be a lot of fun once you understand how basic coding works. Once you’ve figured out the basics, let yourself have some fun with the pages and if you really want to play around with letters, try Wordle – a silly word program you can use for free at http://www.wordle.net/. Be patient and have fun!

Well if you’ve followed me through the land of pages and posts, you’ll know there’s a bit of confusion here. I seem to have a bit of a problem adapting to this new blog environment with its html rules. I’ve never been one for rules and so it seems the online environment is no exception.

Recently, my group created a a wonderful LMS Evaluation Rubric to help us evaluate different learning management systems. It works well and posted easily to the group discussion for everyone to view. Naturally, I thought I would use it in my latest assignment in which we had to evaluate an lms.

Instinct told me not to add it to my LMS page just in case something went wrong (now why would I even think that) and then my LMS assignment could get messed up. So, I created a LMS Rubric page and added our fabulous chart to that section. You know it didn’t go well, don’t you?

Well, the chart is there in body but not soul – to be more precise, the left hand side appears but the right is nowhere to be found. Perhaps, it’s  out in cyberspace. The perfectionist in me said pull it off immediately before anyone sees what a mess you’ve made. Instead, I decided to leave it there with the hopes that someone will view it, take pitty on me and leave a message explaining what on earth I’ve done wrong this time.

So please, if you could spare the time to aid someone in need, view the chart and let me know how to fix it before I come to my senses and delete the thing.

My next post will be about the trouble with fonts. If you’d like a preview, scan my LMS assignment with eagle eyes and you will see that something just isn’t quite right.

I should also mention that I was a computer teacher for 7 years and took courses in technical writing and web design. Now isn’t that embarrassing? Who said educational technology couldn’t be fun?

I’ve been creating this web blog for several weeks now – sometimes on the computer and sometimes in an old fashioned notebook where a page is a page is a page.

It’s taken me this long to figure out that a page isn’t just a page. I wrote my flight path and posted it here  on the main page because I thought that blogs worked liked journals – add each new thing to the site as you write it. Apparently, that’s not always the case. I should have pasted the flight path into the page labelled flight path! It’s so simple really, isn’t it?

Then I posted my reflections into a section I created called reflections. This was not the proper thing to do. It should have gone onto the main page which isn’t actually a page but a post area. Are you still with me?

So, the bottom line is the reflections belong in the post section because they are actually posts and the ‘special’ posts or assignments if you prefer should go into the pages.

Clear now? Good. Now I’d like to tell you my trouble with fonts and page layout.

Visual vs Audito Profiles

Currently, I’m working on my second and third ETEC courses – 532 and 565. My first task, creating a profile, was similar in both courses. But which would create a more accurate picture of me, I wondered?

Both methods created challenges I expected: finding an acceptable photo, writing or saying something meaningful, getting it done on time and posting it properly. Even the fears were similar: would I look like an idiot or sound like a fool?

However, there were challenges I wasn’t expecting. For example, this was my first experience using digital audio so I was a bit apprehensive but I wasn’t expecting my aversion to speaking on file.  In fact, I waited until the last minute to create my audio file/ without even understanding why. Was it the sound of my voice or just the fear of using new technology?

Posting a photo with a few chosen words presented its own problems one of which was vanity. Which photo would I use? Did I want to look professional, friendly or professionally friendly? I finally settled on my Facebook photo so that people will recognize me from place to place.

In the end, I didn’t prefer either the visual or the auditory profile more than the other. In fact, I would probably recommend combining both so that those I take classes with can see how professionally friendly I look and sound.

Flight Path

I started this journey with my eyes closed.

I wanted a change from teaching computer literacy but I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do next. So, I combined my main interests of writing, education and technology to see what I could come up with. As a passionate writer, I knew I would add writing to any job I found so I took it out of the equation to see what was left: education and technology.

So what do you get when you Google education and technology? MET of course. Shortly after making the decision to apply to UBC, I got a new job as a Learning Skills Advisor for Conestoga College in Ontario. With a huge leap of faith, I joined the college as an employee and the university as a student and so began my flight.

My Background

My teaching experience includes 7.5 years experience as a literacy instructor, computer instructor and literacy assessor. Shortly after I began working with older adults, I realized many of them feared new technology and felt out of touch with their children and grandchildren so I created 4 computer literacy courses to help bridge the gap. I had no computer background or training so I learned along with my students. I was curriculum designer, teacher and IT personnel.

I also worked as a freelance writer specializing in web based material. The freedom of working at home and publishing my articles online fuelled my love of modern technology. The visionary in me envisioned a generation of parents who could work at home while caring for their children. My eyes were wide open and the possibilities were endless.

My Goals

Because I spent most of my working hours on the computer, I was usually knowledgeable about the latest technology but it soon became apparent that the more I knew, the less I knew. I joined MET to gain a deeper knowledge of technology but also to become an expert at curriculum design. I want to engage learners, reach people who can’t make the journey to school, and empower students using educational technology.

Recently, I created a literacy course using Moodle which included interactive quizzes, chats, journal activities and presentations. I would like to learn more about which features are the best educational tools and why. I’d also like to know the advantages of different platforms, the ways to create synchronous communication, which social software I should choose and how to know if multimedia will enhance the learning experience.

I believe the courses in MET will help me understand the value of new technology as it relates to education. Already, I find Chickering and Gamson’s (1987) seven principles or guidelines for teaching invaluable as they remind me to always place education before technology. So as I continue my flight, I will collaborate, reciprocate, communicate, and engage with those I encounter along my journey.

Good journey to all!

 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. Retrieved online 12 May 2009
http://www.aahea.org/bulletins/articles/sevenprinciples1987.htm