By participating in ETEC 565 my primary goal is to develop and improve the skills that are required to implement Learning Management Systems (LMS) into a variety of educational environments. As a public school educator in rural British Columbia, the environment that I teach in is changing with the introduction of new technologies and changing needs of a shrinking, yet diversifying, student population.  I hope to gain enough of an understanding of the affordances and limitations of various LMS platforms so that I can design courses appropriate for different age levels, multiple subject areas, and both distance and blended learning scenarios.  My goal is to achieve a deep understanding primarily of the Blackboard LMS platform since it is used by my current school district.  In addition to my primary focus, I plan to develop a broad understanding of how other platforms and tools can support the Blackboard platform.

Beyond building my technical skills, my goal is to also reflect on my teaching pedagogy throughout the process in order to gain the ability to design courses which are based on sound educational theory.  My teaching pedagogy is largely influenced by historical and critical thinking concepts which are familiar to those with a social studies background. I believe that both learning how to deconstruct the past, as well as how to critically analyze new information, are necessary to help students grow towards becoming global citizens. I am also influenced by constructionist views on education. It is important that students are required to analyze information and make critical decisions that are both part of the designing of their own experience in the course, as well as the design and presentation of their own creative projects.  I believe that sharing, collaborating and reflecting are also essential components of the learning process that can be enhanced with the right use of an LMS platform. Finally, I believe that all courses delivered in my public school setting must address the issue of access. Many of the students who would benefit from an online or blended course have limited access due to costs and remoteness.  I hope to gain the ability to design courses that also take students with poor access to technology into consideration so that they can also benefit from education technology instead of being left out.

The goals I have set for this course are lofty due to my limited experience with LMS platforms and tools in my professional career. I have delivered most of my courses in a traditional classroom and routinely use education technologies in my courses for a variety of uses. However, I rarely use technology in the same manner typical of Learning Management Systems.  I have used class blogs to improve communication with students and a variety of animation and presentation tools to allow students to construct their own projects and artifacts. However, I have not created the same type of learning community that is often a product of using an LMS platform.  In my academic context, I have experienced numerous variations of LMS course delivery as a UBC MET student.  This most commonly involves designs using the Blackboard LMS platform, often in conjunction with WordPress blogs.  Several courses have supplemented these platforms with additional tools for both delivering information and communicating. Because I am nearing the completion of the MET program, I feel that I have seen a variety of effectively designed and delivered courses. I am hoping that my academic experience and participation in ETEC 565 help me achieve my goals.