Flight Path….

Sheila’s Proposed Flight Path for ETEC 565A.

I have been working in the Northwest Territories for the past 7 years as an administrator, and before that as a teacher of Science and Math primarily. Our Board has been doing excellent work supporting best practices for instruction in Math and Literacy over the past 6 years. This work has raised Literacy levels of our students and we continue to explore ways to engage students, especially in the remote communities, and provide exceptional teaching and learning resources – and for me I see tremendous potential for technology to support our students’ learning. In the high school curriculum we need to have access to the tremendous on line resources to support instructional practice. My Education Leave this year is focused on completing 7 courses in the MET so I can develop my knowledge and skills to help in the planning and integration of technology in our school and Board.

Up to this point I have been the main technology person in the school – maintaining the network and dealing with teacher technology issues, with some phone support from our Board technology experts, who are several hours away by plane in a different community. I taught myself some web design skills to create and maintain our school web site. Over the years I have archived hundreds of digital photos and videos dealing with traditional skills, language, travel and elder interviews. I really want to learn the skills required to generate interactive learning materials for these resources. The preservation of the Dene language and culture is a huge priority issue in the north. I have also been working on setting up teacher resources and year, unit and lesson plans that can be shared and accessed from our server. Over the past two years I have upgraded all our technology, all new computers in the lab, projectors, Smartboards, and high school laptops.

This is great, but I have been aware of my own lack of knowledge and skills around the optimal uses of technology for specific instructional strategies. As well, it is clear that our Board, and our school, need much more detailed and forward planning so that the infrastructure is there to support teachers. Right now software, bandwidth and general connectivity issues really interfere with using technology effectively in the classroom. Many of our teachers have few or no technology skills, and find its use more frustrating than helpful. I agree very much with Chickering and Ehrmann (1996) that technology needs to be in service of good pedagogy, so I need to understand these best practices for integrating technology.

Our Board is very strong on constructivist theory and practice with the emphasis on active learning, interactivity and collaboration. I know that “the range of technologies that encourage active learning is staggering” (Chickering and Ehrmann, 1996, p.3). Clearly some technologies suit specific instructional strategies better and I hope to develop my ability to evaluate technologies, effectively plan for implementation, and have the skills to design learning environments that foster interactivity, collaboration, authentic tasks, dialogue and on-going assessment and feedback for learning (Driscoll, 2005).

In this context, I want to develop strong course design skills in different platforms like Web CT, Moodle and other LMS that involve creating synchronous and asynchronous communication systems for students and staff. Although I have used wikis, Google docs and weblogs I feel my skills are still very basic. We have systems in place that could be used for more staff collaboration but they are not used. I know if I had more comfort with, and understanding of these technologies, it would be easier to facilitate staff at all schools to make use of these communication technologies to support their classroom instruction, and support design of engaging on-line learning environments.

In addition to templates I have used for web design, I would like to learn some html and perhaps a program like Dreamweaver, and learn more about digital photo and video editing. I created my first multimedia production last term and love producing short films, and again would like to explore some more sophisticated editing beyond my basic imovie skills.

I am already appreciating the frameworks for planning and evaluating technology implementation that we have looked at so far and would like to spend more time working through these frameworks as they apply to our NWT situation. It is clear to me that financial resources need to be re-allocated to focus on supporting student learning and effective use of technology. Our communities are remote, and right now huge sums of money are spent in traveling to meetings for staff and administrative collaboration. These meetings are very valuable, but take a lot of money away from improving internet bandwidth, connectivity and resources for teaching and learning. From my limited experience in the MET program so far, I feel on line collaboration could be equally valuable in many cases. Above all I feel technology has the potential to help us further develop our Communities of Practice, our learning communities in our schools and to connect them with other learning communities in other schools in the NWT and elsewhere in the world.

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. Retrieved January 6, 2012 from: https://www.vista.ubc.ca/webct/urw/tp0.lc5116011/cobaltMainFrame.dowebct

Chickering, A.W. and Ehrmann, S.C. (1996).  “Implementing the Seven Principles: Technology as Lever,” American Association for Higher Education Bulletin, 49(2), p. 3-6. Retrieved January 6, 2012 from:  http://www.aahea.org/bulletins/articles/sevenprinciples.htm

Chickering, A.W. and Gamson, Z.F. (1987).  Seven Principles for Good Practice in Undergraduate Education.  American Association for Higher Education Bulletin, 39 (7), p. 3-7. Retrieved January 6, 2012 from: 
http://www.aahea.org/bulletins/articles/sevenprinciples1987.htm

Driscoll. M.P. (2005). Psychology of Learning for Instruction (pp. 384-407; Ch. 11 – Constructivism). Toronto, ON: Pearson.

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