If I could have looked into the future five years ago, I would have been very surprised to see myself in the MET program. My journey to MET wasn’t direct, it was a result of small realizations over time. My background is not in education. I don’t have a BEd and I don’t have any experience in the classroom. My background is in communication. I have a Bachelor’s degree in Communication, with a major in Information Design. Throughout my time as an Information Designer, I have spent a lot of time reworking materials, studying user needs, conducting usability studies, etc. Yet, it wasn’t until I had a course in Instructional Design at the end of my undergraduate degree that I found an interest in Education. After studying about some instructional theorists, such as Benjamin Bloom, John Bransford, Lev Vygotsky, and the theories of Behaviourism, Information Processing, and Constructivism, I realized there was a whole new realm of design that I hadn’t previously encountered as an Information Designer. Throughout that course I designed two lesson plans, and after that, I became interested in designing for education.
After I graduated from my Undergraduate degree I was hired at Mount Royal University in the Department of Continuing Education. My time at Mount Royal solidified my desire to pursue the field of education. There are a lot of policies in post-secondary institutions, and with my limited experience, a lot of my day to day tasks left me stuck in my ability to customize courses, and I also ended up using materials that were outdated, or improperly designed for students. I knew that I wanted to make a difference for learners, in whatever way I could, and when I found MET, a program that not only focused on education, but also on the tools and strategies needed to be a successful Instructional Designer, I applied.
MET has been everything I had hoped for and more. And while my MET journey is coming to a close, the one thing that has been invaluable to me is the experience I gained in critical analysis – being able to critically assess learners, learning situations, and design flaws to help change the course of learning for the future.
I signed up for ETEC 565A because it is my goal that after MET I will be proficient in my ability to design and implement learning strategies, and a large portion of that proficiency is the ability to select appropriate learning technologies. It is my hope that through ETEC 565A I will have greater experience in using a variety of learning technologies, and I will be able to critically assess their usefulness in the learning contexts I am designing for. I gained a larger understanding of technology selection through ETEC 565M, but I’m hoping that I will continue to learn more about this in ETEC 565A. Furthermore, beyond the selection of learning technologies, it is my hope that I will learn how to pitch the use of effective learning technologies to potential stakeholders. Through my experience with Mount Royal I realized quickly that unless I can make a really good pitch, my ideas will not be heard. It is my hope that by using evaluation tools such as Bates and Poole’s (2013) SECTIONS framework throughout this course that I will gain a more concrete understanding of how to evaluate tools and articulate educational design choices to others.
Additionally, through this course I want to gain more knowledge on LMS selection and implementation. My understanding of Learning Management Systems is limited, other than my knowledge of Blackboard through my work with Mount Royal, so it is my hope that through this course I will be exposed to a variety of LMS systems and that I will know more about their strengths and weaknesses. In my previous classes my technology tool experience has largely focused on website creation, podcasts, videos, and blog-style post and responses, and while those are useful I’m looking forward to learning more about larger-scale online learning systems that I can hopefully bring forward into a career in instructional design. I’m hoping to learn more about systems such as Canvas, Moodle, Google Classroom, and Schoology. On an initial search of LMS systems, I came across an article by Christopher Pappas (2017) about “The 20 Best Learning Management Systems” which I hope to be able to investigate further throughout this course.
Furthermore, the self-assessment we completed with ISTE Standards was eye-opening to me. While I feel confident in my abilities as a Designer and a Collaborator, I would like to improve my skills as a Facilitator. Since I don’t have a teaching background, I often feel as though my role as a Facilitator, and my knowledge about facilitation is lacking, so it is my hope that through this course I will improve my ability to “foster a culture” of learning ownership and “manage the use of technology” in online environments (ISTE Standards, 2017, 6a & 6b).
It is my hope that through this course I will gain a greater understanding of how to be a Facilitator (ISTE Standards) of learning to diverse people in varying environments, as “many roads lead to learning” (Chickering and Ehrmann, 1996, p. 5), and through this, become a greater Analyst in better being able to “accommodate learner needs” and provide more and varied ways for learners to share and interact (ISTE Standards, 2017, 7a & 7b).
Looking forward to this course and to learning with all of you!
References
Bates, T. (2014). Teaching in a digital age. Chapter 8: Choosing and using media in education: The SECTIONS model. Retrieved from https://opentextbc.ca/teachinginadigitalage
/chapter/models-for-choosing-media-and-technologies/
International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE). (2017). Standards for teachers. Retrieved from https://www.iste.org/standards/for-educators
Pappas, C. (2017, December 07). The 20 best learning management systems (2017 Update). Retrieved January 11, 2018, from https://elearningindustry.com/the-20-best-learning-management-systems