Author Archives: galina culpechina

Galina’s Assignment 5: Final Synthesis

Précis of Flight Path

I have revisited my Flight path while working on this final course reflection. I feel I have achieved most of my goals, which included:

  1. Enhance my skills in evaluating, selecting and using various learning technologies, such as LMSs, online communication and collaboration tools, multimedia and social media.
  2. Explore pedagogical affordances of various social software and web 2.0 tools.
  3. Enhance my understanding of formative and summative assessment, particularly when delivered online.
  4. Create a sophisticated prototype LMS course site.
  5. Reflect on how I can enhance my practice by using my experience and learning from the course.
  6. Add ETEC565A artifacts to my existing MET ePortfolio that I created during ETEC590 Graduating Project course.

I am still thinking what to add to my ePortfolio (goal #6) as the access to my course in Canvas will be lost after ETEC565A finishes. I will probably add my digital story with the reflection on my experience creating it as well as the LMS rubric we created with my peers.

Overall Experience

I had a great experience working on various assignments, collaborating with peers and experimenting with different tools in this course.

What I loved most about this course is the great course structure/design; practical approach; applicable assignments; easy and timely communication with instructor; detailed, constructive video feedback on assignments, the opportunity to experiment with various tools and some elements of surprise (ex. “This week we will conduct our discussions in Mattermost…”); and amazing help I received from reading questions and answers in the general discussion forum.

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Galina’s Reflection on Assignment 4

Following the course introduction, I created a Module on using educational technology for creating learning resources for ESL students using technology. This is Module 4 in my course. The process was smoother than the process of creating the introduction module as I have already had the instructor feedback I could incorporate as well as learned how to deal with technical difficulties that LMS presented.

While creating the content, I considered my students, learning objectives, whether my course content and activities help students learn, apply their knowledge, practice their skills and complete their assignments.

Digital Story

I have created my digital story using Adobe Spark, a video tool.

My intention was to demonstrate how one of the major course assignments can be completed and, at the same time, engage learners, increase their motivation and enhance their experience. Multiple studies have shown that video can be a highly effective educational tool.

I considered my students, ease of use, cost (free), appropriate instructional approach (stripy), effective organization of the video (Adobe Spark provides templates), novelty ( not every instructor is using videos), speed ( the creation of the video was supposed to be fast based on my previous experience, but I encountered some technical difficulties after the tool upgrade (Boyes, Dowie, & Rumzan,2005)). I used Adobe Spark before in my pedagogical practice, and I felt it is a good tool for this digital story. My skill set, access to technology, budget and time all played a part in determining the multimedia I could use.

T. Bates (1985) suggests some criteria to make the video more effective:

– Good presenter, clear audio

Adobe Spark is an excellent tool that allows you to record your voice to each slide and makes your voice sound “ more professional”. That is why it was called Adobe Voice previously.

– It is short and to the point

Adobe Spark reminds you to makes your narration short after you have recorded about 8 seconds of audio for one slide. My total video duration is just under 2 minutes.

– It demonstrates clearly a particular topic and links to what the learner is intended to learn

My digital story is a part of Module 4 of my course. This module has been created to give students an opportunity to create learning resources for their ESL learners using an educational tool of their choice. It is a story about one of the technological tools I have used for my work: how I found it, used it, what its benefits and drawbacks are. I created an example/suggestion of how one of the major course assignments can be completed. It shows how I, the instructor, completed a similar assignment.

References:

Bates, A. (1985) Broadcasting in Education: An Evaluation London: Constables

Bates, A. (2005) Technology, e-Learning and Distance EducationLondon/New York: Routledges

Boyes, J., Dowie, S., & Rumzan, I. (2005). Using the SECTIONS framework to evaluate flash media. Using the SECTIONS framework to evaluate flash media, 2(1). Retrieved from http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.186.6505&rep=rep1&type=pdf

GALINA’S REFLECTION – INTRO MODULE

For the Course Introductory Module assignment, I have chosen to work in Canvas and design a module of the course I have recently developed and have just finished teaching at the University of Manitoba. This is one of the online courses for their TESL program: Resource Development and Integration. I have changed a few activities based on my own reflection after teaching this course as well as requirements for this assignment.

I have invested a lot of time in combining best pedagogical principles and overall course design, trying to make it aesthetically pleasant and pedagogically sound.

While working on the introduction to the course, I focused on including all necessary information students should have when the course starts.  As the course is focused on learning resource integration and development as well as using educational technology for teaching ESL, I provided all necessary tools students will need to use during the course as well as short guides on how to use them. I have also included a detailed syllabus and a welcome letter from the instructor.

My introductory activity, Getting to Know Each Other, includes creating a comic strip, a song playlist (explain why these songs speak to you), or a video that tells a little something about learners. I have provided suggested tools and included my own video as an example for my learners. It is interesting that I created this video in one of my MET courses, and now I have found a good use to it.

It was a surprise to struggle with embedding images as I use Canvas on a regular basis and have never had any problems with that. I have also struggled with creating a good look of the pages as I was not given rights to add CSS or custom template to my course. I found a way out: I had to use my work server to host my images so that I can make them show in the course. Embedding the images from files in Canvas did not work. I had no problem embedding a YouTube video.

As I am used to backward design (we use it while designing our courses at my workplace), creating assessments while working on the introductory module was not challenging for me. I have chosen a combination of summative and formative assessments and worked on rubrics (evaluation criteria). The challenge was to think how to meet this assignment requirements and not to break the logical flow of the course as well as reflect my pedagogical views on how and when the quizzes should be used.

I have chosen various tools that support interactions in the course: discussions, Piazza (Q&A platform), Twitter, Blogger and Tutela. Some of these tools allow synchronous communication, others – asynchronous communication. I have not previously used Piazza in my courses, but conducted a thorough research on this tool benefits and drawbacks as well as had interviews with the faculty who used it in their courses as per my recommendation. This tool makes it very easy to get a discussion going as well as help students to learn using the power of community. Its functionality reminds me of Mattermost, but makes searching through posts easier (to my view) and provides opportunities for learners to create wiki pages. Integrating this tool offers me a new way of facilitating teaching and learning and provides meaningful opportunities for feedback and support for learners throughout the learning process (Anderson, T. (2008a).

Tutlela and Twitter offer opportunities for students to build their professional network, share their learnings and meet with the instructor synchronously using a web conferencing tool (BigBlueButton) available through Tutela. I agree with Bates that social media can help learners develop core competencies such as collaboration, digital literacy, critical thinking, problem-solving, self-directed learning, networking, knowledge management and decision-making (Bates, 2014). According to November, Twitter seems to be a great way to develop a professional learning community, whether it’s just by observing and following others who provide resources or by personally participating through tweets (November, 2012).

I have also integrated peer reviews in my course as I believe they can increase the quality of student engagement in learning tasks (Gibbs & Simpson, 2004, p.8). Online course allows thinking time for students before they are ready to provide feedback. According to Chickering & Gamson, students need frequent opportunities to perform and receive suggestions for improvement. … Students need chances to reflect on what they have learnt, what they still have to learn, and how to assess themselves.’ (Chickering & Gamson, 1987). According to Bates, students can extend their learning by participating in both self-assessment and peer assessment (Bates. T. , 2014), and I tried to incorporate these pedagogical techniques in my course.

In addition to peer feedback on assignments, I have allowed using “like” button for discussions and Piazza postings. While designing the course and its assessments, I wanted to motivate learners to provide peer reviews; I have decided to make them required but ungraded.

Major assessments in the course allow to students to apply knowledge and skills they have gained to evaluate and create their own learning resources using relevant technology.

Overall, I relied on best pedagogical principles and methods as well as course objectives and chose technology that I feel works well with them.

 

References:

Anderson, T. (2008a). Towards a theory of online learning. In T. Anderson & F. Elloumi (Eds.), Theory and practice of online learning. Edmonton AB: Athabasca University. Retrieved from http://www.aupress.ca/books/120146/ebook/02_Anderson_2008-Theory_and_Practice_of_Online_Learning.pdf
Bates, T. (2014). Pedagogical differences between media: Social media. In Teaching in digital age, Chapter 9. Retrieved from http://opentextbc.ca/teachinginadigitalage/chapter/9-5-5-social-media/
Gibbs, G., & Simpson, C. (2005). Conditions under which assessment supports students’ learning. Learning and Teaching in Higher Education, 1(1), 3-31. Retrieved from http://www.open.ac.uk/fast/pdfs/Gibbs%20and%20Simpson%202004-05.pdf
November, A. (2012).  How Twitter can be used as a powerful educational tool. November Learning [Weblog] Retrieved from http://novemberlearning.com/educational-resources-for-educators/teaching-and-learning-articles/how-twitter-can-be-used-as-a-powerful-educational-tool/

Galina’s LMS Evaluation Rubric Reflection

For the LMS selection: Evaluation rubric assignment, I worked with Agnieszka, Tracey, and Samantha. We were tasked with developing an evaluation rubric to decide which LMS would best suit Yukon Education Student Network (YESNet) who want to develop blended secondary courses that are relevant from an Aboriginal perspective. We had to take into consideration the bandwidth and reliability of internet access and possible upcoming extension.

As I did not have any experience working with indigenous communities before, I found the assignment quite challenging. It was really important to understand the restrictions of their traditional territories, needs and cultural perspectives.  Agnieszka found and shared a few valuable resources that helped me review and analyse the adoption and use of digital technologies specifics in remote and northern Indigenous communities in Canada and get a perspective on their challenges and possible project success issues.

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