Author Archives: Jenny Wong
Assignment 4 Reflection
I decided to build Phase 1 of my course for the content module assignment. My course is an orientation course for our incoming Canvas Tech Rovers, hosted on the Canvas platform. The CTRs complete Phase 1 three weeks prior to their official start date and it is designed to prepare them for the job. I approached the design of this module by thinking back on the CTR interviews. I recall during the interviews when I gave them the opportunity to ask questions at the end, two questions kept coming up: (1) What is a typical day like as a CTR? (2) What types of training will be provided?
Keeping these questions in mind, I decided to start Phase 1 with an overview of their role as a CTR. This is also where I embedded my digital story, which I will talk more about later in my reflection. Following the video is a “Meet Your Mentor” activity where the CTRs have an opportunity to meet up with an existing CTR that works in the same Faculty they are assigned to. Although all our CTRs have similar responsibilities, every Faculty have specific processes in place that is different from other Faculties; this is knowledge that needs to be transferred by existing staff at the Faculty.
Jenny’s Digital Story
Digital Story: https://youtu.be/AUtyGMs6DnE.
Assignment 3 Reflection: Canvas Intro Module
For this assignment, I decided to create an orientation course for our incoming Canvas Tech Rovers (CTRs) to prepare them for the job. CTRs are co-op students that we hire to assist with the Canvas transition project at UBC. The CTR program started in September 2017 and the first batch of co-op students are finishing up their co-op terms in April. We are preparing for a new intake of CTRs as replacements and I thought it would be a good opportunity to develop an orientation course for them.
The introductory activities for this course are primarily focused on student-student interactions and consists of two parts. The first part is asynchronous where every CTR does a self-introduction on the discussion forum either in text, audio, or video format. This is an opportunity for other CTRs as well as myself to learn more about them. The second part is synchronous and it is the “Meet Your Mentor” activity where the incoming CTRs are paired with the current CTRs. This is an opportunity for them to ask questions and hear about the experiences of what the job is like from another peer. They then summarize what they’ve learned and share it with the other CTRs on the discussion forum. Through these interactions, I hope the students are able to, as Anderson (2008a) describes “transform the inert information passed to them from another and construct it into knowledge with personal application and value”.
JENNY’S LMS SELECTION: EVALUATION RUBRIC
The experience of working collaboratively in creating a rubric for the Athabasca University was very interesting. For our case study, the focus was to expand Athabasca’s programs to South Asia but one of their main concerns was the internet connectivity in the remote areas. We started off with everyone brainstorming ideas on a Google Doc and interestingly enough, we all noted down very similar criteria. This formulated our five main categories for our rubric: functionality, accessibility, support, technical requirements and cost. We elaborated on each category by using the SECTIONS framework (Bates, 2014) as the foundation and ensuring all the components were addressed in the rubric criteria.
Throughout the process, I realize that it was very difficult to include detailed evaluation criteria for every stakeholder involved. Although our goal was to ensure that administrators, instructors, and students are all accounted for in the evaluation, it was not possible to address the independent needs of each stakeholder equally in the rubric. It is obvious that certain criteria are of major concern to one stakeholder and not so much to another. Continue reading
Jenny’s Flight Path
My name is Jenny Wong. I completed my Bachelor of Arts degree at UBC in 2012, while working as an instructional support student at the Learning Centre in the Faculty of Arts. After graduation, I started working full-time at the Learning Centre as an Educational Technologist. I have been providing support to faculty on the use of various technologies and Learning Management Systems for some time now. In 2016, I enrolled in the MET program and here I am in my 8th course! In June of 2017, I took on a secondment position and started working for the Centre of Teaching, Learning and Technology (CTLT) at UBC as the Faculty Implementation Lead for the Learning Technology Ecosystem (LTE) Renewal project. This project is related to the institution’s transition to a new LMS, Canvas, from Connect (Blackboard).
I really look forward to this course because I can see how it relates to the work I do and I believe the knowledge I gain from this course will be applicable to my work place. I have experience using different LMS such as Sakai, WebCT Vista, Connect (Blackboard), BrightSpace (D2L), edX, and Canvas and they are very different in their own ways. One of the things that I’ve learned from the interactions and consultations with faculty is that there is not one system that can do everything and we need to rely on other external learning tools and rely on them in their teaching. The way technology is used and its requirements also vary greatly across disciplines.