About three and half months ago, I started on a journey – my last guided tour of online learning in the MET program. I was asked to create a flight plan to help guide my travels and, after much thought about how challenging a journey I wanted this last trip to be, decided that it should include expanding my skill set with Moodle tools, trying gain a better understanding of how social software and collaboration tools can be used in education, and a possible venture into the world of multimedia or web publishing. As I make my final approach, I pause to reflect.
First stop: Sevens and SECTIONS
The Seven Principles and Bates SECTIONS would turn out to be a recurring theme to this journey, both in our weekly case studies, and in our own selection and use of technological tools. It was good to run into an old friend (Bates, 2003) and both see and apply his SECTIONS in a different way.
Case Studies: Taking my own advice
The questions we had to consider in the case studies were questions I started asking myself as I moved through the course. The advice I had given, upon reflection, was not necessarily what I was practicing in my own educational use of technological tools. But, as time went by, I became more aware of my time and skill management, as well as the accessibility and educational value and educational value of the tools I was using and found myself repeatedly clock watching and curbing my urge to futz about too much with perfect renderings. I don’t know how much the advice I had given in the case studies would change as a result of my travels, but my own practice certainly has through the knowledge and experience I have gained.
Next Stop: WordPress
This was not my first visit to blogging or to WordPress, but just as Richardson in Downes (2004) rather disappointedly had found, I “drop(ped) blogging like wet cement” after my last visit (course) ended. So, one might ask: what was the value of that blogging exercise? I’m not sure that the intent was explicitly to demonstrate how blogging could be used as an educational tool, but rather a tool the instructor used to help us frame our learning. And, in that regard, I believe it worked. Revisiting blogging in this course not only allowed me a different learning experience with the tool, but an opportunity to explore it as a Web 2.0 tool, a social media tool, and potentially an educational tool.
Understanding the tool
I write: in notebooks. I write ‘because [I] can’t not write.’ That said, I do not write for an audience so I was quite surprised to find that that quote is from “The Weblog Manifesto”. Blogging is a very popular online activity and very accessible. understanding the draw of the audience became clearer to me after reading an article in New York Magazine (a side trip) which I refer to in my blog post ‘Don’t run with scissors’ :
“When I first started out with my Livejournal, I was very honest,” she remembers. “I basically wrote as if there was no one reading it. And if people wanted to read it, then great.” But as more people linked to her, she became correspondingly self-aware. By tenth grade, she was part of a group of about 100 mostly older kids who knew one another through “this web of MySpacing or Livejournal or music shows.” They called themselves “The Family” and centered their attentions around a local band called Spoont. When a Family member commented on Xiyin’s entries, it was a compliment; when someone “Friended” her, it was a bigger compliment. “So I would try to write things that would not put them off,” she remembers. “Things that were not silly. I tried to make my posts highly stylized and short, about things I would imagine people would want to read or comment on.”
Educational value
Blogging is the Web 2.0 version of the journal. Using it as a reflection tool seems to be the key component to it being a useful learning tool. Used in this manner, it gives students the opportunity to explore, question and critique their learning experiences. The value add is that it gives them an opportunity to improve their writing skills, particularly because it is likely to be read by others. That someone is reading and might respond to their blog, seems to be a great motivator for one to continue blogging.
Julie: And when this year’s over, and I cannot wait until it is,
Eric: your readers will somehow get on with their lives.
Julie: And I won’t, is that what you’re saying?
Eric: I don’t know. I have no idea. I mean, what’s gonna happen when you’re no longer the center of the universe?
Julie: That’s just great. I am finally totally engaged in something.
Okay, maybe I’m being a little narcissistic.
Eric: A little? On a scale of 10?
Julie: Okay, a 9.3. But what do you think a blog is? It’s me, me, me day after day. (from the movie Julie & Julia)
There are numerous drawbacks and dangers to educational blogging which Downes (2004) takes up in his article. But perhaps this ‘educational blogging’ should be considered a separate category from blogging in general. If students are given the opportunity to engage in a blog as an educational experience, they may be encouraged to start a blog of their own.
On to: Movie Making
I was pleasantly surprised at how easy it was to load images into the movie editing program and how intuitive the tools were to edit the production. However, editing is quite time consuming. Knowing that when one puts a production of this sort together the goal is for something more ‘permanent’ also added to the ‘perfection’ factor. There are certainly more complex editing tools available and I took the opportunity to sit in on a post production session with a friend of mine who is working on a graphic novel/video production. My five hours of work converting and creating a 10 minute Powerpoint presentation paled in comparison to the 5 hours of work he put in to complete 90 seconds of film.
Whacky Wiki adventures
I made a couple of visits here, both as a course designer/instructor and as a student/participant. This was not my first visit as a participant, and my previous experiences were less than stellar, but I did my best to visit with an open mind. While my visit here in ETEC565 was not successful, I do believe that Wikis have educational value. I will be experimenting with them in my teaching going forward.
50 Tools
While not all useful to me, certainly a useful resource of Web 2.0 tools with which one can create engaging objects – for educational, business, public organization and private use. I had never tried to use any of these tools, let alone thought a digital story or storyboard activity would be of value in my teaching context. I was quite ecstatic about my success with the tool I chose and the presentation I produced. I also gained a lot from my classmates’ experiences – both good and bad – with the tools they selected. I picked up a lot of souvenirs at this stop.
A test by any other name
I am still not a fan of testing. Part of my aversion I explain in my blogs , on this, but the tide is turning. After completing all of the readings for this unit, I was not in a much better place regarding assessment. Still, some of the information about MCQs was encouraging. After completing the assessment assignment using the tools that Moodle offered I am now at a point where I am actually somewhat curious about the possibility of using quizzes in my online teaching, not for grades, but more for self assessment. I think what turned the tide was the ease at which I was able to set up a quiz with feedback and how the feedback mimics the responses I have given to students when in f2f mode. I am also beginning to appreciate that external motivation (i.e assessment) in learning can be much more than a necessary evil. I still have questions about the value of quizzing and about ‘how’ the students will respond, not only to being quizzed, but to the feedback feature. Overall, though, I am starting to see some interesting learning opportunities that a quiz (now and then) can add to my course design and my students’ learning experience. Who knew?
Revisiting Moodle: There’s a right way, and a wrong way: then, there’s my way…..
I originally thought that pulling it all together into the Moodle platform was going to be a daunting task, but with new tools and a new understanding of what the possibilities might be for them, it didn’t feel as daunting as I originally thought. Yes, it took a bit of massaging, or, in more up to date ‘lingo’, a bit of re-mixing and mashing up, but I never became overwhelmed by the task. Perhaps I have more patience; but more than that, I think my ease was a result of having more tools in my bag and the freedom to be creative in my use of them (perhaps you can teach an old dog a new trick, or at least trick an old dog into learning something new). At a very literal level, if one approach did not work, I was able to come up with and try other ways to either make something similar happen, or to shift gears and try another option. Case in point, my attempts at uploading a PowerPoint presentation which I mention in my Course Site summary. I also refashioned a lesson that was originally a PowerPoint, so that it flowed (without the animation, mind you) like a presentation. Heck, I even went even visited html viewer to play with the coding a bit.
Side trip: In an effort to try to better understand “Why educators should learn to stop worrying and love the remix” (Lamb, 2007), I decided to play with a tool called fruity loops under the tutelage of a friend who dj’s as a hobby. Now, once again, I am a bit old school. I studied classical piano for 10 years – including history and harmony (theory), as well as both blues and jazz piano and appreciated the artistry and creativity involved. I do listen to mash-ups but, to this point, only on a cursory level. Playing with this tool gave me an understanding of the art of creating a mash-up. Understanding the development of this ‘genre’ of ‘music’ gave me an interesting insight into what I will call the ‘other side’ of the copyright question, particularly with respect to education (read: plagiarism). I have long been both aware of and concerned about originality in the digital age, in particular what constitutes originality and if it (as I understand it) is even feasible anymore. These questions will no doubt be debated for some time to come, but in the mean time and for the right reasons it may be best to sidestep these issues and consider the current state of information management, processing and presentation opportunities that technology has to offer and is being offered.
Touching down
I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be.
Douglas Adams
So, as one journey ends another begins. And while I am by no means even close to being a technical wizard’s apprentice, I do move on with a much better understanding and appreciation of some of the many technological tools that might be useful in teaching, what to consider when selecting them, the freedom to be creative in my use of them, and the value adds (including external motivation, creating a more dynamic and engaging learning environment, the opportunity through them to not only present content but offer experience with the tools) and learning opportunities they can bring to an online ‘classroom’. And so life goes,……… and so I go……… (Neal Cassady)….
References:
Bates A. W. & Poole, G. (2003). A Framework for Selecting and Using Technology. In A.W. Bates & G. Poole, Effective Teaching with Technology in Higher Education (pp. 75-108). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. 4.
Boyes, J., Dowie, S. & Rumzan, I. (2005). Using the SECTIONS Framework to Evaluate Flash Media. Innovate Journal of Online Education, 2(1). Accessed online 11 April 2010 http://innovateonline.info/index.php?view=article&id=55&action=article.
Chickering, A.W. & Gamson, Z.F. (1987). Seven Principles for Good Practice in Undergraduate Education. American Association for Higher Education Bulletin, 39 (7), 3-7. Accessed online 10 Jan 2010 http://www.aahea.org/bulletins/articles/sevenprinciples1987.htm
Chickering, A.W. & Ehrmann, S.C. (1996). Implementing the Seven Principles: Technology as Lever. American Association for Higher Education Bulletin, 49(2), 3-6. Accessed online 10 Jan 2010
http://www.aahea.org/bulletins/articles/sevenprinciples.htm
Downes, S. (2004). Educational Blogging. Educause Review, 39(5, September/October), 14-26. Accessed online 1 March 2010.
Lamb, B. (2007). Dr. Mashup; or, Why Educators Should Learn to Stop Worrying and Love the Remix. EDUCAUSE Review, 42(4, July/August), 12–25. Accessed online 1 March 2010 http://www.educause.edu/ER/EDUCAUSEReviewMagazineVolume42/DrMashuporWhyEducatorsShouldLe/161747