Final Synthesis Reflection
Flight Path
My name is Kara Crowley and I am an intermediate teacher in Surrey, British Columbia. My goal for taking the MET program is to learn new ways to mindfully incorporate technology into my teaching practices in order to motivate, engage and connect with my students. When I first started teaching, I taught at inner city schools where access to technology was extremely limited and the technology that was available was out-dated and rarely worked. For the past three years I have been teaching at a very affluent school and while it is amazing to have access to so many technological options, I have found that it can be easy for me to get caught up in the excitement of new devices and digital tools, and not put enough time into critically analyzing what it is that I want my students to learn and how I want them to learn it. I also feel like I am not using the technology that is available to me to its full potential, and so my goal for this course specifically was to actively incorporate the different tools that I learn from ETEC 565 into my classroom this year.
eLearning Toolkit Experiences
As I am working on my report cards, I have taken into consideration some of the standards from the International Society for Technology in Education’s (ISTE) National Educational Technology Standards (NETS) for students (2007). I decided to incorporate some of those standards, specifically those related to Digital Citizenship as Prescribed Learning Outcomes (PLOs) on my report cards, as I believe them to be important skills for developing successful 21st Century citizens. I also found Bates and Poole’s SECTIONS framework (2003) a useful tool for helping to analyze and help narrow down the learning technologies that would best fit my students needs and my teaching practices.
I really like the idea of having an e-portfolio to post work instead of submitting it to the instructor. Since many of my students are familiar with Kidblog, having used it in previous grades, I am considering having students create their own e-portfolios for my class in which they can post their work instead of submitting it to me in a hard copy or via email or Dropbox.
I am a big believer in goal setting (or in this case creating a Flight-Path), as it helps direct focus and narrow down what exactly you are looking to achieve. In my original Flight Path I wrote, “I will also need to be open about trying new tools and keep in mind what my end goal is when incorporating these tools into my teaching.” This is something I feel like I did not do while creating my LMS site intro, and my grade reflects my frustration and lack of purpose. Looking back, there are many things I would change about the course I created in Moodle (see my reflection in the Course Site page). When I now reflect back about it, I realize that I fell into the same trap I had previously stated I was going to try and avoid in my Flight-Path: being more mindful of the tools I am using and why I am using them. I feel like I lost sight of what I was creating, and why I was creating it. I did not really have a purpose when I started creating my course, and having no real purpose or goal led to my frustration. In hindsight I wish I had of referred back to the goals and purpose I originally laid out in my Flight-Path, as that (ideally) would have steered me back on track and reminded me why I was putting in all this time and effort. Hopefully, I have learned my lesson about being open to trying new tools, and in the future will have my end goal figured out before I incorporate these tools into my teaching practices.
I enjoyed creating the Digital Story the most, probably because I found it to be an assignment that I could share with my class immediately, and have them create something similar. Creating a digital story is something that I feel would appeal to my students, and appeals to me as a teacher because it would not take up a ton of instructional time. Students could use programs or application they are familiar with, and I would not necessarily have to walk students through every step as I feel I would have to do with something like a Moodle course. Had I known in advance that the digital story was intended to relate to the course we were creating in Moodle, I would definitely have changed the content of my Moodle course and probably my storyline to fit the two assignments together.
I found creating an online course using a Learning Management System such as Moodle to be a frustrating experience. I wish there were a few more tutorials that related specifically to what we were being asked to create. I watched many how-to videos and read many comments, tips and guidelines, but they were not really what I was looking for and were almost too informative. For example, I found lots of information on how to create a Front Page (trying to create my Splash page), but in our administration settings I could not find Front Page anywhere. For my technological skill and the age and grade level of students that I teach, I feel like a more simplified version of an LMS would work better in an elementary school.
While I like the idea of creating a course or unit that can be used online and in the classroom, I am still not sure if I as the teacher feel comfortable enough to actually put my course into practice, and whether or not the students I teach are ready for an online course. Although I definitely see the benefits of using a blended model of face-to-face learning and a LMS like Moodle in the classroom: giving parents access to lessons, due dates and expectations, keeping students accountable for homework and assignments, keeping students who are absent in the loop (Perkins & Pfaffman, 2006), going “green” and using less paper, and most importantly motivating and engaging students in their own learning, I teach the grades that I do partly because I enjoy having those face-to-face interactions with my students and (most) parents. I also already have a class website which I feel achieves some of those previously mentioned benefits. At eleven, twelve and thirteen years old, I believe students should be learning in a face-to-face environment because they need to develop those social skills and work habits to help them be successful in the “real world.” They also need teachers to help educate them on how to be responsible and thoughtful digital learners, and there is plenty of time for them to experience the world of online courses when they get to the high school and university.
Overall Experience
My overall experience in ETEC 565A has been a rewarding one. This has been my most challenging course so far in the MET program, but I feel like I have learned a lot. Although I do not see myself creating an online course in the near future, I will introduce tools that I created and learned about in Moodle, such as the online quiz, into my classroom. Experiencing success (and near failure) with using technology will help me empathize with my own students when they are feeling frustrated with a technological assignment, and my experiences with this course (both the positive and negative) will help me become a better teacher.
Next Steps
Moving forward I hope to begin incorporating social media, specifically Twitter into my teaching practices. The majority of my students are already on social media, and so if that is where they are spending a vast amount of time, it makes sense to me to adapt my teaching practices to something they are already familiar with, engaged in and motivated to use. Twitter is a tool I plan on implementing next term and integrating it into our class novel study.
I also plan on teaching some lessons about copyright to my students. This is a topic that I have briefly discussed with my class, but it was more along the lines of “it is illegal to steal or take credit for someone else’s ideas or work, and there are consequences such as expulsion, fines or jail time.” Having students only use images that are Creative Commons licensed for their PowerPoint presentations might be a bit extreme for my grade sixes and sevens, but getting them into the habit of recording and including where they found their sources for things online would be a useful tool for students to learn at an early age. I hope to begin explicitly teaching these lessons before Winter break and into the New Year.
How do I plan on engaging as a lifelong learner in terms of educational technology? I hope to complete my Masters in the MET program by the fall of 2016 (at the latest). I am going to continue to incorporate different technological tools such as BYOD and social media into my teaching practices, and I am going to make sure that I am being mindful that I am not just using technology for the sake of using technology.
I want to make sure that the technological tools I am using are the best tools for my learners, that I have a purpose for using those tools, and that I have an end goal and know what it is I want my students to learn and how I want them to learn it from using these tools. As Wesch states, we can encourage devices such as “laptops, cell phones, and iPods into our classrooms, not as distractions, but as powerful learning technologies. We can use them in ways that empower and engage students in real world problems and activities…” (Wesch, 2007, The solution, para. 2). This is what I hope to do through my teaching, I want to teach students the skills they need to be successful in this technological world, and engage, motivate and empower students to become lifelong learners themselves.
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.
International Society for Technology in Education. (2007). National educational technology standards for students. Retrieved fromhttp://www.iste.org/docs/pdfs/20-14_ISTE_Standards-S_PDF.pdf
Perkins, M., & Pfaffman, J. (2006). Using a course management system to improve classroom communication. Science Teacher, 73(7), 33-37. Retrieved from http://20100829131520_6025161.webstarts.com/uploads/moodle_in_20_the_classroom_NSTA.pdf
Wesch, M. (2007a). A vision of students today (& What teachers must do). Retrieved from http://www.britannica.com/blogs/2008/10/a-vision-of-students-today-what-teachers-must-do