cteachr's thinking space

As a culminating activity for etec 511, we asked the class to write a reflection about Spirituality and ET or just about their experiences with this course.  It seems fitting that I should be writing this as I am at the end of my MET journey.

Many students know that I am leaving for Australia to teach for a year starting in the new year.  That is the main reason I have chosen not to continue beyond my Grad certificate at this time.  My husband is encouraging me to continue when we return.  I am undecided.  Being an online student is very distracting, if nothing else.  Since Sept 2009, I’ve spent most of my free time at the computer, reading countless discussion posts and learning a lot about my approach to teaching using technology.  In the process, I discovered I am a social learner, preferring to read others’ understanding of our assigned readings and enjoying the opportunity to discuss, even if asynchronously, my ideas, reflections and experiences.

Educational technology has changed tremendously since I started teaching in the late 80s.  Back then, the prof at the faculty of Ed was thrilled to show us the Olivetti wordprocessor she had purchased for us to use and learn to teach.  Computers in the classroom consisted of networked Icons or Mac Classics, nothing that resembled the corporate world I had just come out of.  Later on, when I took my first online university course (a Godsend for a single mother), the course consisted mostly of questions to answer and research to post.  Very little discussion was possible as we spent more time researching than reading each other’s posts.  Not really discussion, even though they called it that.

Eventually, I was part of some interesting projects such as creating a webquest for the school board and writing their first online courses.  I also got to review online courses from around the province – a very enlightening experience.  The Ministry of Education wanted to create a resource repository and a series of online courses to allow students from even the most remote areas to access quality (and diverse) education.  I thought I was very well equipped to participate in this initiative and felt it would be a perfect evolution of my career.  Which is the path that lead me to MET.

In these months I have come to realize I had a lot of rich experience to offer but I had little theoretical background to ensure my course design was pedagogically sound.  What I had done by intuition has been validated by much of the learning theory I have acquired in this program, and hopefully, my skills have grown and deepened as a result of this experience.

As I end this journey, I continue to believe that we have so much to offer each other, either as a community of practice or just to validate each other’s ideas.  And again, I am reminded that it’s the process that teaches us, not the product of our work.  It’s a lesson that I have to internalize and ensure it colours my own teaching activities.

I wish you all a wonderful and fruitful journey.

Question from the course:

Firstly, define educational technology. Secondly, identify nature and characteristics of a good ET program based on your own field observations and readings. Thirdly, give some examples such as philosophical, psychological, social and cultural foundations of ET.

My answer:

I’d like to take a stab at defining Educational Technology as a step towards answering your 2nd and 3rd questions.

ET is any tool used to enhance learning. We could contrast it to Adaptive Technology, which would be all the tools used in improving accessibility for the disadvantaged, for instance, speech recognition software. Then we have the study of technology or Technology Education – programming, hardware, various applications, web design, etc. (The reading suggest that it is no longer popular to study programming in school, a shift that I have observed personally as our programming/computer science teacher barely gets to teach his specialty anymore.)

I have no trouble defining ET, what seems more elusive is trying to limit the technologies (tools) that we can include as part of that category. It seems that all sorts of tools are now being used in education, whether they be social networking tools, design tools, visual literacy tools, LMS, along with many of the adaptive tools we have begun to adopt more regularly such as touch screens and voice recognition software.

So the lines are now blurred. We cannot simply study ET as technology is pervasive in all aspects of our lives. In order to improve our teaching practices, it is wiser to study and understand how technology has effected change in society, whether it be the way in which we communicate or the way we define the world around us.

Professional Development or PD as  Ontario teachers call it.

The elements that seem important in this case is that a place to upload information and discussion is required.  The teacher has minimal resources and not much training in web design.  Connectivity is also an issue.  Dial up is slow.

This brings to mind my daughter’s problems with uploading information and photos to the internet while she was in Nicaragua.  The connection was way too slow to upload more than text.  Images, slide shows and videos were just not possible.  The one thing she could do was update her blog regularly and respond to comments.  She could also use MSN.

So here we enter the realm of social networking.  Discussions are important in advancing ideas.  They get the creative juices flowing.  So Lenora would like to not only share her ideas with colleagues near and far, but also gather new information from an exchange of ideas.  Buffy Ste Marie, author of the Cradleboard Project, seems to expose the problem of distribution of resources:

“Even with regard to local tribal curriculum, teachers in a faraway state can’t find the best of the best in a concise and usable form.”

The nature of the information is an important aspect here.  Lenora can share many ideas without having to use multimedia such as slide shows or videos.  I see her site as mostly text driven.  But of course, she most likely wants to make it more visual than that, recognizing that visual literacy is now included in the definition of literacy (Biebrich, p. 27).

She can certainly address all these needs with a wiki.  Creating a wiki is a small matter.  It costs nothing, it can be created in a short amount of time, especially with good instructions (available online as part of the help function) and it addresses all her needs, including the need for a collaborative space.  She can also set permissions to allow only certain people to collaborate (through a membership she approves).

Not only are the pages collaborative, she can also make use of the discussion function that is integrated in each page.

If she is concerned about commercials on the site, she can ask for a site that is used for education and have no ads show up at all.  Wiki sites can be shared with the world or kept private for members only if she is concerned about confidentiality.

As for formatting pages, this is very similar to a simple wordprocessor.  She can use templates to choose the look and feel of the wiki.

I have used wikis in my classes for over a year now and highly recommend them for their simplicity and ease of use.  You can view one of my class sites at bmi3c.wikispaces.com.  It took very little time to create the wiki, maybe 2-3 hours to start the initial pages (1 or 2 pages) and make design choices.  I used a model from another course I saw when I attended a workshop.  The workshop was definitely useful for advanced functions such as inserting a video file.  If Lenora can access a workshop on wikis through her school system or her professional organization, she might find it helps her get a head start.  If that is not possible, she can easily find a tutorial on the web or even go to the help function on the wiki site.  She can justify the cost of training to her administrators as a way to integrate further technology into her classroom.  For example, a wiki would be a wonderful way to preserve cultural information by creating a class project where her students are invited to interview their parents and grand-parents and then post the results (it could be something like the adult’s favourite anecdote from their childhood or bedtime story or family recipe).  The Cradleboard project has ideas that could certainly be adapted to a wiki space.

Once the wiki is up, she will be able to add content as easily as saving a file into this new space (uploading).  With text based files, she should not be impeded by the slow connection.  Adding slideshows or videos will also be quick as she can simply post a link on the wiki page.  There are more sophisticated ways to show multimedia, like embedding the files, but she can do quite well without those functions for now.  From then on, it’s a question of maintaining, adding to and administering the wiki (memberships and permissions).  She can spend as little as 2 hours a week on these tasks or more depending on the membership demands and how much discussion happens in the discussion area.

And of great importance, she must make people aware of her wiki.  She can simply announce its purpose and provide a link within her teaching circle or other social network areas she participates in.  Word of mouth is accomplished in many forms.

Lenora is best advised not to use a website at this time unless her school provides a place to host the site.  For example, my board has created a license to use google sites for all its teachers.  Google sites is very easy to use and I would certainly recommend it for its ease of use.  Google docs is another application that might suit Lenora.  The major reason I would recommend a wiki over a website is that she will not be required to learn html.  Having to learn a programming language would substantially add to her time investment in this project, keeping her from her true purpose.

Sources:

Beibrich, J. L. (2006). Comics & graphic novels: seeing the meeting (Master’s thesis). Retrieved November 11, 2009, from http://www.informationgoddess.ca/MEdCappingPaper/LiteracyComics&GNJLBiebrich.pdf

Capriccioso, R. (n.d.). Cradleboard Curricula | Connect for Kids / Child Advocacy 360 / Youth Policy Action Center. Welcome to Connect for Kids. Retrieved January 26, 2010, from http://www.connectforkids.org/node/501

Marie, B. S. (n.d.). Cradleboard Project. AIPC Homepage. Retrieved January 27, 2010, from http://www.aipc.osmre.gov/Notes%20from%20Native%20America/99note7.htm

One America – Cradleboard Teaching Project. (n.d.). Welcome To The White House. Retrieved January 26, 2010, from http://clinton3.nara.gov/Initiatives/OneAmerica/Practices/pp_19980729.6548.html#operations