Learning Technologies: Selection, Design, and Application

Assignment 3: Reflection

I have thoroughly enjoyed working on Assignment 3. When we began Assignment 1, our group chose a high school route, which content and objectives I am unfamiliar with as I teach elementary. It proved difficult designing a course for these learners. After consideration, Justin and I decided to branch off and design a course module for elementary students, with the same use of the applied designs, skills, and technologies (ADST) curriculum from the BC Ministry of Education. With constructive criticism from our instructor and colleagues, we have worked tirelessly to fully design our Moodle and upload weekly course outlines, resources, and assignments. With our learners at the centre of our decisions, we were able to navigate Moodle with more ease and design a course that would appeal for intermediate students and be supportive of their learning goals.

I am still finding Moodle to be difficult to navigate. I imagine that after the course has been implemented, student feedback would be of great support. I’ve also found that having coding and computational skills would better support my overall design and expectations. I have been googling and reading Moodle forums to find answers to my questions. I have found that Moodle is time consuming, however I have learned a lot and feel more confident designing and creating the course.

One of the roadblocks we encountered throughout this portion of the assignment was assessment. Justin and I strongly believe in formative assessment, and we felt that Moodle didn’t support our way of assessing and setting realistic learning goals for students. With the blended course, a lot of our formative assessment would occur in class, with the students. I also don’t rely on tests or quizzes to assess students in my own classroom, so I didn’t want to use this as major component of my assessment through the LMS. In the end we decided to use simple quizzes, polls, questionnaires, and discussions to support our assessment, and make use of Moodle’s options. This doesn’t mean that I would necessarily use these in the future if I implemented a blended course. What I like most about our design is the ability to upload resources, outlines, and multimedia to support learning outside of the classroom. I use digital portfolios in my classroom to document evidence of student learning. I have relied on this to upload resources for students at home, as well as for their parents. I think this option in Moodle is beneficial to support students with the tools they need, as well as to encourage ownership over learning that extends outside of the classroom walls.

Assignment 2: Reflection

As a group, we collectively decided to use Moodle as our LMS. Prior to this course I had no experience with Moodle, so I have spent a lot of time exploring this platform and learning to navigate. I found this platform very difficult to navigate, and spent a lot of time looking at it from the teachers’ point of view, as well as the students. As someone who has taken many distance courses, I wanted the layout to best support student learning, in order for students to spend more time on curricular competencies and reflection, instead of wasting time navigating the platform. In the case of this project, I am thankful to have worked in a group because we were able to support each other and share our findings. One of our members has used Moodle in the past for online courses so he became a wealth of knowledge.

As I spent time designing the layout and units, I felt restricted when it came to personalizing or adding creative touches, as I am still learning html code. What I did find when it came to this project was that it was very time consuming. I spent a lot of time reading Moodle manuals, collaborating with colleagues, and watching tutorials in order to best support students and the purpose of the course. One area of Moodle that I spent a lot of time working through is the assessment option. I am passionate about authentic assessment, formative feedback, and self-assessment. In the case of our blended course, the teacher is able to meet with students face-to-face, offering purposeful feedback and direction. With summer learning, I would personally avoid grades and calculations. If students are choosing to pursue their interests over the summer and develop skills, we should focus on formative feedback to support their inquiry and learning. I would need to use Moodle and test how this course could work, void of quizzes and grades, and get student feedback to see if this is successful. I, as well as my group partners, are learning how to use the assessment tool to support our course’s learning intentions within Moodle.

When adding course content, I found it easy to add PDF’s, video tutorials, and images to support each unit. Students are able to download necessary course files to support them in their learning. I also like that each unit has the option for communication between instructor and students as they work through new learning intentions, especially if students extend their learning outside of the classroom and work on projects at home.

I am glad that there was an option to do this assignment as a group, as I have learned a lot through collaboration with my peers. I am looking forward to receiving feedback from the students in this course, as well as our instructor, on how to best improve this Moodle design to support student learning.

Assignment 1: Reflection

An Evaluation of Moodle for Secondary Grade 6 to 9 Summer Learning Program:

What I enjoyed most about this assignment is that this course was designed by two members of our group, and they are officially launching it this summer in our school district. I found this assignment meaningful because I have never worked with Moodle before and had no experience with this Learning Management System. Through research, tutorials, and my personal navigation, I discovered how I can customize Moodle for any course, with a focus on student-centered learning. There were many plugins that I came across that I would personally benefit from through an online learning program, and it extended my thinking of how I can better support my students. We used the Bates SECTION model (2003) which supports choosing and using media in education. I have found this particularly helpful when making decisions about what technology will enhance learning in our classrooms and schools. It has helped my school justify our decisions when we needed to agree on a way to spend our technology budget for the school year. It also supported this project when we chose to use Moodle as our LMS of choice.

I always find group work to be quite challenging, as each of us has different expectations and deadlines, both in the MET program and in our careers. However, through this program I have connected with many educators in the Lower Mainland (British Columbia). We have found working together to be beneficial because we can meet face-to-face and collaborate in a way I find more meaningful to my professional development then through group chats. We also connected with a member who lives on the island. There was an ease about this project because each of us was familiar with Skype and Google Documents, so communication was not an issue. I felt that we respected each others opinions and ideas, and it came together successfully. I thoroughly enjoyed working with this group and look forward to the remainder of this term and the collaborative efforts we will produce.