Flight Path Précis

When I embarked upon my ETEC 565 journey, I looked forward to exploring new technologies that I had heard about, but never before had an opportunity to explore, and to learn new ones.  My flight path would take me to my destination:  Moodle, which would not only be a course site, but a culmination of all that I’d learned in ETEC 565.  I wanted to learn how to create assessments that reflected 21^st-century principles of undergraduate education, which supported active learning (Chickering & Gamson, 1987).  I also wanted to learn how to intelligently select an appropriate LMS for the learning environment in which I work.

My flight path included a stopover in multimedia and social software land where I would spend some time exploring.  I came to the class with a bit of experience with these, but mostly from a student’s perspective: I didn’t know how to incorporate these into my classes.  Not only did I want to learn how to use them, but I wanted to learn how to choose appropriate software to accomplish effective learning.  As I followed my path, I hoped and indeed expected, that all of what I learned in the class would be embedded in theoretical frameworks that would enable me to not only articulate my rationale for making these choices, but to be able to justify them, should the need arise.

I was not disappointed in this class!

Toolkit Experience

The toolkit was a great place to start exploring, as it was available to us at the very start of the class.  Although the initial class planted us firmly in the principles behind 21^st-century undergraduate teaching, the toolkit allowed us to begin exploring almost immediately.  I started with the HTML/WEBCT/Moodle toolkit before we were provided with a shell in which to work.  Consequently, I could not do any of the activities, and found myself having to backtrack once the Moodle shell was opened to us.

It was through playing in the Moodle shell that I discovered that I needed to use an HTML editor, but I get ahead of myself here…

I found the links illustrating examples of good and bad websites quite helpful (and sometimes downright funny) in providing me with ideas for acceptable website design.  It was this aspect of the toolkit that dissuaded me from providing audio files that would automatically play every time someone opened my Moodle course!  Not only would the music become incredibly annoying, it would significantly slow  down the site’s download speed, depending upon students’ available bandwidth.

I learned a lot from the synchronous communication toolkit.  Prior to this course, I had never heard of Wimba, and I was fascinated by voice email.  I experimented with that by sending myself an email, and it worked.  While I thought this as a neat feature, I’m not convinced that it would benefit my students because quite a few students do not own laptops, so they would have to rely on the computers in the labs on campus.  That being the case, they would have to walk with their headsets to access the voice emails.  It would be a real novelty for my students with their own computers, though.  It was Wimba that inspired me to explore other programs that are similar but open source.  I came across openmeetings which I thought would be tremendously helpful in setting up synchronous online listening labs where students could listen to and discuss music.  My enthusiasm for the program quickly waned when I found it extremely frustrating to use, and discovered that it really couldn’t do what I wanted.

Online synchronous listening labs would not be feasible in my situation.   Much of the music that is covered in my classes is unfamiliar to students.  For many, the course is their first introduction to classical music.  In face-to-face classes listening to the music is a challenge for some students.  In a virtual space I could not guarantee that students would actually sit and listen to the music with their full attention (it’s just too easy to open a new tab and visit Facebook or Google+).   In an online environment I would not be able to read students’ body language and adjust the direction of the class discussions accordingly.  I abandoned the idea on pedagogical as well as technological grounds.

Reflection on your overall ETEC 565 experience

The two articles assigned at the beginning of the course were perfect for setting the tone not just for the course, but for my future work as an Educational Technologist.  The ideas in those articles remained foremost in my mind throughout the class, and informed much of the decisions that I made in constructing my Moodle course.  For instance, providing timely feedback is essential for effective learning, and an area of teaching that continues to challenge me.  Recognizing the importance of “time on task” (Chickering and Gamson, 1987) for learning, I give students practice drills, and they do them, but it takes me a while to grade and provide feedback.  Moodle’s affordances for constructing quizzes and grading them are tremendously helpful.  They are convenient for the student.  The only limitation I found was that the short answer and the essay questions needed to be checked over manually, and in the case of the essay questions, graded entirely by me.  That solves neither my problems, nor that of my students’.  It is for that reason that I do rely heavily on multiple choice and true/false questions for quizzes.  I do, however, provide a variety of assessment strategies, many of which require higher-order cognitive skills, such as discussions, wikis, concept maps, group projects, and writing encyclopedia articles.

My experience in ETEC 565 has been a positive one.  I enjoyed having the freedom and flexibility to explore the various tools and software, particularly the web 2.0 tools and storytelling tools.  I learned about new ones, such as photopeach and vuvox, and those are now on my priority list to explore further.  While I did not include blogging as an assessment in this iteration of my Moodle course, I will consider it in future offerings.  In designing my course, I was ever mindful that I’m not only teaching students a topic that is so foreign to them, but also imposing a technology requirement, too, and many are not entirely comfortable with either.  ETEC 565’s module on web 2.0 tools, however, did rekindle my personal interest in blogging and inspired me to update my personal blog, and to start a professional Educational Technology blog, which will grow out of the e-portfolio requirement for this class.

Each week when we got a bit of software to explore, I found myself wanting to incorporate it into my Moodle course.  I was mindful, however, of using the software for the sake of using it, because of its novelty, at least for me, and not necessarily for its pedagogical value.  I was afraid that my site would have the feel of a technological circus where each week the students would be using different software.

In the first module of my Moodle course, which is a week long, I ask students to contribute to a wiki where they construct their own meanings for the elements of music.  I think this is a great exercise because it will garner student participation in knowledge construction, and students will have to negotiate among themselves suitable definitions.  However, placing a wiki in the first week, I do not feel, is a great idea because Jamaican students for the most part are consumers and not producers of knowledge.  Their experiences have taught them that Wikipedia is not an appropriate site from which to get information.  As I continue working on the site post-ETEC 565, I will move the wiki assignment to a later module.

There were times, however, when I felt so technologically inept in this class, especially while completing the Moodle site.  It took me two weeks to figure out the GUI requirement.  At the end of two weeks when I realized that I’d spent quite a bit of time exploring, finding nothing to help, and nothing to show for my efforts, I had to launch into creating my content.

My heart sank that first evening when I started developing content.  I worked in Google Chrome, my favorite browser, and one that works best on my computer.  The Moodle HTML editor isn’t available on Chrome, so that first evening I spent many hours manually coding the pages.  I learned HTML many years ago, but haven’t used it since, so I was quite rusty.  I found myself looking up code as I went along.  It was a long, slow, tedious process. Quite by accident one day I went on Moodle via Firefox, and found the HTML editor.  I was happy that creating the pages would be much faster.

Admittedly, I do not like the look of the pages created with the Moodle editor.  I tried changing the background color of my pages hoping to create more sophisticated-looking pages.  They looked worse, and I was unable to change back the original bland background.  I downloaded Nvu (and prayed that my computer wouldn’t crash under the weight of yet another program) on my ancient laptop and created pages on there to upload to Moodle.  The pages failed to upload.  I tried everything that I could think of, but to no avail.  I posted a message in Vista’s discussion forum, but I never did get a response.  It was not too critical, however, because I could create the pages in Moodle itself.

Next Steps

As soon as I can manage it, I shall purchase a new computer that will have a faster processor and larger memory than my current computer.  It has been very frustrating working with this computer because it is slow.  Right now I’m limited by the amount of programs that I can add to the computer.  I wanted to download and explore Audacity, but I have to be cautious about adding/upgrading programs.  I upgraded Firefox to 4.0 and regret it. The IT department at my college has a mandate that they are not allowed to repair faculty or students’ computers (although the college doesn’t issue us computers, and we have to use our personal machines for teaching).  But many ignore the mandate and will repair computers, for a fee.  The computers are fixed on the staff members own time, which means that I could be without a computer for as long as a week.

After ETEC 565 I will have two courses remaining in the MET program.  I plan on exploring more technologies, especially the web 2.0 tools and the storytelling tools as time permits, while completing my studies and working.  Needless to say that will be an ongoing goal of mine after graduation.  I have just received an invitation to join Google+, for instance, and I look forward to exploring this really neat software, not only from a social networking perspective for my own personal use, but as an educational tool.

It is my goal to create learning objects using Flash animation.  My teaching responsibilities and other professional engagements prevented me from exploring this bit of software.  This heads my priority list once I get my new computer and have a bit more time perhaps, after I’ve completed the MET program.

I perceive a real need in my private music school for digital music theory workbooks that would prepare students for the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music theory exams.  Students are required to pass the Grade 5 theory exam before they can take the Grade 6 practical exam.  Much of the work could be digitized so that students could work through the exercises on a computer program, which will provide them with immediate feedback as they work, and it will be more engaging that the current face-to-face theory classes.  Furthermore, I now have a large school with many advanced piano students who really need to refine their piano playing.  That takes time, and if the theory studies could be digitized, that would free up additional time for students to focus on refining their piano-playing skills.

After graduating, I would like to take a course in computer programming to accomplish this goal.

In the near future, I would like to explore Dreamweaver.  The E-Learning Jamaica office has mandated that all government-run teachers’ colleges make available a LMS on their campus.  At a recent meeting, we agreed that we would all use Moodle because it is an open source, but that each college would find an independent server to host the site.  I am expecting that I will have a bit more flexibility in access to the Moodle server so that I can easily upload pages created elsewhere, and add plugins.  When the college gets Moodle, I will try the thirty-day free trial of Dreamweaver before committing to purchasing the educator’s packet.

After I’ve finished this course, I will continue building my Survey of Western Music site.  I will have two more modules to add, and I hope to use this course in January.  I will continue working on the site between September and December.  It’s very hard to say how much time I can devote to completing the site right now, because much depends upon my ever-changing schedules at the various colleges where I teach, in addition to the enrolments at my private music school.  It is a top priority, however, to complete the site and teach from it.

I was a life-long learner prior to MET, and I suspect that I will continue to be one afterwards, particularly in the field of Educational Technology.  I not only want to keep up with developments in the field:  I want to be part of the ongoing dialogue that seeks to find best practices.  To that end I will join organizations such as the ISTE and go to conferences.  Keeping abreast of developments in the field might be a challenge, however, with the dearth of resources available in my college library.  I will have to rely on open source journals.  I will probably have to purchase subscriptions to some journals myself.  The plethora of available journals presents a challenge:  how does one choose?

ETEC 565 has been quite a journey, and I feel as though I have reached my destination. But it’s a temporary one because the ever-changing technological landscape requires that one’s bags be always packed, and the plane sufficiently fueled to embark upon further journeys.  I look forward to them.

References

Chickering, A.W. & Gamson, Z.F. (1987).  Seven Principles for Good Practice in Undergraduate Education.  American Association for Higher Education Bulletin. Retrieved from http://www.aahea.org/bulletins/articles/sevenprinciples1987.htm.

International Society for Technology in Education (2008).  NETS for teachers 2008.  Retrieved May 18, 2011 from http://www.iste.org/standards/nets-for-teachers/nets-for-teachers-2008.aspx