Synthesis
The eagle hasn’t landed…
To continue the narrative of my flight path, I spent this term diving into some uncharted territory, I hit some minor and some major turbulence, but on the whole, have had a safe and enjoyable flight.
Uncharted Territory
Authoring a course in Moodle was a new and challenging experience. I frequently referred to the Seven Principles (Chickering & Gamson, 1987) and Bates and Poole’s Frameworks (2003) to ensure that what I was creating had value. I chuckled wryly as I recognized my own errors, time and again, while reading the sage advice of Chickering and Ehrman (1996) “Better to turn a screw with a screwdriver than a hammer – a dime may also do the trick, but a screwdriver is usually better.”
Unfortunately, given my limited skill set in design coupled with my lofty goals, I frequently started with a hammer and ended up with a dime. While the dime may have been an improvement on the hammer, it was rarely the best implement for the job. I am glad, however, to have a new set of tools in my kit with which I can continue to learn. One day, I’ll learn which is the screwdriver!
Blogging is also a novel experience for me. While I’ve done my fair share of writing and was once a ‘journalist’, I’ve long avoided ‘journalling’. Reading Stephen Downes (2004) awakened in me an academic interest in blogging. I now see blogging as a valid way to examine practice, reflect on learning and communicate. The fact that my personal style can be read in text, choice of images and even the links I select encourages me to continue blogging – educationally. I will also continue to develop blogs with students around content or to build skills and will try to help these become authentic, meaningful spaces for them. Still, I believe we are populating the NET with a great deal of trivia, so I am unlikely to ever keep a personal blog and will never Tweet! Really, even if I need to write it, who needs to read it?
Turbulence
The e-learning toolkit activities afforded many opportunities for personal growth and frustration. I found the topics relevant and often discovered links that supported my learning. Unfortunately, I frequently hit dead ends as I explored the tools – perhaps expecting more than was promised. I found the wiki rather text heavy and had more success searching for YouTube and TeacherTube video tutorials about the topics discussed within the toolkit.
The most relevant section for me was the web design and authoring page. This page, along with the Moodle modules, offered some key background information about design as well as some good solid advice that basically boiled down to “keep it simple and focused”. The link to the “Worst Web Pages Ever” was a great addition and cautionary tale of trying to be flash (pun intended) at the expense of providing a quality learning space. Of course, if we looked at examples of the “Best Web Pages Ever” over the past two decades they would be rife with elements that, today, would be considered the worst – remember all those scrolling headers? The more is better school of design in the late 80’s and 90’s? Whenever a new affordance becomes available, it seems it is overused to the point of being ridiculous. This pitfall is a common one and a good reason why teachers and designers of on-line learning should take a course like this one.
A Safe and Enjoyable Flight
The learning community in this course, like the ones I’ve experienced in my other MET courses, had a varied knowledge base. The number of experts in web authoring and design in this course was staggering. Rather than causing me to feel limited, however, members of the community freely and eagerly shared their knowledge – even providing tutorials and answering questions in several ways to help those of us who lacked the basic skills. Further, I was frequently encouraged and felt able to add to the discussion in ways that were valuable. Coupled with a well-designed course filled with practical resources and a very present and supportive instructor, this learning community definitely helped the course fall within the “good practices” guidelines (Chickering & Ehrman, 1996).
The flight continues
The journey I began two years ago in MET has been greatly enhanced by the skills I’ve developed and the readings I have completed this semester. In particular, NETS, The Seven Principles and Frameworks are references I will likely access long after my coursework is complete.
The theory and practice covered to date has helped me recognize and even implement the elements of good online teaching and design. I see the importance of striking a balance between intriguing design, motivating content and good teaching. Beginning to create a course of great interest to me personally sets me off on a long-term path and helps me begin to achieve one of the goals I’ve held since before I began my Masters: to develop a learning space related to conservation that can help augment the field work and in-school programming I provide already.
I plan to spend some more time researching and selecting the best LMS or on-line environment to house my resource pages, continue to develop and design content that is formatted correctly for upload to these pages and, eventually, apply for some funding to bring the course together. To this end, I began some html and CSS tutorials and started to learn and understand the language of web design – I finally see the importance of using the correct header styles and now quite confidently click the html editor button and mess with code (as long as I have a back up saved!). I will need to further investigate and make use of CSS in design; spend time messing about with Nvu and other web-authoring programs; continue to develop my editing skills and multimedia production (I experimented with flash and created a little talking avatar, but didn’t include it as it was a bit crude and didn’t meet any educational needs – Chickering and Ehrman again, ringing in my head).
There’s a long way to go but this is no longer overwhelming to me. I’ve learned the steps I need to take, have some tools to take with me, and some resources to get me started. I’ll likely forgo flying for this leg of the trip and, instead, putt along in my bus!
btw – just in case you didn’t click on ‘narrative’ at the top of the post… I’m quite addicted to storytelling, but that’s another story!
References
Bates, A.W. & Poole, G. (2003). Chapter 4: a Framework for Selecting and Using Technology. In Effective Teaching with Technology in Higher Education: Foundations for Success. (pp. 77-105). San Francisco: Jossey Bass Publishers.
Chickering, A.W. and Ehrmann, S.C. (1996). Implementing the Seven Principles: Technology as Lever, American Association for Higher Education Bulletin, 49(2), p. 3-6.
http://www.aahea.org/bulletins/articles
Chickering, A.W. and Gamson, Z.F. (1987). Seven Principles for Good Practice in Undergraduate Education. American Association for Higher Education Bulletin, 39 (7), p. 3-7.
http://www.aahea.org/bulletins/articles/sevenprinciples1987.htm
Downes, S. (2004). Educational Blogging. Educause Review. September/October 2004 Accessed online 25 March 2009.