Course Resources

How to be successful in ETEC 565A

You are expected to persistently and substantively participate (both individually and within small groups) in the discussion forums on the course site. These forums will provide you with an opportunity to share your knowledge, seek feedback (from fellow students as well as your instructor) on your ideas, and support your colleagues. From our experience it is in the discussion space of an online course that learning communities are built.

ETEC565A is very much a learning community. In fact, ETEC 565A has been designed in a way that requires us all to work collaboratively and collegially. As a learning community we need to be both supportive and forthright with one another. We need to seek to help others as much (or more) than we seek help ourselves. And if we’re asked for our opinion about one another’s work we have to be forthright – tactful, but forthright.

Learning can be fun; it can also be challenging–and sometimes trying to master new skills can be frustrating. Each of you have come into ETEC 565A with some technical skills – which may or may not have been acquired during other MET courses. Since you will all select the specific areas in which you will work (with some conditions), you will each be on your own individual learning journey here. Thus ETEC 565A isn’t a competition or race: the course is designed to allow individuals to advance their skills in the core technologies explored, whether novice or expert. At the same time, neither is this course a colouring book. While there are specific criteria for each assignment, these describe the minimum requirements: to receive an exceptional grade requires creating something much more.

During the course you will participate in at least one learning activity for each unit (each unit is one week in length). Additionally there are several assignments that collectively will constitute your ETEC 565A e-portfolio. The requirements for the ETEC 565A e-portfolio have been structured in a way that ensures everyone does a comparable amount of work, even as everyone explore their individual interests relative to their own skill level.

The components of your e-portfolio will include:

  1. A “flight path” where you outline what you hope to learn during the course, including the specific technologies you will begin to master
  2. A proposal for a Moodle course site
  3. A Moodle Learning Management System (LMS) online course site with a range of core functionalities
  4. A complete exam or quiz for your LMS course site, reflecting a variety of question types and assessment strategies
  5. A digital story, educational in nature, produced in a social media tool of your choice
  6. A final e-portfolio synthesis reflection

You will also participate in a small group activity designed to broaden your understanding of various technologies and their effective use in education, as well as to afford opportunities for peer feedback.

Each of the course’s five modules is constructed to engage you in a dialogue with the topic, the instructor and your fellow students taking the course. That is why we suggest that you:

  • take time and care in reading the course materials,
  • contact with your fellow students on the discussion forum, and
  • feel free to consult with your instructor.

 

Required Readings

Note: all readings are available online, via the web, various full text databases (accessible via the UBC Library website), or provided within the course Vista site itself, as indicated below.

Module 1: Selecting and Using Learning Technologies: Theoretical Frameworks

Module 2: Presentation Tools: Spaces, Places and Platforms for Learning

Module 3: Interaction and Assessment Tools

Module 4: Social Media

Module 5: Multimedia

 

Course Components

The ETEC 565A Learning environment comprises a complex mix of connected learning technologies. We have purposely created a set of spaces, including an e-learning toolkit, to give you opportunities to experiment with a number of different tools. Here is a list of the key components you will engage with during the course:

ETEC 565 structure

WebCT Vista

This WebCT Vista coursesite will act as an important hub for most of your activities as a learner.  It contains content modules that present the key issues and topics that we are taking under consideration during the course, links to scheduling and assignment information, tools for both asynchronous and synchronous communication with your other students and your instructor, and various student tools that will help you to manage the information available to you in the online course materials.

Discussion Forums

The discussion forums (within Vista) are a key component in the design of ETEC 565A. In each module, you will be asked to make postings into the discussion forums in response to course materials. You will also find that the discussions are places where you will have opportunity to interact with and learn from your peers and in the course. Your instructor will also be participating in the discussion forums but the expectation is that, as graduate students, you will take the lead in the discussions.

Most of the discussion forums in ETEC 565A are time-based and we have provided you with information as to when forums are taking place in the course schedule. It is important for you to participate at the times when the forums are active: both you and your colleagues will benefit from timely postings and responses.

E-Learning Toolkit

In addition to WebCT Vista, we have also set up a dedicated wiki space as the site for our E-Learning Toolkit. This collection of wiki pages deals with a variety of learning applications and issues pertaining to the use of learning technologies in education.

For the initial pages within the E-Learning Toolkit, we have drawn upon the expertise of a range of authors at UBC who are professionally involved in learning technologies (instructional designers, instructors, web programmers, and media designers).  Starting in Module 2, you will have access to the entire E-Learning Toolkit and can dip into it in whatever way you want to find information and resources on a variety of tools – being mindful of the sequencing of the course. For example, Module 2 focuses on learning platforms: it’s a good time to explore the WebCT Vista or Moodle portions of the toolkit. As new tools and issues come up, we will add additional content to the toolkit, so it will be a growing resource.

Moodle course site

You will have access to your own course shell on the MET’s own Moodle server.  You will be asked in several of the modules to develop materials or use tools that assist with communication and assessment within an LMS environment; you are free to build out these course shells any way that you want as you work through the activities in the modules.

If you have access to your own Moodle server you are certainly free to build your site there and then upload onto our server for each assignment (and the overall site) to be assessed. However…if you elect to do this, be careful to test your site on our server before any work is due, in case your work is reliant on a plug-in we may have not installed.

WordPress E-Portfolio (and weblog)

You will create and WordPress site that serves as the platform for your e-portfolio: all assignments will be “submitted” there (though you will receive your summative assessments privately, via WebCT Vista’s grade book). We encourage you to avail yourself of WordPress’s blogging tool. Throughout the course there are opportunities to reflect upon particular activities and assignments.

You will create a weblog on UBC’s UBC Blogs server, a service that is built on a WordPress Multiuser platform. If you have already created an account on UBC Blogs (for another course or your own personal use) you will have to, create a new weblog specifically for ETEC 565A.  You will receive detailed set up instructions for your weblog in Module 2.

 

 

Overall Assessment

The following general assessment criteria describe how your work in ETEC 565A will be assessed summatively, i.e. for marks. There are also specific criteria for each assessed task. All assignments are to be posted at the end of the week they are due, no later than 11:59pm Sunday Vancouver time (GMT -8).

A Level (80% to 100%)

A+ is from 90% to 100%. It is reserved for exceptional work that greatly exceeds course expectations. In addition, achievement must satisfy all the conditions below under “A”.

A is from 85% to 89%. A mark of this order suggests a very high level of performance on all criteria used for evaluation. Contributions deserving an A are distinguished in virtually every aspect. They show that the individual (or group) significantly shows initiative, creativity, insight, and probing analysis where appropriate.

A- is from 80% to 84%. It is awarded for generally high quality of performance, no problems of any significance, and fulfillment of all course requirements. However, the achievement does not demonstrate the level of quality that is clearly distinguished relative to that of peers in class and in related courses.

B Level (68% to 79%) and C Level (60%-67%)

This category of achievement is typified by adequate but unexceptional performance when the criteria of assessment are considered. It is distinguished from A level work by problems such as:

  1. one or more significant errors in understanding
  2. superficial representation or analysis of key concepts
  3. persistent surface errors (spelling, grammar, punctuation)
  4. lack of coherent organization or explication of ideas

The level of B work is judged in accordance with the severity of the difficulties demonstrated.

Level Percent Criteria
B+ 76% to 79% Work with any one of these deficiencies.
B 72% to 75% Work with any two of these deficiencies.
B- 68% to 71% Work with any three of these deficiencies.
C+ 64% to 67% Work demonstrating all four of these deficiencies – yet reflects a substantive effort on the part of the student.

Please note: as UBC graduate students, a grade of 68% (B-) must be maintained to remain a graduate student in good standing. Students receiving a course grade below 68% may not be allowed to continue in their program. See the Faculty of Graduate Studies section of the online version of the UBC Calendar for more information.

Late Assignments

An integral aspect of educational practice is timeliness. As education professionals you have to be prepared for your classes. Similarly, as students in ETEC565A you are expected to submit your work to a professional standard and on time. As an adult educator I can attest to how badly being unprepared is received by adult learners; as someone who’s trained many pre-service K-12 teachers, I have a sense that children–and their parents–are perhaps even less forgiving! Thus, assignments will lose 5% of their assessed value for each day they are late. As well, you cannot “skip” an assignment: assignments must be submitted in sequence. No subsequent work will be accepted or assessed if an assignment has not been submitted.

Where word counts are indicated for assignments do not exceed them. Reference lists are not counted as part of the word count.

First and foremost, these are a matters of equity. It is not fair to those who strive to work within timelines and word count limits if others get a more extensive period in which to complete their work–or an extra few hundred words to articulate their arguments. That, in fact, disadvantages those who plan ahead and follow the instructions precisely.

Similarly, the schedule for the entire course is already available for you, in order to enable your managing your own time effectively. If you elect to take a holiday during the course you are required to work within the timelines described.

Life Happens

There are, of course, times when exceptional (often unpleasant) things happen: we become ill, we lose someone we love, even our computers betray us (Back up, people! Back up! Go buy an external hard drive today!!!). In specific circumstances arrangements can be made to accommodate these sorts of things. The nature of each accommodation is wholly correlated with the nature of the interruption: if you are sick one day you would get one additional day to complete your work, rather than another week. You may also be required to provide documentation for the circumstances in question.

 

Assignments (e-portfolio)

The successful completion of ETEC 565A requires you to demonstrate educational development prowess, educational technology competence, and critical thinking skills informed by the materials studied in the course.

Your performance in the course will be based on the completion of a modular e-portfolio with multiple components. Each component constitutes an important aspect of learning technology selection, design and application. This e-portfolio (or components of it) could form part of a professional teaching e-portfolio.

This modular approach will also make it easier to provide both formative and summative feedback on your work. As well, I encourage you to contact me with any questions you might have at any time. I’m also happy, for example, to review an early outline of any assignments—not a full review, but a pair of “friendly eyes”—to ensure you’re on the right track.

Not all components of your e-portfolio are graded, but they are all mandatory.

You will also receive summative qualitative feedback for each assignment: those that have a mark associated with them will also be quantitatively assessed. At the end of the course I will assess your final assignment and your complete e-portfolio. Shortly after the conclusion of the course I will release your final assignment score—and overall course grade—via WebCT/Vista’s My Grades tool.

E-portfolio components

There are six (6) components of your e-portfolio, five (5) of which are graded. Where there is a grade associated with a component, the total value of that component is in parentheses.
The components of your portfolio will include:

  1. A “flight path” where you outline what you hope to learn during the course, including the specific technologies you will begin to master (no marks; posted on the Flight Path)
  2. An LMS course site proposal (15 marks)
  3. A Moodle Learning Management System (LMS) online course site (25)
  4. A complete exam or quiz for your LMS course site, reflecting a variety of question types and assessment strategies (15)
  5. A digital story produced in a social media tool of your choice (20).
  6. A final e-portfolio synthesis reflection (15)

Details on the requirement for each component will be covered in each assignment’s corresponding learning module. Your portfolio accounts for 90 marks: there are 10 marks allocated for course participation.

Assessment rubrics for graded e-portfolio components

The numbers below correspond to the assignment to be assessed. The first of these is due during Module 2.In most instances each component of an assignment is “pass/fail”: you either receive full marks or non marks.

  1. A Learning Management System (LMS) proposal, assessed for:
  • Comprehensiveness: does the proposal answer the sort of questions a reviewer would expect to find answered? And to what extent?
  • Integration of learning from relevant ETEC 565A activities
  • Overall quality of work, as per the overall standards listed on the assessment page in the course intro module
  • Indication of having tested the platform, including what aspects or functions tested
  • Integration of relevant literature: required. No literature, fail the assignment.
  • Posted in the Proposal page of your e-portfolio

Note: if you are creating your proposal based on a form, do not use the form: create an analogous one in Word.

  1. A Moodle online course site with the following components:
  • Overall quality of work, as per the overall standards listed above. A significant component of your score on this assignment relates to the calibre of your web design (including level sophistication, overall look and feel ,and how user-friendly the site is).
  • Splash page with a customized GUI with at least four (4) navigational components
  • Two (or more) complete learning modules (module shells or placeholder pages not acceptable), largely based on HTML pages
  • One (or more) module programmed for selective release
  • Two general discussion forum topics
  • One additional group discussion forum for (at least) 2 groups (must set up groups; they need not be populated)
  • A reflection upon your experience completing this assignment posted in the Course Site page of your e-portfolio

Note: some of these requirements are straightforward–others more challenging. The more challenging ones require both technical competencies and critical analysis of system functionality versus educational design requirements. Learning modules populated with a preponderance of attached files that download (i.e. pdfs, Word documents, Powerpoint presentations) rather than(html pages that load within the LMS are not acceptable.

  1. A complete exam or quiz for your LMS course site, reflecting a variety of question types and assessment strategies, with
    10 (or more) questions. You will be assessed based on creating:
  • 3 (or more) multiple choice questions
  • 3 (or more) matching questions
  • 2 (or more) short answer questions
  • 2 (or more) short essay questions
  • One question with an embedded image or graphic
  • Partially or wholly auto-assessed/graded
  • Time limited
  • Pre-programmed post-exam feedback for students
  • A reflection upon your experience completing this assignment posted in the Assessment page of your e-portfolio
  1. A complex digital story, educational in nature, using one of a range social media. Your story must:
  • Meet the overall quality of work standards listed above
  • Be educational
  • Be a story–not a digital lesson or lecture
  • Be viewable either as an embedded file or a link on the Story page of your e-portfolio
  • In addition to the embed/link of the story itself, describe the following on the Story page:
    • Why was this the right tool for you to use to tell your story, particularly from a pedagogical perspective?
    • How did you purposefully select this for your storytelling tool?
    • How does this story work within a course that you teach (or would like to teach) using sound pedagogical arguments?
  1. A final e-portfolio synthesis reflection, including a:
  • 1-2 paragraph précis of your flight path
  • Substantive, comprehensive reflection about your eLearning toolkit experience overall
  • Substantive, comprehensive reflection about your overall ETEC565A experience
  • Substantive, comprehensive reflection about next steps for you, in terms of your practice in educational technology, which could include what technologies you hope to explore moving forward, or how you plan on engaging as a lifelong learner in terms of educational technology?
  • Overall quality of work is also important, as per the overall standards listed above
  • Posted on the Synthesis page of your e-portfolio.

Your final synthesis should be as detailed as possible, thus there is not word limit.

MET e-Portfolio

We strongly encourage you to keep copies of the projects, tasks, products and discussions that you work on throughout the MET programme. It is important for you to have your own record of your work in the program, and you may also choose to include these items in a personal e-Portfolio of your work (supplemental to thee-portfolio developed specifically for ETEC 565A).These materials will also be useful reference tools down the road after you graduate, and are most frequently used if you are intending to register in ETEC 590 (Graduating Project).

If you want more information on ePortfolios and on ETEC 590 within the MET, please visit http://met.ubc.ca/program/eportfolio.htm.

 

Participation

Because ETEC 565 relies heavily on our creating a learning community your class participation mark is based on your overall participation in course-wide and small group discussions. Participation is worth 10 marks, or 10% of your final course grade.

There is a pass/fail aspect to each participation components, as indicated below: failure to meet the minimum requirements in any of the activities leads to a zero participation mark for the entire course.

My expectation is that you will contribute early enough each week to allow your peers to respond thoughtfully. You are also expected to respond to their postings earlier, rather than later. Posts or replies after a unit has been completed do not fulfill course requirements.

One useful way of looking at it might be as follows: consider what a face-to-face (F2F) version of ETEC565A’s weekly schedule might look like, in terms of meeting my minimum expectations for participation. Such a course would meet one a week for 3 hours, on a Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday evening. By making your initial contributions within this timeframe you will leave ample time for your peers to read your entries, reflect and response. Along the same lines: if you look for your peers’ original contributions no later than mid-week, you will be able to jump into the conversation easily. But don’t limit yourself to two visits a week–you’ll find the reading load daunting and will miss any number of great conversations!

The criteria for your participation mark include:

  • Frequency, consistency, quality and timeliness of your initial contributions (at least one for each discussion topic)
  • Number of new ideas contributed throughout the course: at least five over the 13 weeks of the course (more means a better participation mark)
  • Frequency, consistency, quality and timeliness of your responses to others’ posts (weekly or more)

Please note: Your interactions within this learning community must be professional, collegial and respectful (though not solemn). I reserve the right to give a zero participation mark to anyone whose contributions are not.

 

ETEC 565 Schedule

Weeks run from Monday through to Sunday.All assignments are due by 11:59PM (Vancouver time) on Sunday night, unless otherwise indicated. Course discussions go “dark” on public holiday (if applicable), which are indicated in bold under the date column

Dates Week Unit Required Readings Activities
Course Orientation & Module 1: Selecting and Using Technologies
04 – 08 January

1

 Course Introduction moduleDigital-age teaching professionals National Educational Technology Standards (NETS) for Teachers (2008) Wimba Voice Board Activity: Say HelloDiscussion: Say HelloDiscussion: Digital-age teaching professionals
09 – 15 January

2

 Theoretical Frameworks Bates and Poole (2003)Chickering and Gamson (1987)Chickering, Arthur & Ehrmann Task: Setting up your WordPress e-portfolioDiscussion: Applying the Frameworkse-Portfolio assignment #1: Flight path
Module 2: Presentation Tools: Spaces, Places and Platforms for Learning
16 – 22 January

3

 Learning Management Systems Perkins and Pfaffman (2006)Panettieri (2007). Discussion: Moodle as solution
Discussion: Business Writing development timeframeBegin platform evaluation rubric group taskStart building LMS site (e-portfolio assignment #3; work ongoing throughout semester)
23 – 29 January

4

 Other web-based approaches, including Content Management Systems (none) Discussion: Pro-DComplete platform evaluation rubric group task by 4pm Friday
30 January – 05 February

5

DVD Authoring (none) Discussion: Diabetes DVDe-Portfolio assignment #2: LMS site proposal
Module 3: Interaction and Assessment Tools
06 – 12 February

6

 Interactions for Learning Anderson, T. (2008a). “Towards a theory of online learning.” Discussion: Interactions to support learning
13 – 19 February

7

 Communications Tools Anderson, T. (2008b).  “Teaching in an online learning context.” Discussion: What could Trinh do?
Discussion: Synchronous and asynchronous communication
20 – 26 February

8

 Assessment Tools Gibbs, G. and Simpson, C. (2005)
Jenkins, M. (2004).  TLT Group (2009)		 Discussion: Assessment challenges and opportunitiesE-portfolio assignment #4: Assessment Tools
Module 4: Social Media
27 February – 04 March

9

 Social Media & Collaborative Writing Alexander, B. (2006)Wesch (2007) “A vision of students today” (video/website)Wesch (2007).  “The machine is us/ing us” (video) Wiki Activity: Social Media and LearningDiscussion: Wiki reflectons
05 – 11 March

10

 Personal Publishing & Social Networks Downes, S. (2004)Fisch, K. (2007) Discussion: Public or private spaces for learningDiscussion: The Wisdom of the Crowd
12 – 18 March

11

Rip, Remix, Feed: Creative MashupsIntellectual Property/CopyrightPrivacy Lamb, B. (2007). Discussion: 50 ways to Tell a Story Activitye-Portfolio assignment #5: Digital story
Module 5: Multimedia 
19 – 25 March

12

 Features and Benefits Boyes, Dowie and Rumzan (2005).Siemens, G. (2003). Discussion: Dafna
26 March – 30 March(5 day week)

13

 Internal and External Resources Janson, A. & Janson, R (2009). Discussion: Looking back, moving forwardE-portfolio assignment #3: Complete LMS site due Wednesday 1159PME-portfolio assignment #6: Synthesis reflection due Friday1159PM

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