I am beginning to consolidate my online presence and have moved most of my content to Weebly. The best gateway to my professional sites in through my new mPortfolio. Please check it out. Once I have completed the transfer this site will close.

Two weeks into the new school year and so much is happening.

The best news is I have my new class of Kindergarteners; 19 bundles of enthusiasm and curiosity. I am always amazed by how tired I feel at this time of year. So much is new and exciting! I have launched a new classroom website: Mr. Adams’s Kindergarten. I set it up with Weebly and am enjoying the improved look and functionality.

I started ETEC 565M: Special Topics – Mobile Education and the course is great. It runs through a blog format independent of UBC Connect. It is streamlined and efficient and with a focus on the practical over the theoretical; a welcome change from the courses I have been in so far! As I plan for my final assignment in this course I have established a new website on mobile electronic portfolios. Please check out mPortfolios.org

ETEC 512: Application of Learning Theories to the Analysis of Instructional Setting is almost finished. One week to wrap up the discussion threads and complete a final assignment.

This has been quite a course. Reassuring to visit the theorists and theories I learned about in my undergraduate program and challenging to learn about new theories and the application of both to online and tech supported learning.

I sometimes reflect on my growth as a teacher over the last thirty years and before this course lacked a filter to really understand these changes. Learning about Vygotsky and Sociocultural Theory changed this. I understand I have become a constructivist teacher and, without knowing it, have incorporated many of Vygotsky’s ideas into my daily work. For me, an articulated theory of learning is a reference point. It illuminates the path ahead, keeps me on track, and helps me see choices and make decisions more clearly.

I have posted my assignments for this course to ETEC 512 page on the MET Line. I had a good time exercising my creativity when completing them (wouldn’t Vygotsky be proud!) and hope you enjoy viewing them.

I have completed a major reorganization of my blog and have aligned it to a new metaphor I plan to use when documenting my learning journey. Check out the navigating page for details.

This post was completed in response to an ETEC 512 module on Situated Learning and Distributed Cognition. It is based on the following articles:

Brown, J. S., Collins, A. & Duguid, S. (1989). Situated cognition and the culture of learning. Educational Researcher, 18(1), 32-42. Retrieved from http://www.johnseelybrown.com/Situated%20Cognition%20and%20the%20culture%20of%20learning.pdf

Hutchins, E. (2000). Distributed Cognition. Retrieved from http://eclectic.ss.uci.edu/~drwhite/Anthro179a/DistributedCognition.pdf

Hi Folks,

Great reads this week. I started with the article on distributed cognition and when I read Hutchins (2000) comments about it being impossible to “account for the cognitive accomplishments of our species by reference to what is inside our heads alone” (p 9) and “a more or less explicit decision was made…to leave out culture, context, history, and emotion” (p 10) the bells started to sound in my head. When I read the article on situated learning it felt like I was reading a practical guide to Hutchins’s theoretical explanation: theory translated into practice, thought becoming action.

So I started to think about important ideas and connections and with the end of the course in sight decided I’d attempt to map it all out. I thought you might enjoy the picture more than the 1000 words. You can view it at the following link; it’s a work in progress so I’ll update it during the week. You can use the same link to view the changes.

http://popplet.com/app/#/1128302

This link may not work for you, thanks for heads up Brett, so you can view the mind map on my blog: https://blogs.ubc.ca/doadams/

Don

I have come up with a metaphor for mapping out and reflecting on my growth as a student and teacher. I’ll describe it more when I am ready to launch it. Enough to say that at this point I have a lot of reorganizing to do. If you are following my posts, stay tuned and thanks for your patience over the next few weeks.

I have posted a link to my latest assignment for ETEC 512. It is a brief position paper on creativity and constructivism. Hope you enjoy it.

District Presentation – Mr. Donald Adams 

Trustee Ferris introduced and welcomed Mr. Donald Adams, Kindergarten Teacher at Oaklands Elementary and recipient of the 2013 Todd Rogers Research Award. This award is presented by the Canadian Educational Researchers’ Association and recognizes an individual’s leadership and achievement in the field of evidence-based research. Trustee Ferris presented Mr. Adams with a Certificate of Recognition on behalf of the Board of Education.

Chair Orcherton thanked Mr. Adams for his dedication to the students of the Greater Victoria School District.

I have updated the page for ETEC 512: adding my posts for the first three modules and posting a couple of assignments. The course goes well. I find the work on Vygotsky fascinating. I am reading more about his take on disabilities and on play and creativity.

I still have some clean-up and organizing to do so information is presented clearly with less repetition while still showing my growth and learning. I am beginning to use my photographs on the timeline and blog posts. I am still interested in constructing a personal image for each course and thought a one line summary statement about my learning in each course might help the process of reflection. These could be posted to the timeline as well. Lots to think about….

I am starting to think more about how my blog is organized and how I’ll eventually want to restructure it to reflect my development and learning. I’m considering a timeline with multiple strands with a check in or a state of the union type statement summarizing all the strands every few months. I’d also like to incorporate my interest in photography; I wonder about taking a photo to represent each MET course and displaying it with the timeline. I am experimenting with Tiki-Toki which is a online platform for just this kind of project.