Hello!
I am Nathan and I live in Port Stanley, Ontario (about 30 minutes southwest of London). I live here with my two children, my dog, and my wife. We moved out to “the country” just over a year ago, so I have become accustomed to splitting wood to heat my home, identifying different types of tractors, and constantly seeing deer all over my property. I am grateful to be able to live in such a place yet still have a reliable internet connection as to continue my studies in the MET program as well as do my job.
I have been in education for about 10 years, mostly as an administrator. I have been the Principal of Blyth Academy Online, a private online high school, for 7 years. My role is not that of a typical principal, however; in many contexts I also go by Director of Educational Technology. I have been working from home since the beginning of the pandemic and this will be permanent (or up to my discretion) in the future. My wife is a high school teacher in a physical school, so I live vicariously through her sometimes when I miss feeling that connection with students. Prior to administration, my teaching was mainly in the areas of English and Physical Education. I am a huge fan of literature and sports. Hockey is my favourite sport; I spend a lot of time playing hockey as well as supporting the Toronto Maple Leafs.
ETEC522 is my 7th course in the MET program. I have been in the program for three years; I am taking the full 5 years to complete it. I come into contact with educational tools, technologies, and companies on a regular basis in my job. One of my favourite parts of the work I do is evaluating these tools and seeing how or if we might incorporate them into what we do. For example, about 3 years ago, I lead the hunt for a new learning management system (LMS); we ultimately landed on Brightspace by D2L. I have often felt that I have an entrepreneurial spirit and that ed tech is the area I know best; I think this course will put me to the test and give me a real sense of whether or not I can create a viable venture in the ed tech space. I suppose that is what Assignment #3 is for!
I would consider myself a constructivist by nature. I am a firm believer of learning by doing and I hold the theories of Jean Piaget in high esteem. I think “doing” has evolved dramatically over my time in education, so I am very interested in participatory cultures, social constructivism, and essentially anything that involves building things together.
P.S. I lived in New Zealand for a year. I did my first teaching there.
Hello Nathan! That’s an awesome wall of chopped wood in your photo! Love your dog, too! How do you like Brightspace? BC is revamping its policies of what constitutes “online” learning and has chosen Brightspace as its LMS. Fortunately, it is compatible with the current LMS’s and learning platforms we are using!
Thanks, Cindy! It doesn’t take too long once you get the hang of it.
I think Brightspace is pretty solid. I often compare this to a Mac computer. You get a great product out of the box, but they make it kind of tricky to do customizations. With a Mac, you can do things like swap out the RAM or put in a new hard drive, but it is nothing compared to what you can do with a custom built PC, for example. We previously used Moodle, which is open source and extremely customizable, however, we had essentially no tech department, so I was constantly learning how to fix issues and just maintain the system. Moving to Brightspace was easy because it removed all of that off of me. D2L takes care of updates, hosting, bugs, etc., and we just use it. Even though I describe it as out of the box, I do think D2L is doing a good job in adding new parameters and options that allow you to customize the experience to a certain degree.
Hi Nathan
It’s good to see you again, hope you had a wonderful Christmas and New Years!
I share your views on finding and testing new LMS’ to use, both of my courses for this semester don’t use Canvas and it feels like a refreshing change!
Hey John! It is great to see you again as well!
It is a nice change to be out of Canvas, isn’t it? A little change of scenery is always a good thing!
HI Nathan, nice to e-meet you! you mentioned that you primarily work from home now. How have education technology changed your way of interacting with students / staff?
Nice to meet you as well, Mary!
In all honesty, nothing has really changed during the pandemic because we were always working with students remotely. As an online school, we very rarely had students actually come in the office (although it was a welcomed change of pace when the did). We were using phone calls, email, and Skype a lot pre-pandemic. Now, I suppose the big change is that most people use Zoom (Skype seems to have lost its stranglehold on video calls). In general, ed tech has allowed us to capture more information about students and more easily share insights. We have a lot of data since our students do all of their learning through our LMS, so we have some great talking points when meeting with parents. I think ed tech has essentially made communication more transparent, and this applies to teachers, students, and parents in all directions. Transparency is usually a good thing, in my experience.