Assignment 2 – Introductory Module – Express Yourself

Grade 8 Poetry Course – Express Yourself!

My path to Assignment 2 took some unexpected twists and turns. Having embarked on ETEC 565A with a determination to explore the Moodle platform, which I did in Assignment 1, I wound up dipping my feet in the strange waters of Eliademy and edX Edge instead. The desire to work in a group rather than individually had a lot to do with it. First, I re-connected with my former group project member, Pam Jones. We had worked on a wiki project in ETEC 510 and wanted to collaborate again for this assignment. Then Melissa Lavoie and Jenny Lee joined us and we were a group.

We decided on Poetry for 8th graders, specifically, poetry as a vehicle for self-expression. It was a unanimous decision to choose a LMS that looks familiar to young students who are likely new to online learning. We ruled out Moodle and Blackboard Connect and explored Eliademy and edX Edge, which we really liked for the visually appealing elements. The inter-connectedness of the parts of this assignment (Learning objectives, assessments and activities) posed some challenges to working in a collaborative setting. We could not simply split up the sections and work on the pieces individually, and then piece them together. We wound up meeting often on Hangouts just to be sure every piece in our course design was integrated into a coherent whole.

I really enjoyed the learning experience of designing a course using the Backward Design model and getting to know the affordances and limitations of both platforms. I even sent a number of emails to the Eliademy folks in Finland whenever I spotted typos on their Help pages! I’m looking forward to continue exploring the LMSs in Assignment 3 with the amazing project members.