Assignments

Summary of Required Assignments

All coursework is to be submitted online. You should use your own website to compile your coursework, which can be taken down as soon as the assessment of your coursework has been completed at the end of term, if you wish. Please note: When submitting assignments you are encouraged by UBC to use FIPPA compliant practices. As such, you are encouraged to use your UBC email address and your UBC blog for housing your assignments. However, not everyone will be using FIPPA compliant tools, applications, software, etc. Best practices simply include not sharing your student number or any personal information through insecure channels. For the purposes of this course, no sharing of sensitive information will be required.

1. Individual Intellectual Productions (40%)

The emphasis in this course is on intellectual production, not intellectual consumption. For this reason, you are NOT being asked to demonstrate that you have internalized the work of other people, but that you have been able to engage with and make use of that work in the production of intellectual work of your own. Accordingly, each of the 10 course topics has an activity associated with it, which is specified at the end of each section. As with any academic course of studies, you are expected to cover ALL the course material, readings, etc. The reason why you should do this is to get the larger background of the course in relation to the specific IP topics you’ll be working on/submitting for evaluation. Having a wider-angle view of what this “metatheory” course is about, and why it might matter will also help you make a better-informed choice of the topics you will focus on, which will add a heap of ‘value’ to your learning experience. Three IP’s are required and two are your choice.

Each of your individual intellectual productions (IPs) is worth 8% of your final grade.  For all of the 10 activities described below, you read or otherwise engage with the assigned resources—many of which involve non-traditional or multimedia forms. There is a task or challenge assigned for each topic. You choose 2 to work on, and 3 (first, second and last) are assigned. For each of these intellectual productions—only some of which call upon traditional academic literacies—creative, experimental, and multi-modal work is encouraged. Whatever the form/medium you use, and this can include interviews, games, videos, animations, etc., the work you submit should be thoughtfully designed with an eye to how the medium shapes the message. Please ensure your work is carefully copyedited/debugged, and shows how you have both understood and also transformed the ideas and information in this course in your own individual IPs. Learning by making and doing means being a bit more experimental, creative and playful. That doesn’t mean it’s not hard or demanding–it is. Because these “intellectual productions” are asking you to do something you don’t actually yet know how to do, so these activities are about engagement and attention, not about getting things right (or “wrong”). The idea is that making theory of your own is a way to think about theories as things we make and change…and that’s what ‘metatheory’ is—a way of thinking that knows what its doing.

IP #1 is due Sept 15th, IP#2 is due Sept 29th and IP#10 is due Nov 24th. These are the required IPs.

Your other 2 IPs (your choice) may be submitted at any time up to Dec 11th.  

2. Formerly Know as Twittering Theory Now X Task (10%). Due Oct 25th.

FIND THE PUBLIC FORMERLY KNOWN AS TWITTER, NOW X FEED OF SOMEONE WHOSE IDEAS YOU THINK ARE IMPORTANT FOR EDUCATIONAL THEORIZING TODAY, who is actively using social media to air their views. What are they talking about? Who are they talking about? Who are they talking to? How and why does this re-mediation of public communication matter to education? What kind of theory/theorizing does this medium invite, encourage or accommodate? How does Twitter reshape educational theory (and what is “educational theory” anyway?)?

Working individually or in collaboration with one or more classmates, try your hand at this small internet research task aimed at finding out what “theory”, and, specifically, “educational theory” looks like through the lens of a contemporary social network platform—in this case, Twitter. In the hands of superuser and former U.S. President, Donald Trump, Twitter became a phenomenally powerful re-shaper of contemporary politics. But what about the educational sphere? What are today’s educationalists “twittering (X-ing)” about? What topics are folks who see themselves (or that YOU see) as having something to say about education putting out there on X (formerly Twitter)? Who are they following and who seems to be following them? How are they communicating—especially compared with traditional academic scholarship in and on education? How and why does this twittering matter to education? In short, what does educational theory look like when it’s been re-mediated by X (formerly Twitter)? (You’ll need at least 30 tweets to carry out this activity.)

Guidelines for the assignment: The assignment should be at least 1000 words, no longer than 1200. It should include screen captures of the most significant tweets, integrated into your analysis. The idea here is that you are looking for how this medium impacts theory in action in the world, trying to work out how theory actually looks and acts once it gets out of its traditional forms and into the ‘real world’ of X (formerly Twitter). What tools does X (formerly Twitter) give educational (or other) theory-making, and what tools does it dis-enable?  See if you can find connections between theory and practice, and if they are not present in the X (formerly Twitter) feed of the person you chose, make a few connections yourself. And, if you really want to go deep, see if there is any change you can mark in the feed you chose when X (formerly Twitter) was bought by and placed under the direct leadership of Elon Musk – not required!

3. Final Project (35%): “Edtechdev”, a Digital Design and Development Project

Individually, or in a small (no more than 4) group of your choice, the final project is to design, develop and produce a tool for your/your team’s own educational use, based squarely on your/your team’s own values, need and interests. This “tool” will be a digital resource created and developed using technologies that are available to you—or that you can exploit/develop over the course. It is understood that students’ technology experiences, skills and access will vary a lot, however it is also expected that you will build new skills or advance those you have. As one component of your short project overview, you will be asked to report specifically on what new tech skill/s you needed, and how you acquired them.

It is also understood, and needs to be anticipated, that responsibilities will inevitably be uneven. Capabilities, access, experience, even software limitations—these all contribute to the unequal division of labour. However, knowing that before you start, your team has to thoughtfully find/design ways to balance the contributions of team members, so each can both stretch but also work from their strengths. And if someone wants to learn something they know nothing about (programming a game is one example), then they should be teamed up with the person who already knows the most about that, so they can actually learn to do, and not just watch. Try not to reproduce familiar workplace inequalities. This may involve compromise or modifications throughout.

Project Guidelines: You are building an educational tool. It can be whatever you wish, there are NO restrictions on kind/form/medium/subject matter. This is an intentionally open-ended assignment where you are being asked to harness your own/groups’ purposes to your own abilities to produce something useful and that you can potentially REUSE. This is meant to be a skill-building assignment —you are going to explore something new/different and reflect on how the tool does that and how it is (or isn’t!) useful to you in your own educational practice. For projects too ambitious to be completed within the time frame of the course, development (and demonstration) to “proof of concept” stage is perfectly fine. This “tool” will be a digital resource created and developed using technologies that are available to you—or that you can exploit/develop over the course. It is imperative to clear your project ideas with the instructor before beginning, at the latest by Oct. 4th.

If you want to do a team assignment, your job is to convince other folks to join up with you on your project! This is a self-directed, self-led final project, that you are going to first check-in with Jen about. If you are having trouble finding teammates and you really want to join a team – make sure you check in on that too, I will help get groups formed as needed.

4. Group Project Proposal : 5%. Due Oct.11th

 There are many models of project proposals to be found online, just look for one that does the job for your group project, and modify it as needed. Ask Jen if you need help on this. It’s important to submit your project proposal in time to get feedback and assistance early on. (This is NOT something you can leave until the last few weeks). You have just 6 (ish)weeks from here to your demo. Now you need to focus on that. If you’d like to see a model of an A level Metatheory project proposal, click here or here (by kind permission of its authors)

5. Synchronous Group Presentation/Demonstration of Final Project (5%): December 7th, 5pm PDT

The purpose of this meeting is for each group to present their final “edtechdev” digital tool development project. Each group has 10 minutes to present their work, and 5 minutes if it is a solo project. Further specific presentation guidelines will be provided well in advance.  As time zones are always a challenge to online learning, it is understood that some students may not be able to participate synchronously.  Students who cannot attend in real-time will need to inform the instructor and an accommodation agreement will be arranged.

6. Final Project Individual Reflection (5%) Due Dec. 11th 

This is an individual, written (500 words) reflection on your group’s digital artifact, and here are some parameters to use to compose your written assessment. You can add others:

  1. Learning from experienced designs and designers: How well (and seriously!) did your team follow, engage with and actually address the work of the educational designs/designers that you’ve been introduced to? Did you use any other sources for advice, guidelines or design principles in your project, and if so, what?
  2. Assets: What elements in the project—images, informational content, animations, sound effects, sound cues, backgrounds, code strings…etc.—did you make yourself/selves (i.e. not borrowed, stock images, etc.). What assets did you modify (and how did you modify them)? Who did what?
  3. Up-skilling: What NEW skills/abilities did your team gain or deepen through this project? Did you use an already familiar tool/tools set to build your project? Who learned what? It is understood that students’ technology experiences, skills and access will vary a lot; however it is also expected that everyone will build new skills or advance those they already have. That’s why you are asked to report specifically on what new tech skill/s your team needed, who took them on and why, and how they acquired them. Were there equal opportunities to learn? What did your team do about that?
  4. Purpose: How well integrated were the purposes of your edtech tool with the form/s you used? (e.g., platform/s, images, progression, rules or guidelines, completion/conclusion, interactivity, interface, characters/avatars/personae, etc.)?
  5. Audience: What, specifically, did you implement or do to engage marginalized persons with your edtech tool? (Think about girls/women, persons of colour, persons with different learning abilities, those who are indigenous, who identify as LGBTQ+, and those who speak languages other than English).
  6. Aha!: What was your tool’s most effective element/moment….and would you share what you’ve produced with your friends?

Every project has a theory…

As Neil Postman (1992:p 13) wrote: “embedded in every tool is an ideological bias, a predisposition to construct the world as one thing rather than another, to value one thing over another, to amplify one sense or skill or attitude more loudly than another” 

Your individual project write-up should conclude with a  ‘metatheory’ section that reflects on your experience of theorizing about educational technology not by writing essays about it, but by making ‘things’—your own edtechdev artifact. 

As we learned from Latour, even ‘things’ have ‘theory’.  Working backwards from ‘thing’ to ‘theory’, what theoretical perspectives, assumptions, or hypotheses underlie the tool you made? Feel free to draw on any of the terms, ideas, arguments etc. from the theories we’ve been working with this term (e.g. new materialism, actor-network theory, media ecology, etc.).

An important note about scheduling and workflow: Unless you plan out your semester’s work carefully you are at risk of leaving others to do the bulk of the project work while you concentrate on individual assignments. IF THIS IS HAPPENING IN ANYONE’S GROUP, PLEASE ADVISE ME SOON ENOUGH TO INTERVENE. PLEASE SCHEDULE YOUR SEMESTER’S WORK SO THIS DOESN’T HAPPEN.

Revising Assignments: If you choose to do so, you have a week from the date you received your feedback to revise and resubmit any assignment that did not receive a passing grade. ALL coursework must be submitted by Dec. 11th. If you need an extension for any reason you simply need to get in touch with Sam.