Précis of my flight path

At the beginning of each new course I am always excited.  As I start to read through the course materials, this excitement turns to nervousness.  Will I be able to do this course?  Step by step, day-by-day, the nervousness goes away and is replaced with confidence and enjoyment of the learning that takes place.  At the beginning of ETEC 565A, I set out to work towards two goals described in my Flight Path:

When I started building my LMS course site in moodle, I honestly wasn’t too sure how I was going to adapt a theme that I have taught face to face to grade one students for the online environment.  As I worked through each component of the project, I reflected and modified my course to suit the learning needs of my students by designing it to be learner-centered.  As Anderson (2008) states: “Learner-centered activities make extensive use of diagnostic tools and activities to make visible these pre-existing knowledge structures to both the teacher and the students themselves” (p. 47) In completing this project, I realized that creating an online learning environment for young students is possible.

My second goal was a natural fit.  It was important to me to be able to differentiate the activities in my course site.  One of the activities that I am most proud of is the Literacy Centers that are included in each module.  Within this activity, I was able to add audio files to assist students with the reading components of the activity.  By adding audio files to a course, the principles of Universal Design for Learning are considered.  The paradigm of UDL, which was first developed by the Center for Applied Special Technology (CAST), is a means of respecting a variety of diverse individual learning styles without requiring adaptation. This theoretical framework promotes the success for all learners by inherently having the flexibility to support each individual’s needs. UDL applies to all learners, not exclusively to individuals with disabilities, but aims to provide everyone with equal access to learning.

Reflection on my eLearning toolkit experience overall

I completed 8 eLearning toolkit activities.  The wiki that was developed to host these activities is a very valuable resource.  As I progressed through the activities over the semester, the experience afforded the opportunity to refine my skills in each area and gave me ideas for my LMS course site.  Each small assignment provided a seamless transition between my Weblog and my LMS course site.

I appreciated how the toolkit activities were organized and how the instructions were very clear.  The activities made applications that were previously foreign to me, or where I had novice skills, part of my toolkit.  The toolkit activities showed me that as teachers, we are never done learning and are truly life-long learners.  Having worked through the toolkit activities, I believe that I have refined my teaching practice in terms of the National Educational Technology Standards for Teachers (more on this below in next steps).  I intend on reviewing the toolkit activities and completing the few I did not get to.  At this point, I am still very interested in Web-design and HTML authoring and I would like to develop my skills further in this area.

Application of the SECTIONS model to self-assess my e-portfolio

The SECTIONS model (Bates and Poole, 2003) is an excellent framework for anybody involved in instructional design, whether or not technology is involved.  I would be very interested if this model, or an equivalent, was used when the LMS Desire to Learn (D2L) was selected for my school district.   The SECTIONS model is now a part of my toolkit, and I will refer to it when selecting technologies for my students and when advising staff on their technology selections.  In terms of my own e-portfolio, I have reflected on it using the SECTIONS model.

Students: My e-portfolio was not designed for the age of students that I teach.  However, in many posts, I refer to how I would use particular technologies with grade one students.  I have shared my e-portfolio with my assistant principal and although he is not enrolled in formal classes pertaining to technology, he does have a vested interest in the subject and appreciated reading through the various posts and learning as a “student” partaking in life long learning.

Ease of Use: In the New Year, I thought it would be a good idea to start a blog chronicling my journey through the MET program.  I created this blog using WordPress, which turned out to be very easy and quick.  However, I did struggle with understanding the difference between categories and pages, and this confusion remained with me, until I started ETEC 565 and created my reflective weblog for the course.  Through the creation of the pages that we were asked to create, I finally understood how a WordPress blog is organized!  I have enjoyed the blogging experience in ETEC 565, not only posting assignments, but also being able to choose a theme and customize the header of my blog.  There are limitations to how unique your blog looks, but I think that I’ve made a tweak or two to help it stand out.  Learning about RSS feeds has been fantastic.  This technology has allowed me to follow my classmates and I have found it so interesting how we all have a different spin on each assignment.

Cost Structure: The use of WordPress is free.  The main cost is the time I spent learning about the structure of a weblog.  I feel that the time I spent working on my e-portfolio was very valuable and I am so pleased to have an on-line repository for the work I completed in this course.  The skills I have gained will help me to develop a professional weblog in the future.

Teaching and Learning: Blogging is an excellent way to organize and catalogue your work.  Furthermore, the ability to share information is facilitated as visiting a blog is as simple as visiting a website.  A weblog is a fantastic assessment tool, as the instructor can see all of your submitted assignments and how you have progressed over the course.  When I have shown colleagues my e-portfolio, they get a sense of what I am studying, as many people do not fully understand what Educational Technology is.  I enjoyed the dialogue that was created through being able to comment on posts and I endeavored to post a few comments on classmates’ weblogs.  At the grade one level, I could see having a classroom blog to showcase and share learning, and to invite parents in as part of the learning community.

Interactivity: It was important to me to develop an e-portfolio that was easy to use and fluid in terms of navigation.  I provided many hyperlinks to other pages and resources and embedded visual pieces that I created such as my digital stories and a screen cast.  Viewers could also view these pieces where they are hosted on the Internet.  Viewers are able to leave comments, but are not able to post content.  This is where I see the difference between a weblog and a wiki.

Organization: By nature, I am an organized person.  Therefore, my e-portfolio was designed to be easily navigated by users.  There are different levels of organization to my e-portfolio.  Pages, with categories, tags and archives to group and organize posts in different ways, organize posts and reflections.  For example, if you were to click on the category “E-learning Toolkit”, all of the posts in that category would be listed on new page.  For somebody new to weblogging, this may take some time to familiarize themselves with the e-portfolio, however, overall I feel that navigating and using my e-portfolio is fluid.  Wherever possible, I inserted hyperlinks to direct users.

Novelty: As I mentioned previously, I had started a weblog in the New Year, but had difficulty understanding some of the affordances of WordPress.  Through this experience in ETEC 565A, the novelty of weblogging is still high on my list.  Now that my understanding has improved, I am looking forward to updating and reorganizing my overall e-portfolio.  I believe that creating an e-portfolio would be very motivating to students as they would create an artifact that represents their work.  Sometimes I wish I was teaching older students who would have the ability to work with a weblog.

Speed: Updating content on my weblog is very quick.  I usually create my content in Word and then use the WYSIWYG editor and the paste from Word function to post my content.  I have run into a few problems with embedding files, such as my digital story created in Tikatok, however, I was able to solve that problem by using the HTML editor instead.

Description of my next steps, in terms of my practice in educational technology

The National Educational Technology Standards for Teachers will continue to guide my next steps in terms of my practice in educational technology:

1.    Facilitate and Inspire Student Learning and Creativity

2.    Design and Develop Digital-Age Learning Experiences and Assessments

3.    Model Digital-Age Work and Learning

4.    Promote and Model Digital Citizenship and Responsibility

5.    Engage in Professional Growth and Leadership

These standards will assist me in organizing my goals for the next school year.  My first goal is the development and maintenance of a professional e-portfolio that will articulate my studies in the MET program and my teaching career.  Having had this e-portfolio experience in this course, I believe that archiving my accomplishments is a great exercise in critical reflection.

My second goal is to learn how to use the SMART Board in my classroom.  I would like to achieve a seamless integration of this technology into my teaching in a purposeful manner that will focus on student learning.

Having completed (almost!) 3 courses in the MET program, I feel more confident in being able to assist colleagues in the implementation of Educational Technology by working towards a solid foundation of applying the frameworks to the selection of learning technologies.  This is my third goal.  I intend to share the NETS with my colleagues and hope to be able to integrate these standards with our work on Universal Design for Learning.

References:

Anderson, T. (2008). Teaching in an Online Learning Context.  I In: T. Anderson & F. Elloumi (Eds.), Theory and Practice of Online Learning. Edmonton AB: Athabasca University. Accessed online 23 July 2009 http://www.aupress.ca/books/120146/ebook/14_Anderson_2008_Anderson-DeliveryQualitySupport.pdf

Bates, A.W. & Poole, G. (2003). Chapter 4: A Framework for Selecting and Using Technology. In Effective Teaching with Technology in Higher Education: Foundations for Success. (pp. 77-105). San Francisco: Jossey Bass Publishers.

National Educational Technology Standards for Teachers. Retrieved May 4, 2009 from: http://www.iste.org/Content/NavigationMenu/NETS/ForTeachers/2008Standards/NETS_for_Teachers_2008.htm