{"id":25,"date":"2009-05-08T15:32:20","date_gmt":"2009-05-08T21:32:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/etec565maydonik\/?page_id=25"},"modified":"2009-07-24T15:33:35","modified_gmt":"2009-07-24T21:33:35","slug":"synthesis-reflection","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/etec565maydonik\/synthesis-reflection\/","title":{"rendered":"Synthesis Reflection"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pr\u00e9cis of my flight path<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

At the beginning of each new course I am always excited.\u00a0 As I start to read through the course materials, this excitement turns to nervousness.\u00a0 Will I be able to do this course?\u00a0 Step by step, day-by-day, the nervousness goes away and is replaced with confidence and enjoyment of the learning that takes place.\u00a0 At the beginning of ETEC 565A<\/a>, I set out to work towards two goals described in my Flight Path<\/a>:<\/p>\n

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Goal #1:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Define my skills in assessment and work through what that looks like in grade one when using digital resources.<\/p>\n

Goal #2:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Continue to implement the principles of Universal Design for Learning<\/a> in my teaching and provide purposeful digital-age learning experiences to my students.<\/p>\n

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When I started building my LMS course site in moodle<\/a>, 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.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

My second goal was a natural fit.\u00a0 It was important to me to be able to differentiate the activities in my course site.\u00a0 One of the activities that I am most proud of is the Literacy Centers that are included in each module.\u00a0 Within this activity, I was able to add audio files to assist students with the reading components of the activity.\u00a0 By adding audio files to a course, the principles of Universal Design for Learning<\/a> are considered.\u00a0 The paradigm of UDL, which was first developed by the Center for Applied Special Technology (CAST)<\/a>, 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.<\/p>\n

Reflection on my eLearning toolkit experience overall<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

I completed 8 eLearning toolkit activities<\/a>.\u00a0 The wiki<\/a> that was developed to host these activities is a very valuable resource.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 Each small assignment provided a seamless transition between my Weblog<\/a> and my LMS course site<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I appreciated how the toolkit activities were organized and how the instructions were very clear.\u00a0 The activities made applications that were previously foreign to me, or where I had novice skills, part of my<\/em> toolkit.\u00a0 The toolkit activities showed me that as teachers, we are never done learning and are truly life-long learners.\u00a0 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<\/a> (more on this below in next steps).\u00a0 I intend on reviewing the toolkit activities and completing the few I did not get to.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

Application of the SECTIONS model to self-assess my e-portfolio<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The SECTIONS model (Bates and Poole, 2003) is an excellent framework for anybody involved in instructional design, whether or not technology is involved.\u00a0 I would be very interested if this model, or an equivalent, was used when the LMS Desire to Learn (D2L)<\/a> was selected for my school district.\u00a0\u00a0 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.\u00a0 In terms of my own e-portfolio, I have reflected on it using the SECTIONS model.<\/p>\n

Students:<\/em><\/strong> My e-portfolio was not designed for the age of students that I teach.\u00a0 However, in many posts, I refer to how I would use particular technologies with grade one students.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

Ease of Use:<\/em><\/strong> In the New Year, I thought it would be a good idea to start a blog<\/a> chronicling my journey through the MET program.\u00a0 I created this blog using WordPress<\/a>, which turned out to be very easy and quick.\u00a0 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<\/a> for the course.\u00a0 Through the creation of the pages that we were asked to create, I finally understood how a WordPress blog is organized!\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 Learning about RSS feeds has been fantastic.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

Cost Structure: <\/em><\/strong>The use of WordPress is free.\u00a0 The main cost is the time I spent learning about the structure of a weblog.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 The skills I have gained will help me to develop a professional weblog in the future.<\/p>\n

Teaching and Learning:<\/em><\/strong> Blogging is an excellent way to organize and catalogue your work.\u00a0 Furthermore, the ability to share information is facilitated as visiting a blog is as simple as visiting a website.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

Interactivity: <\/em><\/strong>It was important to me to develop an e-portfolio that was easy to use and fluid in terms of navigation.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 Viewers could also view these pieces where they are hosted on the Internet.\u00a0 Viewers are able to leave comments, but are not able to post content.\u00a0 This is where I see the difference between a weblog and a wiki.<\/p>\n

<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Organization: <\/em><\/strong>By nature, I am an organized person.\u00a0 Therefore, my e-portfolio was designed to be easily navigated by users.\u00a0 There are different levels of organization to my e-portfolio.\u00a0 Pages, with categories, tags and archives to group and organize posts in different ways, organize posts and reflections.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 Wherever possible, I inserted hyperlinks to direct users.<\/p>\n

Novelty: <\/em><\/strong>As I mentioned previously, I had started a weblog in the New Year, but had difficulty understanding some of the affordances of WordPress.\u00a0 Through this experience in ETEC 565A, the novelty of weblogging is still high on my list.\u00a0 Now that my understanding has improved, I am looking forward to updating and reorganizing my overall e-portfolio.\u00a0 I believe that creating an e-portfolio would be very motivating to students as they would create an artifact that represents their work.\u00a0 Sometimes I wish I was teaching older students who would have the ability to work with a weblog.<\/p>\n

Speed:<\/em><\/strong> Updating content on my weblog is very quick.\u00a0 I usually create my content in Word and then use the WYSIWYG editor and the paste from Word function to post my content.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

Description of my next steps, in terms of my practice in educational technology<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The National Educational Technology Standards for Teachers<\/a> will continue to guide<\/a> my next steps in terms of my practice in educational technology:<\/p>\n

1.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Facilitate and Inspire Student Learning and Creativity<\/p>\n

2.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Design and Develop Digital-Age Learning Experiences and Assessments<\/p>\n

3.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Model Digital-Age Work and Learning<\/p>\n

4.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Promote and Model Digital Citizenship and Responsibility<\/p>\n

5.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Engage in Professional Growth and Leadership<\/p>\n

These standards will assist me in organizing my goals for the next school year.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 Having had this e-portfolio experience in this course, I believe that archiving my accomplishments is a great exercise in critical reflection.<\/p>\n

My second goal is to learn how to use the SMART Board in my classroom.\u00a0 I would like to achieve a seamless integration of this technology into my teaching in a purposeful manner that will focus on student learning.<\/p>\n

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. \u00a0This is my third goal.\u00a0 I intend to share the NETS<\/a> with my colleagues and hope to be able to integrate these standards with our work on Universal Design for Learning<\/a>.<\/p>\n

References:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Anderson, T. (2008). Teaching in an Online Learning Context<\/em>.\u00a0 I In: T. Anderson & F. Elloumi (Eds.), Theory and Practice of Online Learning<\/em>. Edmonton AB: Athabasca University. Accessed online 23 July 2009 http:\/\/www.aupress.ca\/books\/120146\/ebook\/14_Anderson_2008_Anderson-DeliveryQualitySupport.pdf<\/a><\/p>\n

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.<\/em> (pp. 77-105). San Francisco: Jossey Bass Publishers.<\/p>\n

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<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pr\u00e9cis of my flight path At the beginning of each new course I am always excited.\u00a0 As I start to read through the course materials, this excitement turns to nervousness.\u00a0 Will I be able to do this course?\u00a0 Step by step, day-by-day, the nervousness goes away and is replaced with confidence and enjoyment of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":515,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-25","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/etec565maydonik\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/25","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/etec565maydonik\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/etec565maydonik\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/etec565maydonik\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/515"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/etec565maydonik\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/etec565maydonik\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/25\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":293,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/etec565maydonik\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/25\/revisions\/293"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/etec565maydonik\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}