Assignment #3 (Here is the link my online course)

Project Documentation

I really liked the thought process behind assignments #2 and #3 as I reflect back through this course. The introductory module helped to set up for building the content module specific to the selected objectives. Having the assignments build upon each other allowed the knowledge learned from ETEC 565A to support my project development.

Target Audience

The target audience for this online course is similar to those students that are in my current class of Grade 6 students. The explicit target audience is students interested in taking an online Grade 6 science course however I would expect some students to have available help from parents, tutors, or siblings at home so their review of information and communication through questions or comments influenced the development of this content module.

Students turn to online courses due to athletic schedules, medical challenges, or courses not being offered during certain semesters in middle school. Additionally, students enroll in online courses to be offered more comfortable learning environments, convenience and flexibility such as taking a class during the summer, more interaction and greater ability to concentrate, are able to avoid travelling long distances, and to improve their technical skills (Staff Writers, 2012).

This course is designed for elementary or middle school students who may be taking an online course for the very first time as many of the components offer practice scenarios that are explicitly stated in the introductory module. Students need different technology experiences to develop, build, and become proficient in their expertise of different technologies for future careers that do not currently exist.

The end result of this online course is a unit on the Solar System with 3 modules adhering to the new Grade 6 curriculum in Science with a target audience of student’s aged 11 – 12 year olds. I used the Extreme Environment section for my content module, as I was most familiar with its outcomes as it stems from British Columbia’s current science curriculum. The other two modules are set up with for course content and activities to be filled in at a later date. As I look to returning to my teaching class after spring break, I am hoping to use many of the components of the online course I created to teach my current class of students the learning objectives in science for this term. My plan is to create a blended approach and have them introduced to the notion of using online technologies to meet the learning objectives I have put in place. My teaching approach will be more flexible to offer the students opportunities to decide if they want to utilize class computer time to acquire the specific content by completing the activities or to use it for research of their inquiry project. I plan to use the last days of the course to conduct a more formal final individual presentation assessment format that they would also present to the class.

Extreme Environments Unit

The content module I put in place was for the last component of my online Grade 6 Space course on Extreme Environments. I have taught an Extreme Environment unit in a few different classroom environments so it offered me this most comfort and confidence in planning out my activities and assessments. I had to relook as some of my ideas as some plans did not translate to the online environment succinctly and needed a revision in order to be more appropriate and applicable.

Due to the amount of work I put forth in my introductory module the content module wasn’t as nearly as difficult as I was familiar with many of the different types of tasks, links, and digital tools that I was able to play with when developing content within the Moodle environment.

The course objectives for this particular unit on Extreme Environments are as follows:

• Students will be able to explain obstacles unique to exploration of a specific environment.
• Students will assess technologies used for extreme environments.
• Students will describe continuous contributions of Canadian exploration technologies.

Design and Structure of Module 3

The backward design approach was used in designing this content module. I kept my ideas for assessment of the objectives in the forefront to allow for appropriate development of knowledge and learning. Some of the online interactivities and videos that I had planned for included broken links as the content had disappeared during the time of content module development. I had to modify my plans and make some adjustments to fulfill my objectives. When developing online courses, checking included links is a worthwhile process as online content often changes. As Hobbs and Jensen (2009) state that different forms of hypermedia can be relatively unreliable with it being present one day and then showing a broken link the next day.

Specific online tools and activities were selected that would appeal to a typical Grade 6 student. I planned out a 10 day schedule of activities. Each day included a short video or links to websites to review of some of the information related to the learning objectives. For each day, students would be partaking in a specific activity which could include a discussion forum by responding to questions posed, watching a video and then providing reasoning to answer questions, using videos and websites to construct knowledge of some of the vocabulary terminology, beginning to construct their inquiry project, researching different transportation and Aboriginal technologies and hand drawing them out, and finally ending with a short unit quiz.

Communication Methods

With this course set-up, communication is kept online through the Weekly Announcements forum under the welcome page to see reminders, upcoming tasks, general feedback and advice. The other forum for general questions allows for student communication with the entire class and the teacher. The Communication forum for General Questions is for students to ask questions to their classmates as they may be able to answer their question or it is I place where I will answer the questions and hopefully my answer will address a concern for more than one student. For this content module, I also put in a communication forum specific to this unit in order for students to address any questions or to seek clarification for their final inquiry project. The third way of communication I will offer is a direct e-mail between the teacher and student so that the students can notify me to discuss any pertinent concerns, illnesses or emergencies that are private. I also wanted to allow parents to sign in for the course so they could monitor weekly announcements and read over the criteria for assignments in order to better support their child with their learning.

Communication is an important component in regards to having open, reliable pathways set up to allow the course instructor help and guide students. In addition, peers can offer much in the way of knowledge by collaborating with each other, providing alternative perspectives that otherwise may not have been considered (Anderson, 2008).

Assessment Strategies

For this Moodle course I will offer a few different assessments. The first assessment is for the students to highlight their knowledge of the selected vocabulary terms for this unit prior to proceeding onto the next assessment. This will act as formative assessment and help influence my focus of supporting my students. Other forms of assessment will include an assessment on their participation in all discussions forums using a rubric, a final quiz for the module, and a final project again using a Rubric for assessment in which I will have students chose a topic to investigate an inquiry between two different topic ideas.

Students will have access to the rubrics used to assess for participation in the discussion forums and the final inquiry project. Some of the components in the rubrics designed I have used in my own teaching practice in a face-to-face teaching environment so I am curious how they will translate into a fully online course. I decided to end this course with a final project as it makes the learning personal for the student as they have some choice in the topic. My most recent teaching experience at my current school highlights that the form of assessment I would be giving them mostly drove my students. Gibbs and Simpson have also found “what influences students most was not the teaching but the assessment” (2005). Therefore it is important for the rubrics to be made available for my students.

 Affordances and Limitations of Moodle

One of the main draws for me for Moodle is it provides its security, providing my students with a secure and private online space to interact and work as a collaborate unit. Moodle includes a wide variety of digital tools for instructors to include in their course such as quizzes, glossary, questionnaire, survey learning or assessment via badges, forums, and links to pages and much more. Additionally, as a public school educator using platforms that provide a free service are preferred and Moodle gives the instructor lots of freedom to highlight their course preferences by permitting many different customizations.

Moodle operates as open source software allowing for technology to be the driving force of its development. Through previewing others classmates’ introductory modules who elected to use Moodle demonstrated how clear different background of technology expertise produced widely contrasting course designs meeting all the requirements. It is a benefit for course designed in having an expertise in converting different HTML editing or coding program experience as that was one area I found difficult and from comparison results in online content modules with varying degrees of creative digital components and layouts.

In looking ahead, my experience in identifying different ways to change images and content in HTML coding is an area I would like to continue to develop by playing around with other digital tools and continue to build upon by knowledge through continued review of the resources available on creating online course outlines in Moodle. I also found the quiz and questionnaire function difficult to navigate through and opted to supply a link to Google Form which I am much more familiar with. There are numerous options and many pathways once can take to contrive a thoughtful content module in Moodle including varying type of multimedia, which is my opinion is to the advantage of an instructor.

 Functionality

As the platform is open source, future improvement will most likely be made to easily accommodate to the first time course designer. A more simple and straightforward interface is required for those that beginners learning the ropes of online course design in order for them to master and create a working Moodle. In comparison to Weebly, an online website tool which offers user friendly drag and drop tools, Moodle is much less intuitive. Many tasks that have become quite familiar to me using Weebly were much more difficult and time consuming when using Moodle as it relies on using HTML coding. For example, inputting online videos are easily done using Weebly but with Moodle but it was a lengthened task to do so.

I also found it challenging to switch from a student user to the course designer user to be able to see what the student is able to view when they log on. Even going back and forth between editing on/off caused glitches such that it wouldn’t allow me to scroll down to the desired component and edit as needed. Moodle ensures that you turn editing on and I felt like I was constantly logging in and out as some items did not show up in student view as how I envisioned they would.

Conclusion

This extreme environment module aims to effectively teach students about extreme environments, their location around the world and universe, and their importance for endeavors of future explorations and relating this information to the world around us. This course will help students further develop this inquiry and critical thinking skills in relation to science. This assignment definitely filled my technology plate and gave me areas to focus on. I would like to aim to improve on my efficiency and program expertise for effective design elements for an on online course. Even if Moodle is not the selected platform in my future, my experience with this assignment pushed my technological limitations as a teacher and will influence my use of Google docs, future webpages, or digital stories I create to help facilitate my teaching pedagogy.

References

Anderson, T. (2008). Towards a theory of online learning. In T. Anderson & F. Elloumi (Eds.), Theory and practice of online learning. Edmonton AB: Athabasca University

Gibbs, G., & Simpson, C. (2005). Conditions under which assessment supports students’ learning. Learning and Teaching in Higher Education, 1(1), 3-31. Retrieved from: http://www.open.ac.uk/fast/pdfs/Gibbs%20and%20Simpson%202004-05.pdf

Hobbs, R. & Jensen, A. (2009). The past, present, and future of media literacy education. Journal of Media Literacy Education, 1, 1-11. http://jmle.org/index.php/JMLE/issue/view/1

Staff Writers. (2012). 10 Advantages to Taking Online Classes. Open Education Database. Retrieved from https://blogs.ubc.ca/victoriaolson/2016/03/25/assignment-3-content-module/

Media

Cassidy, Tony. (2008). Radical Geography. Retrieved from http://www.radicalgeography.co.uk