Flight Path
A Bit About Me and My Experience
I am a Business and Math teacher at a high school in Ontario. I am finishing my fourth year of teaching after working in the corporate world for 16 years as a CA. I have experience as an internal and external auditor, as well as a financial project manager in the financial services sector.
Goals for This Course
I have a number of goals for this term. I want to learn more about LMS specifically proper design and methodology. I want to become more literate with technology tools so that I can “model and facilitate effective use of current and emerging digital tools” to my students (International Society for Technology in Education, 2008). As a Program Head, I believe it is also important to share this knowledge with my colleagues within my department (to help build a better program) and at my school.
What I Want to Learn about…
LMS
Since I applied to be part of a pilot program that will be delivering e-learning to high school students this fall, I would like more information on LMS design, e.g. do’s and don’ts. Having criteria (or some sort of checklist) that I could use when evaluating potential learning management systems would also be helpful.
Assessment Tools
I would like to learn about different options for assessing students using technology. I offer differentiated assessment options for many assignments already, but I would welcome the opportunity to incorporate more technology options into my course planning.
Social Software and Multimedia
While I am aware of many different technology tools, such as Wikis and Moodle, I haven’t had much opportunity (or in some cases any opportunity) to use them. By using these tools myself first, I can assess their ease of use and determine if they are appropriate for my students (Bates and Poole, 2003). I also believe that having more tools available would allow me to have a “range of learner activities available” (Bates and Poole, 2003, p. 86) so that I could tailor my lessons to engage students with different learning styles (differentiated instruction).
Resources Needed
Since I am a visual learner, I always seek out user documentation, preferably with diagrams, illustrations and concrete examples to help me learn technology (Bates and Poole, 2003). I also like to “play” with new technology as a way to learn more about it and improve my comfort with it, and would ideally require time in order to accomplish this (Bates and Poole, 2003). The formative assessment on HTML really helped improve my understanding of this concept which is completely new to me! Finally, having exemplars available would be helpful as I could see what can be done with the technology, assess layouts, etc.
References
Bates A. W. & Poole, G. (2003). A Framework for Selecting and Using Technology. In A.W. Bates & G. Poole, Effective Teaching with Technology in Higher Education (pp. 75-108).San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. 4.
Chickering, A.W. & Gamson, Z.F. (1987). Seven Principles for Good Practice in Undergraduate Education. American Association for Higher Education Bulletin, 39 (7), 3-7.
International Society for Technology in Education. (2008). National Educational Technology Standards for Teachers. Retrieved from http://www.iste.org/standards/nets-for-teachers/nets-for-teachers-2008.aspx