The link is here<\/a>.<\/p>\nIn the course outline, it reads that the introductory module will be assessed for:<\/p>\n
the introductory activity<\/strong>;<\/p>\nMy introductory activity was based on a citation found in Anderson (2008). Anderson refers to the work of Dixon (2007) and her work in\u00a0breaking ice<\/em>. I read the article (the one cited) and found\u00a0the work of Dixon and her colleagues would fit with the clientele for my course, teachers. As Dixon writes, \u201cways in which learners are encouraged and supported to connect, and develop relationships with colleagues who have similar interests and\/or compatible work habits, are needed.\u201d Although her research studied\u00a0the implementation of \u00a0icebreaker activities which help to\u00a0create social presence in online environments, \u00a0I knew my \u201cstudents\u201d would be teachers. Creating social presence would need to move past the potentially surfacing self-efficacious posturing into something creative and dare I write, \u201cfun.\u201d<\/p>\nhaving 3 substantive HTML pages<\/strong>;<\/p>\nI chose to go with 4 separate pages of substantive content. I looked through all I wanted to convey, felt that it would be best conveyed in four separate pages. Garrison, Anderson, and Archer (2000) make the case for cognitive presence, social presence, and teaching presence in higher learning. Each of these\u00a0introductory pages provide the foundation on which the higher order thinking \u2014 with space for constructing meaning, projecting personness, and the design and facilitation of teaching\u2013possible in online courses,\u00a0can thrive (Garrison et al. 2000: 91).<\/p>\n
having logical and organized structure<\/strong>;<\/p>\nAs I have just conveyed in the last section, I divided the content up into four sections: structure (Open Me First<\/em>), content (Behind the Scenes<\/em>), communication (Inner Circle<\/em>), and assessment (Begin at the End<\/em>). I felt these categories, not so far off from Anderson\u2019s (2008) knowledge-centred, assessment-centred, learner-centred, and community-centred divisions, would group the information in a straightforward and cohesive manner. One-stop-shopping, so to speak.<\/p>\nhaving early information for students<\/strong>;<\/p>\nThe list that Mayer\u2019s authored and that appears in Bates (2014) was helpful for selecting the\u00a0what should be included<\/em>\u00a0and the\u00a0how should that be formatted<\/em>\u00a0for this section. I took Mayer\u2019s (2009) advice that design should be simple, cued, segmented, and simultaneously present content. Further to this, content was also personalized and conversational in style of the voice.<\/p>\nhaving a reflection on the experience<\/strong>; and<\/p>\nThis project felt like archaeology (or rather what I think archaeology would feel like). \u201cOh look, I have worked for hours and look! there is the toe of the archaeopteryx.\u201d I think I wrote, in one of the first reading responses, that with really good LMSs, one doesn\u2019t notice the structure or the design. The focus becomes the content and the purpose for the course. Ironic that it is best represented when it is invisible. However, it can only get there when a crazy amount of work and thought goes into the design. In their research Coates, James and Baldwin (2005) conclude that, although LMS are here to stay, there is still much to be learned about whether they\u00a0augment and complement<\/em>, or if they will\u00a0substitute<\/em>\u00a0the methods used to learn (Coates et al. 2005: 33).<\/p>\nThe other surprise from this experience is that I want to learn coding. Some of what I wanted to do, or how I wanted the site to look was limited by inexperience. I do not like the guerilla style of learning by scouring through YouTube looking for \u201cthree letter word descriptor sentences\u201d because I don\u2019t actually know what that kind of file is called. \u201cWhat! It can\u2019t be 2 AM.\u201d<\/p>\n
having a reflection on the communication and assessment strategies that will be used in the course<\/strong>.<\/p>\nMy plan at this point, with regard to communication, is to exploit its asynchronous characteristics through its time-zone flexibility, response-time expansiveness, and that responses from that form tend to reflect higher-order thinking. As far as synchronous communication forms, I hope to fully make use of the nuances of voice, facial expression, body language and their real-time catalyst to creativity. Either way, they happen in community, which, as the authors Garrison, Anderson, and Archer (2000) note, is a \u201cvaluable, if not necessary, context for an educational experience if critical thinking is to be facilitated and deep learning is to be an outcome\u201d (Garrison et al. 2000: 91).<\/p>\n
My plan at this point, with regard to assessment, is to align the reacquaint myself with the work of Cameron & Gregory, and that of Clarke, Owens, and Sutton. The former focuses on aligning letter grades with learning outcomes; the latter focuses on creating the conditions for independence in learners. We have spent some time on assessment\u00a0as a district, especially with the new provincial directive toward\u00a0competencies<\/em>, taking the emphasis off\u00a0task<\/em>\u00a0and placing it on\u00a0skill<\/em>.<\/p>\nAs Gibbs & Simpson (2008) have noted, teachers \u201chave to assess everything that moves in order to capture students\u2019\u00a0time and energy\u201d (p. 8). However they also write that, \u201csome\u00a0assignments<\/em>\u00a0create\u00a0appropriate learning activities as a by-\u00adproduct\u201d, and \u201csome\u00a0assessment<\/em>\u00a0generates unhelpful and inappropriate learning activities\u201d (p. 15).\u00a0As with other elements of this subject, ensuring the alignment of process to product is crucial.<\/p>\nAt first glance, it may seem \u201ceasy\u201d to\u00a0just build a website<\/em>\u00a0as the unreferenced quote at the beginning of ETEC 565 Module 2 asserts. However, one doesn\u2019t have to navigate very far forward to recognize that, in order to make an LMS worth anyone\u2019s while, it must be well designed. As well, it takes an incredible amount of work for it to blend in to the background.<\/p>\nSome final thoughts:<\/p>\n
I included a hyperlink to Tumblebooks Daily, for potential\u00a0serendipitous inspiration. All the strategies that will be used and practiced in the course can\u00a0be done with picture books. What if you need a book and don’t have one, or don’t know what to look for? Service provided, top right corner. Plus, the book gets read out loud for you!! Win-win.<\/p>\n
I have set the course to start January 2017. Not for any other reason than it seemed easier to manage (in my mind) the number of weeks for the course duration. The course administrator for ETEC 565 will be able to “read” that, having access to all parts of the course. However, just wanted whoever reads this to know that the absence of Events actually isn’t an absence, but rather a delay. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n
References<\/p>\n
Anderson, T. (2008). Teaching in an online learning context. In Anderson, T. & Elloumi, F.\u00a0Theory and practice of online learning.<\/em>\u00a0Athabasca University. Retrieved from http:\/\/www.aupress.ca\/books\/120146\/ebook\/14_Anderson_2008-Theory_and_Practice_of_Online_Learning.pdf<\/p>\nBates, T. (2014).\u00a0Teaching in a digital age<\/em>\u00a0http:\/\/opentextbc.ca\/teachinginadigitalage\/ (Chapter 8 on SECTIONS framework)<\/p>\nCameron, C., and Gregory, K. (2014). Rethinking letter grades: a five step approach for aligning letter grades to learning standards (2nd ed). Winnipeg: Portage & Main.<\/p>\n
Clarke, P.,\u00a0Owens, T., and Sutton, R. (2006). Creating independent student learners: a practical guide to assessment for learning. Winnipeg: Portage & Main.<\/p>\n
Coates, H. James, R., & Baldwin, G. (2005). A critical examination of the effects of Learning Management Systems on university teaching and learning. Tertiary Education and Management, 11(1), 19-36. http:\/\/link.springer.com\/article\/10.1007\/s11233-004-3567-9<\/p>\n
Dixon, J. (2007). Breaking the ice: Supporting collaboration and the development of community online.\u00a0Canadian Journal of Learning and Technology, 32(2<\/em>). Retrieved February 2016, from http:\/\/www.cjlt.ca\/content\/vol32.2\/dixon.html<\/p>\nGarrison, D. R., Anderson, T., & Archer, W. (1999). Critical inquiry in a text-based environment: Computer conferencing in higher education.\u00a0The Internet and Higher Education<\/i>,\u00a02<\/i>(2-3), 87-105. Retrieved from\u00a0http:\/\/www.anitacrawley.net\/Articles\/GarrisonAndersonArcher2000.pdf<\/p>\n
Mayer, R. E. (2009). Multimedia learning (2nd ed). New York: Cambridge University Press.<\/p>\n
McTighe, J. & Wiggins, G. (2013). Essential questions: opening doors to student understanding. Alexandria: ASCD.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The reflection for this Introductory Module\u00a0will follow the outline\u00a0of assessment criteria given for LMS Introductory Module. Let me start by writing that for this project I decided to use Moodle (I had never even heard of Moodle until this course). I decided to design a \u201cfully online\u201d course directed toward teachers of elementary aged […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":34493,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-37","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/fleming\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/fleming\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/fleming\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/fleming\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/34493"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/fleming\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/fleming\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":50,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/fleming\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37\/revisions\/50"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/fleming\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/fleming\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/fleming\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}