Carolann’s ETEC565 Journey

1.  A tempo mark directing that a passage is to be played at a walking pace.

2.  The name of my dog.

When I began the MET program, my experience with multimedia tools, especially web based tools was minimal. I had a lot of experience with client side tools, (audacity, garage band, website authoring, Gimp etc.) but there was a whole new world of web based authoring tools out there that I had no idea existed. The ability to use web based tools opened up many new possibilities for my teaching practice. I began to explore and think about ways to use these tools in my classes. Over the two years I have been in the program, I have explored a few with classes, but the lack of computers at my school has made it difficult. I look forward to the new school year, a new lab, a new laptop cart and no MET homework to begin to use some of the tools that are out there.

One of the most profound learning experiences I have had that involved multimedia was the Learning At Night program that our school district undertook. In the program, teacher leaders get together to present new technological tools for learning. There is a video presentation by someone who is an expert in their field, followed by a Skype session with the expert in which we could ask questions and get more information, followed by time to play with the tool that was presented. In these presentations, I have “met” Alec Courosa, Dean Shareski, Heidi Hass Gable, and Jeff O’Hara, I have learned about backchannels, twitter, instructional design, and more. Most importantly I now have a network of like minded colleagues and experts to guide me and provide me with inspiration.

I had a look at the Terms of Service for Flickr (Yahoo), Facebook, World of Warcraft (Blizzard) and Delicious.  The question of ownership is one that requires a little more explanation. For Flickr and Facebook, anything that I create, I own, however if I upload it I grant a royalty free license to use that content to the website owner. It gives them the license to use, distribute, reproduce, modify, adapt, publicly perform, and publicly display the Content. For WOW, they own the content and the user is licensed to use it, and for Delicious the only real content is tags and URL’s so it really doesn’t apply. Having programmers in the family, I was pretty well aware of general terms of service, but I was most surprised by WOW. There are some very specific do’s and don’ts and a complete Code of Conduct which I found very interesting.  The other big surprise was from Facebook, and the stipulation that you may not use facebook from a country which is embargoed from the U.S.

I do use Flickr and Delicious with students, but carefully and not in public areas, I find them very useful tools.

Here is a link to a little tool that keeps track of changes in Terms of Service for websites. I thought it was interesting.

http://www.tosback.org/timeline.php

Since I had a fair amount of previous experience with using iMovie to create video, I decided to try screen capture for my LMS site to add some instructional material.  It turned out to be an all day activity!  I used two different tools to try them out, the first was Screentoaster a completely web based tool that comes with a free trial period.  It worked well and was easy to use, but the file upload took almost an hour, and then I lost the original .mov file in the process of the upload (somehow?) so I couldn’t add titles or anything else to the screencast.  Because the save and upload took so long, I decided to go and look for another tool, this time I chose Jing which is also free, but requries a downloaded program on your computer.  Jing was also very easy to use, but only allows file save in a .swf  format which is not supported by iMovie either, so I am still without a title page.  I imagine that if I dug around enough I could either find another tool, or a converter of some kind, but I’m drawing the line at 8 hours on one 2 minute movie.  Here is a link to the first video on [youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hGeZn44HbdU[/youtube], and the second one usingaudacity.

I am familiar with HTML, and have created many websites before, so I decided to concentrate on using CSS for my website. I went through the W3Schools CSS tutorial, and downloaded a few website templates to get a feel for what can be done. I have managed to create navigation and basic rules (fonts, Headers etc) using CSS but I’m still curious to learn more and am continuing to explore. I did learn some things that I have always wondered (like what order the padding numbers go in – answer clockwise starting at the top)

I must say I was very impressed with the wiki and its tools. Especially the information about accessibility and bad design. There are so many bad, difficult to read sites out there. I was not thrilled that Steven Mischook (Killersites) has gone commercial. (I guess we all have to make a living) If you dig around enough you can find the free tutorials though. I learned HTML from his site maybe 10 years ago. I would recommend the W3Schools HTML tutorial as well.

I am posting a link to my ePortfolio (work in progress) which is the culmination of my MET experience and my learning experience (including a *big* CSS learning curve.  Let me know what you think?  ePortfolio

Since sound is a big part of what I do for a living, Garage Band and Audacity are on my list of regular tools.  I find audacity is really good for doing things like changing the tempo of an mp3 (to dance to for instance) and I use garage band with my kids because it is easy.

I had a Student who dug around and found this software for PC which is strikingly similar to Garage Band in many ways (for those of you who don’t have a  Mac)  They have a free trial if you want to check it out.

http://www.acoustica.com/mixcraft/

I have also embedded a little tune that my kids did as a project (their own composition) I liked it! UBC WordPress seems to be clipping the mp3 to mere seconds, which is frustrating, so I have linked it to a google page. (there are ways around this!)

Student Sample

Is it a labour intensive process?

I have moodled before so much of the process was familiar to me.  It is actually fairly straightforward once you understand the interface.  The one thing that is a bit kludgy is the upload function.  Not intuitive.

What worked well?

Creating a simple Welcome page was pretty easy.  I still want to play around with adding some more interest using HTML, but will save that for another time.

What was challenging?

I would like to alter the theme, and also to have the ability to change some functions that I appear not to have security rights to.

What surprised you?

Not much since I have moodled before.

I have just finished reading Terry Anderson’s “Toward a Theory of Online Learning” (2008). He describes the attributes of learning as being centered on the learner, on knowledge, on community and on assessment.

I believe that what you get out of any course is entirely dependent on what you put in. I disagree with Anderson’s claim that learning needs to be assessment centered. Making assessment a center of instruction (IMHO) takes away from the rest. Yes, it is important, and feedback, peer review, critique etc can be part of learning, but I disagree that they should be a central tenet. I believe, instead, that assessment is more like the glue that holds the rest together. Assessment is part of learning, (learn from your successes and errors) part of knowledge (taking what I read or view and transferring it to what I need, perhaps with help from peer review or critique)and part of community (group-work is a form of assessment by peers for example).

Many of my classmates have commented that if a task is not assessed students will simply not complete it. This is where we, as educators, need to stop and look at why. I have been doing some experimentation with giving un-assessed tasks with the only criteria being that students need to show effort and progress, where they can work at their own pace. I am finding that I am getting a better end product when I give fewer criteria, no assessment guidelines and less structure in assignments. Students are going to conference with me at the end of the term and we’ll decide then how the little experiment went. It has taken the pressure off me to mark and given me more time to teach, and I’m finding the kids are helping each other as well.

Anderson, T. (2009). The Theory and Practice of Online Learning. Athabasca University Press. Retreived June 7, 2009 from http://auspace.athabascau.ca:8080/dspace/bitstream/2149/757/3/toward_a_theory_of.pdf

I did take a look at the features of WebCT/Vista and Claroline as well and I was surprised that there is so little information posted on their respective websites with regard to server requirements. The Moodle site had clearly defined requirements. I wonder if the lack of requirements is an intentional attempt to get you to pay for installation and service, which both LMS’ offer.

The three systems offer pretty similar products, but Vista comes with a huge pricetag, about 50K for 500 users. Since I have a budget of $0, and Claroline seems to have pretty poor documentation online, even though it is also Open Source, I will choose to use Moodle, which will meet my needs well enough.

Since I have used Moodle before, the tasks outlined in the Toolkit activity were not difficult or surprising for me. Actually, they seemed pretty straightforward. I did find it interesting, that on the UBC Moodle server, we all have the ability to edit anyone’s course content. I had a classmate log into my moodle to try it and he did in fact seem to have access. I guess we will have to check the change logs to see if our courses have been altered.

I am wondering if we will have server side access so that we can create custom headers/themes? I am guessing no, since it could be a security nightmare.

About My Edtech Journey

When I graduated from college and moved out, we bought an IBM PC which had a dual floppy drive which we upgraded to a 10mb hard drive.  I can format a drive using the Command line, and know my way around most file systems.  I worked for 2 years as a VAX 780 system manager using VMS and Unix.  In the early 1990’s I bought my first Mac, and have been bilingual since then.  (trilingual if you count running Linux on my Mac now) I have worked in database design and management, and done website design both as a volunteer and paid. I am now a music teacher.

I don’t really understand why we need to teach people how to use software. I pride myself on being able to read instructions, follow them and solve problems. That said, there is very little on the course list that I have not already encountered as part of my MET journey or my life. I have created a moodle, have created a course in WebCT, have been using IM for at least 6 years, have a Skype account, use VOIP at home, run all my music over a server with an internet interface inside our firewall, taught a course on using Wiki’s and Blogs in the classroom, had a Flickr account when they were still a Canadian company, have a Facebook and Twitter account, use iMovie, and GarageBand regularly in my teaching practice. I have played a bit with Audacity as well.

There is not a lot left on the list in terms of software. I am much more  interested in learning effective ways to use technologies than in becoming a “novice professional” in their use.  Assessment is one area that is on the list that could be interesting. I struggle with assessment because of the nature of what I teach, and have started using video and audio recordings and self reflection/evaluation as part of my practice.  I am interested in learning more about assessment, but I am not sure what the focus of an assessment module would be and whether it would work in my context. Bates and Poole’s (2003) SECTIONS framework and Chickering and Gamson’s (1987) 7 Principles framework seem to be a good starting place as they offer guidelines in terms of both pedagogy and practice regarding the use of educational technologies.

What I would love to do is have the time to explore how to create a little sound lab in my classroom.  I have 4 donated MIDI ready synthesizers, I would love to set up some Linux machines (because they are free) and find some OpenSource software to enable my students to create and record their own music.

Other areas I would like to explore in this course:
1. How to set up a Moodle Server (more server side knowledge in general)
2. More depth of knowledge of CSS
3. Screencasting (last time I tried I didn’t have enough memory)

In terms of resources that I might need, I don’t think I need anything other than time, and maybe a shiny new computer :-)

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.

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.
http://www.aahea.org/bulletins/articles/sevenprinciples1987.htm