Bryan Funk E-folio

Synthesis

As I look back to the original “Flight Path” that I charted back in January I can say that the journey through ETEC 565 has lived up to my expectations and has also provided some clarity on my use of technology in the classroom.  From reading the course description I anticipated an opportunity to expand not only the kinds of digital tools I could use in teaching but to learn new ways to use them and I was not disappointed.  As I mentioned in my flight path, my repertoire of tools and my comfort level with using new tools is fairly high but I had never discussed the pedagogy with a group such as that in this course.   I was compelled to share the things that came up in our discussions and explorations within the“50 ways to tell a Story” unit with my colleagues at work.  This has lead to our own sharing and discussion at our school and in our school district professional learning community teams.

Initially I was pretty confident that not only would I be able to complete the Moodle Course requirements of 2 or 3 modules but I would aspire to create an entire course in Moodle before the end of April. Having access to the course toolkit shot that dream all to bits because there were just so many things to explore beyond just building a basic module or two and time became the enemy.  That said, I was not disappointed in the amount that I have learned from our cohort as we shared our experiences within the course and from the contexts in which we work.

As I worked through building my own course in Moodle I tried to keep these words in mind, “the challenge for teachers designing and organizing the online learning context is to create a mix of learning activities that are appropriate to student needs, teacher skills and style, learning objectives of the program of study, and institutional technical capacity “(Anderson, 2008, p.350).  Even in the final few days of work on the Moodle site I tried to remain cognizant of all of these components.  Creating an online course is not just taking the activities and electronic documents that you are using in a face-to-face course and making them available online.  A LMS, like Moodle, allowed me to do much more with some of the things that I was doing in the classroom and also lead to creating new activities that better addressed the learning needs of students which has made my classroom teaching better.  A colleague and I had started using a Blog to provide some blended learning opportunities for our students and I have been sharing some of the things I have gleaned from this course with him.  The students have already benefited a great deal and he can’t wait to start building online course material for next year.

My role in our school district is set to expand beyond being a site-based administrator in a K-9 school to a role as one of the leaders in changing the vision for educational technology use in our schools.  Aside from the lost sleep and the odd bit of cursing, taking ETEC 565 concurrently with ETEC520 has been invaluable.  I provided some notes on the SECTIONS model from Bates & Pool (2003) as well as some of my notes from other reading in both courses  to our district IT department and then we sat down and used them to evaluate some of the things that had already been done and some that were being considered right now.  The discussion lead to major change in the process that will be used in the future for evaluating and selecting educational technology.   I have moved from simply being an advocate for using technology in the classroom to a place where I feel I can really help to make the necessary decisions in terms of employing strategies for creating a successful e-learning environment for students and teachers.

 I am still far from an expert but I can confidently become involved in helping to coordinate the creation, implementation and realization of a vision for educational technology. 

References

Anderson, T. (2008). Towards a Theory of Online Learning.  In: Anderson, T. & Elloumi, F. Theory and Practice of Online Learning. Athabasca University. Accessed online 3 March 2009 http://www.aupress.ca/books/120146/ebook/02_Anderson_2008_Anderson-Online_Learning.pdf

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.

Alan Levine.  (2007). “50 Web 2.0 Ways to Tell a Story.”  Accessed 17 April, 2009. http://cogdogroo.wikispaces.com/StoryTools