Erin’s Educational Technology Journey

Reflective blog question

Think about an example of how multimedia have been used effectively to enhance your learning. Feel free to reflect on your MET experiences, or any other.

     Multimedia has greatly enhanced my learning experience. Reflecting on my undergraduate degrees (1998 and 2003), I can say very little multimedia was used: video, MS Power Point presentations and e-mail between classmates. In the University of British Columbia’s MET program I have been exposed to a much wider range of multimedia. It is obvious that this is to be expected considering the focus of MET (educational technology) and the expertise of my instructors. However, I also feel more multimedia learning opportunities should have been provided to me during my 2003 B.Ed program. Although I have not researched the issues, my best guess is the faculty were not comfortable with different multimedia formats, the technology has become cheaper and easier to use since 2003 and the university itself was generally not engaged in a cultural shift toward educational technology practices. The following reflection will focus on my experience learning with multimedia in the MET program.

In MET I have been exposed to a wide variety of multimedia: synchronous and asynchronous video streaming, learning management systems and software (Wimba, Moodle, Chat/Voice), text in websites and e-mail, audio applications (streamed MP3’s, VoiceTool), visuals (Flash animations, CMaps), collaborative applications (wikis, blogs, shared websites) and integration of these formats.

I feel I have had a more effective learning experience because of the variety of formats. An excellent example is an activity in ETEC 565 at the beginning of the course. I was part of a group that had to assess different learning management systems. We decided to meet online using a Vista discussion forum, then we used a chat function and google documents (collaborative editing) at the meeting to work on our assignment. As we discussed issues in chat we drafted, edited and finalized our paper. We were scattered around the globe and we had different professional backgrounds, but the ability to learn and create with multimedia brought us together and truly enabled our collaborative efforts.

Generally speaking, I am a visual learner. I can process information more quickly, and I like to watch a skill step-by-step and master it in stages. An excellent example of learning with visual multimedia in MET is the use of archived lessons with chat and video streaming capabilities. Living in a different time zone and not working in a school seriously limits my ability to participate in a supportive educational technology (ed-tech) environment. However, the MET community is supportive, approachable and available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Despite this, occasionally I am unable to meet during live, online activities.

Multimedia has enabled synchronous lessons and community participation to become asynchronous. Lessons include video, so I can see exactly what the presenter is discussing. Without MET’s multimedia culture, I would have to rely on text based websites, blogs or forums outside of the program. I would feel dislocated from my community and somewhat lost academically. With asynchronous visual multimedia I can access archived lessons and e-mail participants (or post in a forum) for clarification and further support. Actually, I could request a meeting online using Wimba or outside of Vista with Skype if further visual support was needed.

Reflecting on my MET experience (8 classes) with multimedia, I tend to agree with Siemens’ (2003) analysis of the benefits and drawbacks of certain applications. Siemens (2003) argues text is portable but overused. I have had one heavily text-based course in MET and I consider it the least engaging. I do not remember many of the modules and I have to return to my files to review key articles and arguments. Reflecting on this experience, I feel text on a website or in a textbook has value, but should be integrated with other multimedia forms.

Audio is considered key for auditory learners and beneficial for all due to its speed (Siemens, 2003). I would add to this the benefit of portability. In MET I have downloaded several MP3 files and listened to them more than once while doing day-to-day tasks. Siemens (2003) feels learners may tune out, and I have. Again, I listen to them more than once due to their portability.

Visual and video learning in MET, for me, is the highlight. I have watched Prezi presentations (visual presentation software), archived video-based lessons, studied CMaps (mind maps) and enjoyed a variety of digital stories through iMovies, Windows Movie Maker, Roxio Photo Show, MS Power Point and other slide show applications. A picture is worth a thousand words as I am a visual learner. Without this form of learning, I know I would not have explored concepts as deeply due to inattention or boredom. Visual presentations are engaging and are often followed up in forum discussions. I can re-watch the material, process the theory or message and engage in thoughtful discussions with my peers. If the same material was presented in text, I would likely read it twice yet not process the material as deeply. The level of learning engagement would be low. Siemens (2003) feels visual and video formats benefit visual learners and are personal but they are also expensive and can be difficult to download (quality issues). I feel visuals and videos do not have to be expensive, but at the institutional level this may not be the case. Student productions (which I learn a great deal from) are often created using open source (OS) applications with minimal cost. Since I have taken the MET program, I have encouraged my teaching colleagues to include more video and visual in their lessons through the use of OS applications!

Finally, I strongly feel collaborative and integrated media formats have positively enhanced my learning experience during the MET program. In ETEC 510 I was introduced to and participated in my first wiki. From that experience, I taught my colleagues about wikis and started a program at my former school. In ETEC 531 and 565 I was introduced to blogging. Although I am a visual learner, I enjoy visiting the blogs of other students and I’m thrilled when people comment on my blog. This form of feedback is spread across blog comments, Vista forums and instant messaging outside of Vista, and I feel it’s an excellent example of integration. My previous example about integrating Vista forums with a chat function and a google document for synchronous editing is another example of how collaboration (and integration) enhance the learning process. I am not learning alone. My learning is scaffolded, occurs in a supportive environment and is on-going. Without collaboration and integration, I would not have such rich learning opportunities. Siemens (2003) feels collaboration is hard to manage but integration of formats can improve management issues and minimize the drawbacks of other formats. I completely agree with Siemens (2003) on the benefits of integration. Personally, collaboration has been enhanced in my MET experiences by the integration of several multimedia formats.

To conclude my reflection, I feel my experience learning with multimedia has been intimidating at times but extremely rewarding. Learning new formats can be daunting, but I have improved my ability to select multimedia applications based on Bates & Pooles’ (2003) SECTIONS framework. I have taken the skills gained in MET and used them immediately in my teaching or passed them along to colleagues. I can definitely see the benefits and difficulties for integrating multimedia into an institution that is not prepared for the ed-tech culture but I strongly feel such integration is worth the struggle. I would not teach a class without multimedia because I believe its inclusion provides learning opportunities for students who would otherwise not benefit from the lesson. Isn’t that what it’s all about?

References

Bates, A.W., & Poole, G. (2003). Effective teaching with technology in higher education. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass

Siemens, G. (2003). Evaluating Media Characteristics: Using multimedia to achieve learning outcomes. Elearnspace. Accessed Online 19, July, 2009, from http://www.elarnspace.org/Articles/mediacharacteristics.htm

Wikis are considered a web 2.0 writing application that is based in social interaction and collaboration (Alexander, 2006). Wikis support collaboration as users can enter the wiki, edit content, create links, create pages and build off of the thoughts of others. In our Module 4 Unit 1 activity, we were asked to have a discussion based in the class wiki concerning “sightings” of social media in our classroom experience and to identify the strengths and challenges of engaging students with social media in an educational environment.

It was interesting and fun to use a web 2.0 social media tool to examine issues in social media. I felt it was a nice merge of theory-into-practice. However, I notices that wiki content was developed individually for sightings and that people, including myself, posted their name beside their wiki entry. I thought the exercise would involve editing content without a sense of ownership, but sightings were personal and I felt “rude” editing someone’s entry with my own thoughts. Due to this format, the wiki discussion was very similar to the Web CT/Vista threaded discussions in the forums. In this exercise, there was little difference between a traditional forum and a wiki.

In the second activity, we co-edited content and collectively identified five strengths and five weaknesses of  engaging students with web 2.0 social media in an educational environment. This activity worked very well in the wiki environment. I made two suggestions, did not include my name, and did not feel upset when they were edited by other collaborators. The ideas improved over the course of the week, and I feel satisfied with the overall process.

Generally, I feel the difficulty in this task was in encouraging collaboration in the wiki environment. Although the threaded discussion brought out great insights, it would have been more collaborative if we initially structured our content contributions outside of the “discussion” box. Perhaps our initial wiki posts should have been generalized, with headings like “cellphones in class”, then we could co-edit a paragraph on sightings concerning the issue. Also, in our class we “signed” our edits. Signing our names  is a great way to identify who is participating or who to respond to, but at the same time it takes away from the collaborative and collective spirit.  If I were to use a wiki in class, I would give students a general instruction of sign/don’t sign and provide them with a starting example. I teach lower-elementary, and I think a little guidance would go a long way.

I think the Module 4 Unit 1 activity was a great success because it forced us to participate in the web 2.0 social media environment and really work through the issues. We can read about the theory of wikis and social media, but this activity showed us how to use a wiki for an educational activity. Feel free to visit my toolkit reflection on wikis which I completed before this activity.

First of all, this activity was fun. I enjoyed learning more about wikis than ever before. My first introduction to a wiki was through ETEC 510. I recall having a few moments in tears because I was confused with the process of editing and being afraid that I “broke” my wiki page. I also recall I uploaded a photo of a leaf completely by accident and quickly learned how to delete images in the ETEC 510 design wiki!

My second wiki activity was with PBwiki (now PBworks). I designed a wiki with an ETEC 510 group for a design project. By the end of ETEC 510, I was feeling wiki-confident! In ETEC 512 I created a wiki with a group titled “cognitive approaches”. Recently I checked it and was happy to see some edits had been made by  Dr. J.Richardson! I furthered my wiki understanding by writing a research paper on how wikis can be used to improve the writing performance of English as a Second Language learners. In my former school, I began a wiki project with grade 6 English as a Foreign Language students. Although my project was not academic or for research purposes, I realized that a wiki is motivating for students once they understand the basics. I have to admit this activity was labour intensive because I made it so! I was motivated to learn more about wikis because I want to use them to facilitate English language skills for my English Language Learners next year.

I knew a little about wiki-ing, but I had never explored the behind-the-scenes discussion before. Warning: It’s slightly addictive. The discussion forum in Wikipedia seemed to have more writing than the actual article! I was impressed by the constructivist learning and the support people posted. Questions were asked, and answered, in the wiki community. The biggest issue that seemed to repeat on several topics was the issue of copyright. People were concerned how to included images and how to reference text. Non-free content was a new area for me to explore concerning wikis, and it seems I am not alone. There is even a wiki page on Wikipedia’s non-free content policy!

I visited the latest version of the ETEC 510 design wiki and I was amazed by how much it has grown in 18 months. When I participated, there were about 30 topics or so, but now there are topics within topics within topics. Also, there are wiki pages on topics that we uncommon 18 months ago, like M-learning and 3G network capabilities related to educational technology. I felt strangely compelled to search for my old entries, but they are gone. However, the topic is there, but students have edited and changed the page as they built up the wiki to the point my former page is transformed. I felt a little sad, but I’m happy to see my page inspired others to make more connections and research the topic more thoroughly.

The UBC Wiki homepage was very welcoming. I would suggest that any UBC students who would like to try a wiki do it here. It is a supportive site, with all of the wiki WYSIWYG editing functions that a beginner needs. Also, there is an excellent orientation video embedded on the first page. A great design space for future wiki creators.

During this exercise, I decided to search beyond UBC and wikipedia to see what other wiki host sites are available through open source applications. Wikispace was suggested in the activity, and it has all of the basics for a great wiki: WYSIWYG editor, wiki statistics, widgits, page histories and simple collaboration tools with unlimited pages. You even get 2GB of free space for files and images. I then tried my old favourite, pbworks. It has grown in the last two years to include webinars, improved access controls and more multimedia plug ins for improved customization. Then, I found this overview article on “Four Free Wikis Worth Trying Out” from The International Data Group’s CIO page: http://www.cio.com/article/445813/Four_Free_Wikis_Worth_Trying_Out_. If you have never tried a wiki before, this is a good, general overview of the four most popular open-source formats. You can up-grade on most wikis by paying, and this is a good option to have: more space and higher privacy settings.

Tip: Visit PBworks (used to be PBwiki) at http://pbworks.com/

Invitation: Visit my MET 512 group’s Cognitive Approaches Wiki: http://cognitiveapproaches.pbworks.com/ 

I spent today re-reading some posts from past modules. I felt motivated to do so because I’m getting “deeper” into my LMS Moodle course design, and I can see all of the pieces fitting together. In our Module 2 discussion, we had to give advice to a community educator who was responding to the needs for an ESL population concerned with diabetes prevention and care. The community educator wants to create a DVD to help members of the population because their understanding of spoken English is great, but they find it difficult to recall important information from workshops.

My initial reaction was not to suggest a DVD due to the time, the cost and the lack of flexibility the format affords. However, through participating in discussion threads (I admit, I lurk more than I post) I realized that the population would benefit from a DVD. Simply because we have the Internet doesn’t mean it is the best choice. I overlooked the fact that a DVD covers all of the basic needs. It delivers the workshop in spoken English, subtitles could be added and it could be repeated several times to clarify understanding. In addition, if members had questions, they could note the time and segment of the DVD (depending on design) and reference it to the community educator. Just because there are bells and whistles with presentation software and formats doesn’t mean we need to use them! This reminded me of  Bates & Poole’s (2003) SECTIONS, where student needs and ease of use are emphasised as part of a framework for selecting educational technology tools.

Below is my original post. You can see how far I’ve come!

Anju’s need: To create a learning material that ESL students with fluent oral understanding and poor written understanding can use to help memorize one-hour workshop material.

Discussion:

I would not recommend a DVD for Anju. I would have suggested that Anju use PowerPoint (PP) presentations on a blog/website (or a similar OS application) instead of investing in a video camera and laptop to produce DVDs.  See Annette Smith’s post (May 31) on taping lectures, which inspired my thinking.

 This way, students could access the presentations online, and choose the ones that relate to their concerns without the risk or cost of losing or damaging a DVD. Anju could link her site to other resources on diabetes management, online dictionaries and to diabetes information in other languages. I am assuming Anju is not trained in media design or instructional design. Creating a simple website/blog would allow the community to access her materials and Anju would not need a great deal of “catch-up” in a WYSIWYG editor. Michael Haworth has posted four reasons to avoid creating a DVD in this case: time management, video creation issues, inflexibility of DVDs and being locked into a platform for the duration of her project. See his  June 1 post for details.

If Anju asked me for advice, I would suggest that she create a series of short (10 minute) clips that incorporate the main aspects of a given topic related to the overall workshop into a simple viewing program (powerpoint,for one). If the topic of a workshop was on daily exercise, 10 minutes about why exercise is important, followed by 10 minutes on how to do key exercises and 10 minutes on issues one may come across when exercising (elevated heart rate, excessive thirst…etc). This is to keep students interested and to lessen the risk of overwhelming them with new vocabulary and information. I assume Anju knows her audience, but a preliminary survey may be required to meet student needs and assess unique ESL issues (simplified vocabulary).

I have never authored a DVD, and I ventured into the 565 Toolkit for help with this activity. To create a DVD, Anju would need her lesson plan (divided into 10 minute sections),  her multimedia organized, her multimedia fully produced, her information in a folder hierarchy and DVD-R- because DVD+R may not work on older players (ETEC 565 Toolkit, DVD). She will need to learn her video camera’s functions, and how to upload her video for editing in her DVD authoring program. Whew!

According to ww.signvideo.com, she would have to author the video and audio into a structure like menus and chapters, and then burn her DVD. She would then have to know how many copies in total, and burn that number of DVDs. Her total number may be very high, rising the project’s cost,  and the entire process sounds time consuming!  She is also assuming that students would have a DVD player or access to one. This is a large assumption, and she should have surveyed students before purchasing a video camera and taking this route!

Estimated time:  I have never attempted to create a DVD as a learning resource. Including the time it would take to learn to use the video camera, laptop DVD program and design the materials, my best guess is two months for an amateur/beginner’s effort. I came up with this answer assuming that she would spend 3 weeks planning the learning materials for a unit (based on my teaching experience), 1 week recording various data, and the remainder of the time mastering her DVD authoring tool.

Resources:

Hudson, B. (2002). DVD authoring part 1. Retrieved June 1, 2009, from http://www.signvideo.com/d-athr_pt1.htm

ETEC 565 Learning Toolkit: DVD. Retrieved June 1, 2009, from https://www.vista.ubc.ca/webct/urw/lc5116011.tp0/cobaltMainFrame.dowebct

ETEC 565 Diabetes DVD Discussion Thread

Wikipedia (2009). DVD authoring. Retrieved June 1, 2009, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DVD_authoring

My initial reaction to the ETEC 565 Toolkit information of there being over 400,000 educational blogs was “wow”. That’s a huge number of writers, writing for a purpose and for an audience. I assume this number is growing exponentially by the month and I wonder how many languages are represented in the number of 400,000.

My first experience with blogging was through MET. I designed a blog in ETEC 511, through KeepToolkit (http://www.cfkeep.org/static/index.html). However, I found it tricky to update and upload artifacts and files. In ETEC 565, I was introduced to WordPress. I found it much easier to use, and I decided to stay here!

Explore: I visited the following blogs

·         http://theopenclassroom.blogspot.com/ Jo McLeay is a M.Ed student who focuses on English teaching, literature and knowledge communities. She has posted a good podcast on learning communities coming together to make a difference through volunteering and a T.E.D. video featuring a P.E. teacher who uses blogging in his courses.

·         http://rachelboyd.blogspot.com/ Rachel Boyd has embedded videos that are educational and relevant to my teaching environment. In addition, she has simple explanations for many Web 2.0 tools: Twitter, Blogs in Plain English

·         http://www.dangerouslyirrelevant.org/ A great blog created by Scott McLeod, an expert on technology integration in the K-12 environment.

·         http://educationwonk.blogspot.com/2009/05/carnival-of-education-week-224.html The “blog carnival” includes links and threads to issues and technology integration in K-12 education.

Contribute: In addition to my 565 blog, I created a “rough” MET educational portfolio using WordPress to replace my KeepToolkit version. It can be found at http://eringillespie.wordpress.com/, but it is a work in progress! The skills I learn in 565 are used within the same week on my blog. I have found blogging to be time consuming. There is a potential audience for my posts, and I take my time expressing myself. I want to maintain an atmosphere of a professional-MET student-lifelong learner, and this involves rephrasing, spell-checking, including references (when required) and avoiding slang.

As an example, I’ve actually completed several Toolkit activities, but I save them as a document in Word. The reason is simple: I want to double check that the reflection reads well and I want to add to it. I know I can edit posts, but perhaps a visitor won’t return to my blog and will instead see a less structured post.

Reflection: I would like to investigate why I don’t “love” blogging. I recognize it as a communications tool and an educational tool, but I don’t feel like it is an artistic release or an enjoyable activity. I feel guilty for stating that, but it is true. For some background information, I never really enjoyed writing classes in elementary school and chose art and drama over writing in high school. I guess that’s what the “private posts” function in blogs are for.

LMS Reflection: Moodle Splash Page and Object Orientation

Moodle has been a sharp learning curve. I am especially grateful for the online community and the MET community which offers support and tips. I realized through a MET colleague that my Splash page was not exactly a Splash page. I thought a Splash page was a welcome page, having never designed an LMS course before. Although I had great feedback in MET forums considering what it should be, I didn’t imagine it correctly until I saw the Splash page of another MET  member. Thanks Sean!

I quickly learned to edit Topic 0, decide on the main components of my course, upload images, insert a table and create a Splash page that welcomed students. The most difficult part was imagining which aspects of the course should be on the page. I decided to base my objects on my previous MET experience. My experience helped me decide which objects are essential on a Splash page and which are just taking up precious space. It is important to maintain the “less is more” principle with a new course. Too much information and too many links may frustrate and confuse students. I tried to avoid that by creating a “welcome” message, which is listed after the Splash.

It took a great deal of time to consider how the course will be organized and how the objects will be used in the different modules. The mechanics of uploading the images and creating the links was not difficult, and took about one hour. I used images available from the open source site Wikimedia Commons.  I considered my Splash page from the perspective of a student creating a first impression of the course. The SECTIONS model  guided my decisions, and “ease of use” is currently my first priority. As I progress with my LMS, “teaching and learning” will guide my design decisions.

For members of the MET community, my Moodle (work in progress) can be found below. Please provide any feedback on my Splash page and feel free to ask me questions. You must login with your own Moodle account information as my LMS is not set for guest access.

http://moodle.met.ubc.ca/course/category.php?id=5

Hi all. I have to admit I’ve been doing the ToolKit activities and saving them in Word and returning to “top up” the posts. This is my adventure in social networking. Please review my comparison chart to help understand my reflection.

I investigated Picassa 3, Delicious, Facebook and Twitter because I use all of the applications. I have never used the applications in class. I’m am very pleased I followed through with this activity before suggesting the use of these as class materials. The privacy and terms of services (TOS) links are located at the bottom of the page for each application, well below the “download” link. I also discovered that the TOS were lengthy and required a great deal of consideration and thought. For example, Twitter asks that international users comply with local laws for online conduct. However, there is not a link to local laws and there isn’t a clear description of the consequence of breaking local laws apart from the termination of your Twitter account.

I also noticed that privacy policy and TOS were not clear cut. You had to link and jump to different pages to make sense of the policies and develop an “overall” picture. A quick search on the Internet led me to several blogs and sites complaining about the “evils” of TOS and privacy policy. Facebook is one of the most complained about, but also one of the most successful. I found Picassa disturbing because students would have to create a Google account and comply with the Google TOS, which were not set up to protect the user.

As an elementary teacher, I would only use Delicious. Delicious is a Yahoo! Inc. application but the TOS and privacy policy, combined with the age requirements, seems the safest and protected application. Having said that, my students are too young to take advantage of it. I would definitely use this application for high school students.

In the toolkit, we were asked what are the implications for education. I think the implications are that educators should investigate all of the TOS and privacy policies and make sure they suit the school’s policy on privacy rights. If you wouldn’t share student information with another teacher, how could you risk sharing it with the world? Schools need to educate parents, students and other teachers concerning these issues. In addition, students must be educated on the responsible and educational use of posted content. I say this because students likely use these tools outside of class time and have not been taught how to utilize them in an educational environment.

 References

Delicious TOS (Yahoo!Inc.): http://delicious.com/help/terms

Delicious Privacy Policay: http://info.yahoo.com/privacy/us/delicious/

Facebook TOS: http://www.facebook.com/terms.php?ref=pf

Facebook Principles: http://www.facebook.com/principles.php

Facebook Privacy Terms http://www.facebook.com/policy.php

Facebook Appeals Claims of Copyright Infringement: http://www.facebook.com/copyright.php?howto_appeal=1

Google Privacy Centre: http://www.google.com/privacy.html

Google Privacy Policy: http://www.google.com/privacypolicy.html

Picassa 3 (Google application) TOS: http://google.com/accounts/TOS?hl=US

Twitter TOS: http://twitter.com/tos

Moodle Reflection:

Well, during the first week of Module 2, I have learned a great deal about LMS! I had never even heard of Claroline, and my WebCT knowledge was limited to my adventures in MET. Moodle, although I have heard of it, is an LMS I have only worked with once before, in ETEC 512. I completed a group assignment using Moodle, but I must admit that I had no idea how to manage Moodle! I would e-mail my work as an attachment to group members and they would upload it to Moodle.

Now, consider this week: Choose your own LMS space and complete the Activities

Initially, I felt very concerned and, I admit, a little scared. I e-mail John Egan three times trying to clear up the Vista/Moodle decision. I quickly learned we just had to use ONE (whew!) and that a password would be sent to me shortly. After I received my password, I followed the Moodle activity in the 565 toolkit and was on my way.

The activity was nicely described. It was worded clearly, and I could follow the instructions well. I only had to skip one step, and that was a section on grading responses/replies to the discussion posts. I couldn’t select that option because the Moodle did not open the option for me. Oh well. Generally speaking, I feel more confident that I can complete the Moodle assignment because my first Moodle attempt went very well. I felt great when I completed the tasks. I also noted the “extra help” links and I’ve used some already. Between completing the activity and visiting help sites online, I think I’ve spent about 5 or 6 hours this week learning about Moodle. I have so much more to learn!!!!

By the way, I came across a great resource for beginners like myself. A teacher has posted 2-minute moodle instructions for other teachers. You can visit it here: http://human.edublogs.org/moodle-tutorials-2-minute-moodles/ It helped me get a better understanding of the “overall” Moodle design. Erin

Module one introduced me to methods of selecting and using learning technologies based on theoretical frameworks. This is my reflection after posting and discussing the issues with colleagues.

In ETEC 510 I was introduced to the work of Bates and Poole’s  (2003) A Framework for Selecting and Using Technology. In this module for ETEC 565, I returned to Bates and Poole’s framework with five MET courses between my first reading of it ( in January of 2008) and now. My ideas on how to implement SECTIONS have changed dramatically. I realize the importance of considering all aspects of SECTIONS from perspectives beyond that of a classroom teacher. The discussion in 565 reminded me that Cost is, usually, the deciding factor when selecting technology. As much as our 565 discussion applauded the value of Ease of Use, Students and Teaching and Learning, personal experience from colleagues centered on Cost.

This module introduced me to the work of Chickering and Gamson (1987) and of Chickering and Ehrmann (1996). Chickering & Gamson’s (1987) Seven Principles for Good Practice in Undergraduate Education are principles I have seen in great classrooms. Personally, I am a teacher who gives prompt feedback because students are motivated and focused on how to improve their work before it is due. I am also a teacher who considers time on task as essential and I provide time for students to focus on tasks. Chickering & Gamson’s (1987) principle of using active learning techniques has worked for me as both a teacher and a student. When I engage myself in a learning activity, I gain a greater deal of knowledge then if I simply use rote memorization techniques. From my own learning experience, I teach using methods that actively engage students. This point brings me to Chickering & Ehrmann’s (1996) Implementing the Seven Principles: Technology as Lever. The authors discuss the original seven principles in relation to technology available in the late ’90s.  Active learning techniques, prompt feedback and time on task are principles that can be met more easily by technology: open-source software and social networking tools alone can motivate learners and teachers to use these principles at a framework for structuring lessons and selecting technology.

For a better idea of Bates and Poole’s (2003) holistic view on teaching with technology, I suggest their website: http://www.batesandpoole.ubc.ca/index.html where you can view the theoretical foundation of their work in the Resources tab or by clicking on this link: http://www.batesandpoole.ubc.ca/pdf/OPAS.pdf. To see an instructor’s suggestions for implementing the Seven Principles from the classroom perspective of 2008, follow the series of posts titled “Implementing the Seven Principles” here: http://georgeself.wordpress.com/2008/02/08/principle-one/. You can select which principle to focus on, they are organized by number.

References

Bates, A., & Pooles, G. (2003). A framework for selecting and using technology. In Effective Teaching with Technology (pp. 75-105).

Chickering, A. W. and Gamson, Z.F. (1987). Seven principles for good practice in undergraduate education. American Association for Higher Education Bulletin, 39 (7), 3-7. Retrieved May 5, 2009,  from http://www.aahea.org/bulletins/articles/sevenprinciples1987.htm

Chickering, A. W. and Ehrmann, S. C. (1996). Implementing the seven principles: Technolgy as lever. American Association for Higher Education Bulletin, 49 (2), 3-6. Retrieved May 5, 2009, from http://www.aahea.org/bulletins/articles/sevenprinciples.htm