The life and times of MET student

When planning my graduate studies, I decided to complete my Masters in Educational Technology for a couple of reasons.  I wanted my degree to be relevant in the future, and also my brief exposure to the field during my B. Ed. degree made it clear how transformative technology can be when used effectively in a learning environment.  As a new teacher and student in the MET program, I don’t have a lot of experience yet with teaching or technology, but I am highly interested in learning all that I can to seamlessly integrate technological tools into my classroom to create a higher quality of learning experience for my students.

When I started ETEC 565a, I had a few specific goals in mind that I wanted to achieve.  Firstly, I hoped to develop my technological competency enough to develop and maintain an LMS site on my own.  I also aimed to increase my knowledge of various communication tools to improve communication amongst parents, students, and myself.  As well, I hoped to learn more about social media tools to encourage collaborative learning in the classroom.  In setting out to achieve these goals, I thought that help from those who manage my school’s network to aid in maintaining my LMS would be necessary, as well as resources to educate me on the selection of an appropriate wiki for my classroom.  I assumed that if I had mastered the use of LMS sites, I would have the corresponding skills using the sites’ communication tools also.

In helping me to achieve these goals, the eLearning toolkit played a big part.  Although I wouldn’t say that I achieved mastery of the Moodle platform, I certainly feel comfortable and competent enough with it that I will definitely devote time this summer to setting up my own LMS for my class.  Originally when I started to skim over the eLearning toolkit, I was slightly worried that this was just extra work for the course, and that it would be a nuisance to complete.  As the course progressed however, and I took a closer look at what the toolkit has to offer, I realized that it actually had the potential to be a really effective learning tool.  The layout of the modules was quite straight forward, with illustrative examples and clear instructions leading through each activity.  During the beginning weeks, I worked through a few of the suggested modules, which were useful in helping me set up my LMS.  I hit a roadblock a couple of weeks later, when I was attempting to work through the synchronous communication module.  I was attempting to download and set up the suggested software, and it just wasn’t working.  I went through most of the suggestions on the list, with no luck.  I became very frustrated and put the self-directed learning on hold for a couple of weeks.  Eventually, as my frustration diminished, I decided to give the synchronous communication module another try, with the only software that I had not previously tried to download.  It turned out that there wasn’t actually any downloading involved, and it was incredibly easy to set-up. My faith was immediately renewed in the eLearning toolkit.  After that, it was smooth sailing through the other modules of the toolkit.  I actually worked through several in one day, and was able to integrate quite a few of the tools effectively into my Moodle site.  Although the eLearning toolkit required some extra time and effort to work through, I found it to be a worthwhile learning tool.

I have applied the SECTIONS framework by Bates & Poole to my course work as self-assessment tool:

Students- This course site was developed to be used by Grade 5 students in the West Vancouver School District.  They have been exposed to technology in a classroom setting since kindergarten, and have fairly strong technological literacy.  Most of the students can navigate the internet easily, and have been educated in the use of blogs last year.  I think that my Moodle site would be appropriate for their technological skill level.

Ease of use- For teachers, I think that ease of use for the Moodle interface depends on your experience with technology.  For someone with little experience, like me, I found that it was quite a time-consuming process.  I had to consult many sources like manuals, video tutuorials, and discussion forum while developing my site.  I would imagine that for someone who is more skilled at website development and familiar with Moodle would have a much easier time creating a class website.  Ease of use for students depends on how each teacher designs their specific website.  I believe that my Moodle site would be fairly straightforward for my students to navigate, with effective GUI, descriptive titles, and a consistent format.

Cost- Moodle is open source software, and it is free to setup.  The only potential costs with Moodle are if you choose to use a hosting service, which ranges from $60/month to $175/month, and technical support, which ranges from $1500/year to $5000/year (from Moodle partner, Lambda Solutions).

Teaching and learning- I developed my Moodle site aiming to support collaborative learning and a variety of student learning styles.  Although it would have to be further developed for use in an actual classroom, I think that the variety of communication and social media tools that I integrated into the site help to achieve this goal.

Interactivity- Discussion forums, chat rooms, and wikis allow for the students to interact with their fellow classmates.  Video conferencing, discussion forums, and chat rooms allow for students to interact with the teacher.  My Moodle site also provides several opportunities for quality formative assessment for students, through wikis used for peer editing, discussion forums for brainstorming of ideas, and quizzes that include specific feedback.

Organizational issues- The organizational support provided during the development of my Moodle site included mainly discussion forums, eLearning toolkit modules, fellow classmates, and suggested resources for help.  If there was a technological problem, I either posted in the Moodle discussion forum, or figured it out myself.  If I were to develop my own Moodle site for my class, and other teachers in the school were doing the same, I think that it would be more effective to enlist outside technological support.

Novelty- Although Moodle has been around for a few years, it is a new technology to me, and would also be new to my students.  I think that it would be relatively easy to garner excitement amongst my students and support amongst the staff in my school for the Moodle platform.

Speed- As mentioned above, for someone with little technological experience, it takes a considerable amount of time and hard work to develop a course in Moodle.  With no technological support, it can be frustrating to figure out certain problems during development, and you must find your own resources for help.  I do believe, however, that now that I feel more comfortable using the Moodle interface, it would be much less time consuming for me to develop another site.

After the completion of my Moodle site for this course, I feel that I have greatly improved my technological skills.  I feel competent enough to embark on developing my own course website for my class next year.  Before doing so however, I would like to further develop my website page design skills, so I can create more sophisticated and effective pages.  I would also like to share my knowledge from this course with colleagues from my school through staff meetings or even a professional development session.  I have gained much knowledge through my activities in this course, and hope to further my technological competency through my continuing participation in the MET program.

Check out my course site at: http://moodle.met.ubc.ca/course/view.php?id=104

*Note: In my course site, my complete modules include topic 3, Social Studies, and topic 4, Language Arts.  Topic 3 has been chosen for manual selective release by hiding it from students’ view.  My discussion forum for separate groups is under topic 2, Science, and is titled: “Science-The Human Body”.

References:

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.