Ken’s Flightpath
As I see it, this course will go a long way to helping me bring my classes online. I currently teach high school at Peter Skene Ogden Secondary in 100 Mile House. In particular, I would like to put both of my Social Studies classes (10 and 11) online as a companion to what I am doing in my classes. I’m especially looking forward to working with Moodle (something I’ve never done before). The reason I want to learn Moodle is because our district will be implementing Moodle this September so I felt it made the most sense to go with that LMS.
All of my technology experience has been relatively self taught and is not terribly extensive. What I’m not afraid to do is try things out. I’ve managed to learn a fair bit just by pushing buttons rather than sit there and say I don’t know what to do. That being said, I still have a considerable amount to learn. In particular, when it comes to social networking software I have zero experience. I have steadfastly resisted things like Facebook and now I’m wondering if maybe I shouldn’t have got on board a little earlier. From my perspective, I have always preferred more meaningful communication rather than using things like Facebook. My wife is on Facebook and I have no end of fun mocking her for using it but now I’m not so sure I shouldn’t have been embracing it earlier.
All in all, I feel that I have quite a bit to learn in this course and I have this sinking feeling that I’m behind most of the others in the knowledge department. I’d like to work on ways to provide my students with an online component to the courses I teach them, not only to enhance the experience for them but also to provide ways for them to explore on their own areas of interest that they discover through the course. To do this, I’m going to have to learn more about social software, multimedia, and online assessment. I’m really hoping that this course can set me in the right direction.