ETEC 565 HJD e-portfolio

We shall not cease from exploration

And the end of all our exploring

Will be to arrive where we started

And know the place for the first time.

T.S. Elliot

Reflections on My Learning

As I review all the work done over the course of the past three months…..

Exploration One: Flight Path Reviewed

I began my flight path description with a quote by T. S. Elliot and a definition of the term ‘flight path’. I outlined five goals for the work within this course. The first goal was to increase understanding and design of a Learning Management System (LMS) as it would apply to an e-Mentoring online course. The second goal included learning how to use specific digital storytelling tools and read related research. The third goal included investigations, evaluation and reflection of Web 2.0 tools and to stretch my learning into social networking tools I have previously not explored. A fourth goal involved learning more about mobile technologies, specifically ipads, as they would apply to classroom teaching and learning. The fifth goal was to have fun and fly high within the ETEC 565 course. This goal relates to extending contemporary skills, foundational concepts and capabilities of, with and for educational technology use.

In reflecting on my desired flight path, I was at first disappointed since many items I had set out to experience had in fact not happened. I had not experienced a full version of Second Life. I had not investigated Scratch software as it could apply to digital storytelling. I had not posted to You Tube. I had not extended my research into ipad use in elementary classroom teaching and learning.  As I reread and reflected, I discovered, to my amazement, that many of the elements of my flight plan did occur, just in different ways and with different tools.

When I defined a flight path as the trajectory of a moving object to a fixed reference, I had really misjudged the true intention and nature of a flight path. The moving object (the plane, me) lays in a course toward a fixed object (the intended destination – airport or learning outcomes). Along the course of that path, many course corrections occur. Pilots guide the aircraft through subtle nudges while fine-tuning the flight path in response to the weather or circumstances. Within this course, my flight path was nudged, corrected and diverted, based on the learning explorations and circumstances. This occurred often by my own interests and investigations, but also through connections with other course participants and the course instructors. In the end, the destination is achieved, with course corrections improving the overall experiences along the journey.

 

Exploration Two: E-learning toolkit experiences

The toolkit experiences enhanced and extended my learning as it applied to the readings, discussions, assignments and tasks within ETEC 565. Each of the explorations focused my learning into one specific area that could then be brought into the bigger picture of educational technology in all it’s many facets.

LMS – My work in developing and exploring the affordances of Moodle was interesting. This investigation kept me searching for the next best source of supporting documentation, video or research into the use of Moodle. Applying these techniques into the course creation was a matter of trying to fit the discovered puzzle piece into the course design. If it didn’t fit, it was dismissed but not forgotten. Doing the comparison between the two LMS systems (WebCT and Moodle) really heightened my awareness of the community aspect of open source software.

Web Authoring – This area challenged me extensively and consistently. Web authoring tools are many and varied. Having an awareness of how to do basic HTML coding is an essential skill for an educational technologist. This part of the toolkit is one that has provided me with tools that I can continue to develop. This would not have been an area of interest had I not been ‘strongly urged’ to get into this sandbox and play around. My web authoring with Amaya software has the beginnings of what I want to create, but at this point, I will explore Dreamweaver since it is the standard in HTML authoring software.

Synchronous Communication Tools – This exploration extended my awareness and knowledge of the various tools and methods in this area. I was excited after the first Wimba Live Classroom session and imagined the potential for this software in opening up global classrooms. The Wimba Pronto software was interesting but was not something I used extensively. Skype and Blip.me are the two favourites in my current S.C. toolbox.

Social software – The investigations in the Terms of Service was an unusual way to tackle the topic of social software. Since there are abundant tools in this particular sandbox, I focused on the more prevalent ones. My conversations extended to people outside of the course and I received extensive and varying feedback. My investigations into YouTube, Twitter and Second Life will continue since I have just scratched the surface of these and am particularly interested in the potential applications to educational technology.

Blogging – My familiarity with blogs and blogging in a primary educational setting helped provide a foundation for the extension of knowledge in this area. Adding RSS feeds from blogs was a new experience for me. Now I check my Net News Feed every day for updates and new information. I had limited experience with Word Press, but that has definitely changed. There are still lots of opportunities to extend my work with blogs but my focus will move to integrating them into work with adult learners in educational settings.

Wikis – I have used and developed several wikis, so again, my experiences provided some foundation for this exploration. The assignment completed in ETEC 510 provided essential skills in contributing to a wiki. The lessons learned in this sandbox, with the full class working on our collaborative wiki enhanced my learning on how to manage large group wiki creations.

Media authoring – In this area of the sandbox, I reveled. Hours and hours of play-time produced some decent artifacts to integrate into teaching and learning. The ‘Audacity Challenge’ heightened my awareness of personal biases toward certain types of media creation tools. I have now challenged myself to be more open to various tools and to try new things, play and experiment with them, before determining their educational value as a teaching or learning tool. I have spent so much time watching ‘how to’ videos on YouTube that this is one area I hope to investigate further.

Accessibility – I have prided myself in being an advocate for accessibility in real life but found myself challenged by the guidelines and issues facing individuals with web accessibility. There are so many considerations that are outlined that it would be incredible to incorporate most of them in any course or web page design. I think that this section of the toolkit did lots to expand my awareness of this area. It is something that will underpin my design and development practices, with knowledge that the information needed is available through the W3C site I investigated extensively in this course.

Mobile learning – Mobile learning is an area that I feel will explode in the coming years. My experiences with mobile learning were a real eye-opener. I was looking for an app for that and found that one was not needed. I was able to access, interact and create what was needed in both WebCT and Moodle, with some limitations and issues with small screen size. This area is one that I may investigate further, depending on opportunity and need.

In summary, the e-learning toolkit provided many opportunities to extend, enhance and expose me to a wide variety of experiences in technology. Many were new and will continue to be part of my technology repertoire. Some were challenging but with a specific need or application (such as creating a Moodle course) there was a purpose for persevering through the technical issues.

 

Exploration Three: ETEC 565 experiences

Anderson’s article will frame my synthesis of the experiences from this ETEC 565 course. He stated that “effective learning environments are framed in four overlapping lenses – community centered, knowledge centered, learner centered and assessment centered”. Each element intersects and enhances the others.

Community Centered: I noticed the clear structuring of the course to enable the community of learners to engage in dialogue and support in key instructional areas of the course. We did not have to search through multiple discussion forums to find the support and answer we needed for an issue or question. My experience with the ‘Audacity Challenge’ comes to mind. I was able to post a question, receive a timely response and provide a learning lesson for others in one, clearly identified area. This course was a community of learners focused on learning about educational technology.

Knowledge centered: The e-toolkit experiences, enhanced and extended the work done with the weekly readings, scenarios and discussions. These elements of knowledge presented challenging questions that required the application of research as well as practical skills. Having the experience of working with writing in and HTML editor, for example, heightened my awareness of the challenges that would be applied to certain scenarios being discussed. Creating the Moodle course was a knowledge-focused endeavor.

Learner centered: The reflections and synthesis experiences have truly been opportunities for me to focus on my learning, to dig deep into my personal understandings and review the importance of the research articles, toolkit experiences and conversations held in the discussion forums. As a learner, I can see the value of having this exercise incorporated into the assessment practices of courses I design and deliver. The e-portfolio provided additional opportunities for reflective practice in a public forum. I have been proudly sharing the URL to my e-portfolio to friends and family.

Assessment centered: For me, this particular area was one of the most challenging aspects of this course. My experience with faulty assumptions and clarifying understandings of assignment criteria will be remembered long after the marks are submitted. When one of my assignments did not meet the requirements of the stated criteria, I learned a valuable lesson in instructor presence. Despite student angst, to be firm and state expectations clearly in order for students to achieve high standards is a commendable instructional stance. The Gibbs and Simpson provided much more insight into the area of assessment for me.

As a summary, I will share some insights from Moodle supporting documentation that apply to the synthesis of my ETEC 565 experiences. It stated the following:

• All of us are potential teachers as well as learners – in a true collaborative environment we are both.
• We learn particularly well from the act of creating or expressing something for others to see.
• We learn a lot by just observing the activity of our peers.
• By understanding the contexts of others, we can teach in a more transformational way (constructivism).
• A learning environment needs to be flexible and adaptable, so that it can quickly respond to the needs of the participants within it.

In the ETEC 565 collaborative learning environment I have experienced each of these elements in practice.

 

Exploration Four: Next Steps

For this section, I returned to the ISTE standards for teachers. Since this was a starting point for my flight path, I reviewed these standards to match where and how my next steps in educational technology would focus.

1. Facilitate and inspire student learning and creativity –

• Next year, I will be involved in an action research project involving ipad technology in supporting exceptional learners in the classroom. The focus will be specifically on three students with autism with the intention to see if this technology does hold the promise of unlocking the learning key for them. All students in the class will become engaged in using this technology, so I look forward to applying skills from ETEC 565 to this project.

2. Design and develop digital-age learning experiences and assessments:

• I have begun to design and develop a course for the Faculty of Education of a local university. My design of lessons, activities and assessments will be different after applying lessons learned from ETEC 565. My focus is to provide opportunities for students in the course to experience a constructivist learning environment as I develop the course content. I will review and apply the Seven Principles of Good Practice outlined by Chickering and Gamson. Considerations from Anderson who stated that “effective learning environments are framed in four overlapping lenses – community centered, knowledge centered, learner centered and assessment centered” will be a natural place to start. Integrating technology into the subject matter for this Faculty of Education course will guided by the work done by Chickering and Ehrmann.
• I will continue to develop the Moodle course for e-Mentoring and migrate the course content to another LMS systems. Being able to apply the learning from the LMS Proposal assignment, as well as the framework from Bates and Poole, will be valuable in this process. Keeping the constructivist elements of the learning environment in mind when developing the final modules will be based on the foundations set during ETEC-565.

3. Model digital-age work and learning:

• I will continue to explore e-learning toolkit items in order to expand and extend my current learning, particularly in areas identified in the flight path not yet realized. Integrating these products and projects into the course content in the Faculty of Ed course design and the e-Mentoring course will continue to provide real world applications for the learning.
• In the coming year, I have set a goal to submit an article to a peer-reviewed publication with the intention of exploring and promoting ideas in the area of leadership and technology. I would like to delve into research in the area of principal efficacy with technology as it correlates to the integration of technology into the school.

4. Promote and model digital citizenship and responsibility:

• With this particular area, my intention is to continue to develop connections with international participants in the MET program. I will look for ways to expand the skills and understanding of local educators to communication and collaboration tools to enhance awareness of other cultures and extend global awareness. I hope to begin my involvement in an international project being funded through CARnet in the area of digital storytelling and action research.

5. Engage in professional growth and leadership

• With my ongoing participation in the MET program, I have already modeled life long learning for the students, staff and school leaders of my school system. I intend to continue to participate in this global community to explore creative ways to apply technology to improve student learning.

Since my perspective is not just from a teaching role, but from the role of a school principal, I chose to review and reflect on the ISTE standards for administrators. My vision for school principals is not as the ‘administrator’ of educational endeavours but as the leader of all things education related in the school. Administration should be placed in as a secondary concern.

Visionary leadership:

My role as a course instructor with the Faculty of Education will provide me with an opportunity to influence and impact the other course instructors as they investigate the integration of technology into their teaching practice. A group of course instructors have already participated in a SMART board learning session as a direct result of my involvement in with the Faculty of Education and my awareness of interactive whiteboard teaching and learning opportunities. I have already investigated and made an impact on decisions around access for Ministry Licensed software for Faculty instructors as well as faculty participants. In this way, I have continued to provide visionary leadership in integrating educational technology. I am sure this will continue into the upcoming year.

2. Digital-age learning culture:

My involvement in an action research project using ipad technology will be the focus for this area. This will ensure that my experiences and knowledge will influence the directions and instructional innovations that focus on continual improvement for students and teachers in their teaching and learning practices.

3. Excellence in professional practice:

My efforts in this area will focus on the promotion and modelling of effective communication (through various synchronous and asynchronous tools) and collaboartion (through available media and web based tools) among Faculty of Education participants and instructors.

4. Systemic improvement:

With the tools acquired by working and playing in the ETEC 565 course e-learning toolkit, I will be strategically placed to focus on leading purposeful change in both my school system and at the Faculty of Education. The e-Mentoring course will provide opportunities for educators to engage in achieving learning goals through the appropriate use of technology with media rich resources they will experience and create.

5. Digital citizenship:

This particular area of my next steps will come about with a focus on international projects to bring teachers and learners together from diverse parts of the world. I will be able to support and inspire others with my skills and knowledge in digital storytelling, Web 2.0 tools and media development. I look forward to the challenges of expanding cultural awareness and our sense of a global community for staff and students involved in a proposed global educational technology project.

SUMMARY:

The phrase “it’s less about staying ahead and more about moving forward as members of dynamic learning communities” really brings a sense of closure to this work. I have been consistently moving forward during the ETEC 565 course and it has been done in a dynamic learning community. As T.S. Elliot stated, I will not cease to explore, and have come back to the beginnings with new knowledge, skills and insights into educational technology. I now see things through a new lens so they do not appear the same.

References:

Anderson, T. (2008). Towards a Theory of Online Learning. In: T. Anderson & F. Elloumi (Eds.), Theory and Practice of Online Learning. Edmonton AB: 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.

 

Chickering, A.W. & Ehrmann, S.C. (1996). Implementing the Seven Principles: Technology as Lever. American Association for Higher Education Bulletin, 49(2), 3-6. Accessed online 11 Mar 2009 http://www.aahea.org/bulletins/articles/sevenprinciples.htm

 

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. Accessed online 11 Mar 2009 http://www.aahea.org/bulletins/articles/sevenprinciples.htm

 

Gibbs, G. & Simpson, C. (2005). Conditions under which assessment supports students’ learning. Learning and Teaching in Higher Education, 1(1), 3-31. Accessed online 11 March 2009. http://www.open.ac.uk/fast/pdfs/Gibbs%20and%20Simpson%202004-05.pdf

 

National Educational Technology Standards for Teachers http://www.iste.org/Content/NavigationMenu/NETS/ForTeachers/2008Standards/NETS_for_Teachers_2008.htm

 

ISTE National Standards for Administrators found at: http://www.iste.org/standards/nets-for-administrators/nets-for-administrators-sandards.aspx

 

Moodle Docs at http://docs.moodle.org/en/Pedagogy#Moodle_in_three_short_paragraphs