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My experience and goals
If I were to describe myself in three words, I would say I am curious, strategic, and creative. I have just under a decade of professional experience, spanning across design, learning technology, learning and development (L&D), and talent management / organizational development, throughout which I have led and supported multiple technology integrations. My primary goal for this course is to strengthen my knowledge on the theory of technology integrations, so that I am able to reflect more critically on my previous work and leverage these takeaways in future projects.
What I want to learn
Through this course I am also looking forward to learning how to better leverage technologies for “formative and summative assessment” (MET, n.d.), so that I can ensure more meaningful feedback to my learners throughout their technology-enabled learning experiences. I will also be paying close attention to my experience as a student of this course in the way it is “a structured sandbox in which to explore” (MET, n.d.), so that I can continue to develop my skills on enabling experiential learning experiences. These are especially important in my work in workplace development, where we anticipate other tasks to compete for our audience’s time and attention. I want to ensure we maximize their learning and that they are set up for success to apply their learning in their work!
Alignment with ISTE, First Peoples Principles of Learning, and Seven Principles
I believe my learning goals above particularly align with the “Facilitator” and “Analyst” standards in ISTE (ISTE, 2017), that “[l]earning is holistic, reflexive, reflective, experiential, and relational” from First Peoples Principles of Learning (FNESC, 2015), and the fourth principle around providing “[p]rompt [f]eedback” in the Seven Principles (Chickering & Ehrmann, 1996).
My hopes out of ETEC 524
My hope is that ETEC 524 would help me become a digital-age learning professional through the opportunities to deeply “connec[t] … theory and practice” as I reflect on the readings (MET, n.d.), articulate my thoughts, and explore the technologies. I also believe I would gain tremendous value from the opportunities to practice creating meaningful assessment strategies that support development and measure performance. As well, as with any other MET course, I value the opportunity to learn through discussions and feedback from the instructor as well as my peers.
Key skills to develop to meet my goals
To meet my goals, I believe the key skills or approaches I need to develop are flexibility and openness. Throughout the MET program so far, I have been finding that many of my peers’ learning audiences are young people at schools, as opposed to mine who are professionals at large business organizations. While I have been thoroughly appreciating the opportunity to learn from my peers’ experiences and challenges, I am also finding that our respective contexts sometimes result in different focus areas, which means some discussions are not as relevant or applicable to my work. I believe the opportunity to choose the organizational context for the LMS selection assignment would alleviate this challenge, and in addition I aim to be more flexible and open to learning and discussing contexts that are different from my own.
Course topics most relevant to my goals
Looking at the course schedule, I believe the areas that are most important to my goals are “Theoretical Frameworks” in Week 2 and “Assessment” in Week 6 (“Modules,” 2022). I think those two modules would particularly expand my knowledge and skills!
resources I need
Last but not least, the primary resource I need to master these technologies is access to an LMS sandbox where I can practice what I learn in this course. I am a hands-on learner, and I find getting to learn through trial-and-error helps make my learning stick.
References
“Modules.” (2022). In ETEC 524 64C 2022W1 Learning Technologies: Selection, Design, and Application. The University of British Columbia.
Chickering, A. W., & Ehrmann, S., C. (1996). Implementing the seven principles: Technology as lever. American Association for Higher Education Bulletin, 49(2), 3-6. http://www.aahea.org/articles/sevenprinciples.htm
FNESC. (2015). The First Peoples Principles of Learning. https://www2.gov.bc.ca/assets/gov/education/kindergarten-to-grade-12/teach/teaching-tools/aboriginal-education/principles_of_learning.pdf
International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE). (2017). Standards for teachers. https://www.iste.org/standards/for-educators
Master of Educational Technology (MET). (n.d.). ETEC 524: Learning technologies: Selection, design and application. The University of British Columbia. https://met.ubc.ca/courses/etec-524/