Option 1: Learning experience, skills development and knowledge construction
As I reviewed my postings from earlier in the term and my flight path in particular, I found that many of my course goals focused on technical aspects of an LMS and course design. I talked about learning the capabilities and limitations of Moodle and Connect. In the end, these were things I learned throughout this course, but that is not the most important things I will take away. What I found the most interesting and applicable in my professional life was the research on course design and the elements that make up a quality online course.
My reflections for the platform evaluation collaboration assignment really focused on the wide variety of views among the team members. It was interesting to see everyone’s perspective on open source versus proprietary LMS. Also, we had many different ideas when determining the best criteria to use for our evaluation. This experience gave me insight to the discussions that must take place on campuses every day.
The wiki collaboration exercise was great for me as I had very little experience using Moodle. I found the wiki a great way to learn about some of the key Moodle features without having to search through a detailed user guide. When it came to contributing to the wiki, I found it a little confusing as to when we were to get started and the overall expectations. When I first joined in I found it difficult to find my place in the group. I came in mid-week and a lot of work had been done, so it was difficult to see how many people were involved. Once I figured out how to view the individual contributions, I was able to add equitably to the wiki.
For my digital story I worked with a program called Emaze, which I used to create a living presentation for some of the material in my online course. I had never used Emaze before, but I found it pretty easy to utilize as I worked to add content to the presentation. Once I worked out a way to add audio files to each individual slide, I was able to use a voice over effect for the presentation. If I have a need for a highly visual presentation in the future, I will be sure to look at Emaze again.
In assignments 2 and 3, the process of researching and designing an online course matched up very well with my goal of becoming a more credible and complete consultant to the faculty that I work with on a daily basis. By taking on the role of instructor, I was able to think about all aspects of course design. Looking at the situational factors involved with a course really gave me a clearer perspective of the landscape on campus and the students I am working to help.
As I learned about and worked with a number of new LMS and digital tools, I was able to better understand what a new post-secondary student or instructor might go through. With this in mind, I started to better understand where my personal design preferences lie, as they did not seem to change from product to product. When reviewing a new piece of technology for the first time, I want to see a streamlined approach that puts ease of use at the forefront. Bells and whistles are great, but they lose a lot appeal if they are not easy to learn and to use.
I found the experience and lessons learned in this course to be extremely valuable. The course topics and readings were relevant and all components seemed to fit well together. At no point in the course did I find myself questioning why we were covering certain information, unfortunately this has not always been the case in other MET courses. I also thought many of the supplement readings and resources were on topic and useful both in the course and outside in my professional life. As always, the wide variety of perspectives in the discussion forums offered a great learning experience and opened up my eyes to some of the issues instructors could be facing with many LMS products.
I actually found this course to be such a valuable learning experience that I proposed a workshop for Pearson Canada’s summer sales meeting. Our senior management liked the idea and I will be running a two hour session next week on course redesign and active learning. The goal of the session will be for the sales reps to work through a scenario in groups to redesign a course to overcome specific course challenges. They will work through the activity as if they were the instructor to rebuild their course to incorporated sound design principles, similar to what we covered in this course. The goal of the session is to provide them with research and data that they can share with the faculty at their schools. We want to change their role from selling a book or product to working with faculty to consult on their course and offer appropriate solutions that work for the instructor and students. I am really excited to be taking the knowledge I have learned in this course and share it with my colleagues at Pearson.
When looking at the course set up using both Connect and WordPress, I am a little on the fence with this one. Initially, I found it confusing to have two places to go for information and spent a lot of time in the first week or two getting organized. As the term went on, I did find the ability to quickly access information on the WordPress site convenient and easy to follow. I think a perfect solution might be to offer the content in both places. The fact that the information in the Connect site was from another professor’s course made it confusing and hard to clearly understand was required. If all the information from WordPress site was duplicated in the Connect version then it would clear up most questions. In the end the real benefit to the WordPress site is that you do not have to sign in, but if you were already in the Connect discussion forum, then it would be great to have it in there as well.
Overall this course was a great learning experience and I am looking forward to having some great conversations out on campus in the fall!!
Josh