ETEC 565 and the Journey to the Sun

When I began this course, I came to it with some experience, since I use Moodle in my teaching practice and also develop and design websites for companies.    In some ways I felt as if I had already constructed my wings, like Icarus, and was ready to journey to the Sun, yet what I discovered along the way were insights that were unexpected.

Flight Path

My passion for the Digital Media arts has driven my teaching practice and learning throughout the last 20 years, but have culminated in a new Digital Media Arts program I constructed at my school based on research and techniques learned in MET.  I thrive on change and feel at home in the digital space of flows of the Internet.  What I seek in my teaching and learning is a creative space in which the inner artist can thrive, share learning through a community of practice, build educational artifacts in project and social-based learning opportunities, and organize self-directed and blended learning models through crowdsourced resources and social media interactions.  This is built into my teaching practice where the main goal is not the transmission of skills in the digital media arts, but rather critical literacy and media creation, which Buckingham (2007) describes as the development of skills for self-expression which enabling a more reflective use and understanding of media.  This hearkens to social and constructivist theories of Vygotsky (Tu, Blocher & Roberts 2008) and Bruner (Lewis, Pea & Rosen 2010) which describe the transformation of learning through the building of tools or artifacts to provide a material basis for consciousness.  This is the basis of my digital media arts program and professional experience in graphic design, website design and marketing.