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Course Synthesis – Journey to the Sun

Post author By kenbuis
Post date August 4, 2011
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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.

Tags flight path revisited, flight to the sun, Icarus, synthesis

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Assessment

Assessment Strategies for Social Media for Business unit

Building the assessment into my online course about social media for business and personal branding was a challenging and creative assignment. I wanted to create possibilities for factual recall, personal opinions and critical thinking about the unit on how to implement a social media strategy, so I implemented a variety of testing strategies such as multiple choice questions about the general information, matching for factual recall, and short answer and essay questions for critical thinking and personal insights and opinions.

This was a challenge, since I had to do the research and build the unit first, complete with lessons and activities. Yet the creative aspect of this is that while I was writing up the content and setting up the activities, I was able to anticipate questions and put in spaces for critical thought development as well as making the unit applicable to a learner’s needs. My assessment strategies include a social media forum to discuss the necessity of social media in business, a quiz on the content of social media strategy, a formal submission of a social media strategy for a personal business, and a workshop/peer assessment to review the social media strategy proposal before submission. Creating the quiz was challenging, as it forced me to work deeply inside the tools of Moodle to create varying styles of questions, feedback and time limits.

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Tags assessment, branding, creative assessment, feedback, frequent assessment, moodle, online course, quiz, social media, social media strategy

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Moodle Server Proposal

Moodle Server for Digital Media Arts Program

Kenneth Buis
ETEC 565, June 2011

Introduction

I developed a Digital Media Arts program to provide adult students, many of whom are recent immigrants, with opportunities to participate as digital citizens within the global networked society. The main goals of the program include the provision of a stable learning platform upon which to build the digital literacy skills required for 21^st century workplace and learning, as well as the integration of social media and web 2.0 tools. According to Tu and Bloche(2008), these tools enhance mediated knowledge creation, provide for information sharing opportunities in personalized environments for collaboration and content creation. The Digital Media Arts program goes beyond the traditional goals of skill transfer based on media arts production. Rather, it is designed to the develop skills and provide opportunities for self-expression and a more reflective use and understanding of media, or critical literacy and media creation as described by Buckingham(2007).

Flight Path added

The Digital Media Arts have long been a passion and have extended deeply within my teaching practice and corporate adventures. I thrive on change and have journeyed deep into the digital space of flows to experiment with learning and updating my skills in the timeless time of cyberspace. Along this flow of inspiration and innovation I have implemented a great deal of new technology, and continually teach new content in adaptation to changes in world technology. While maintaining this stream of creative adaptation takes a great deal of energy, I am committed to providing opportunities for learners to adapt to the new global networked society, to update their abilities, embrace their inner artist and understand the implications of Informationalism.

I recently moved to a new school that has not had computer classes for years and am building a Digital Media Arts program. My classes are filled with students of all educational backgrounds (including engineers, artists, business people) aged 17-75 from every corner of the world. In order to provide flexibility learning opportunities to accommodate their outside responsibilities, all classes are taught in a blended mode, with course content based in Moodle. During each class, I offer professional skill-building workshops, each prescheduled on our online program calendar. Social media is integrated throughout the program with the use of Twitter, Tumblr, and a class blog. Every element of the course is project-based, with opportunities for self-direction and adaptation to real world product creation. For example, we build websites for non-profit organizations and develop print graphics, marketing plans, social media strategy, and SEO optimization.