Monthly Archives: September 2012

09/30/12

Proposed Flight Path

Proposed Flight Plan:

“An intelligent plan is the first step to success. The man who plans knows where he is going, knows what progress he is making and has a pretty good idea when he will arrive.”
– Basil S. Walsh

My name is Kevin Andrews and I live in St. John’s, Newfoundland. This is my very first MET course.

Currently, I teach grade 7 technology education at an intermediate school of 900 students along with serving as network administrator. On a regular day I can be found running around between classes fixing computers, restoring deleted files, running network wires, taking photos for the yearbook, and updating the school’s website and twitter/flickr feeds.

Over the past 12 years in teaching I’ve had the opportunity to work with and assist teachers, school administrators, and district personnel with their technology plans to help further implement technology in the classroom. My most recent experience (last 2 years) has been helping to incorporate a class set of iPads and wireless netbooks into our school by providing teacher in-services to help everyone feel more comfortable using this new technology so they can confidently integrate it into their class instruction.

In my experience, students are easily motivated when technology is seamlessly integrated into instruction and teachers are more willing to embrace technology when they are comfortable using it. This has been a mantra of mine for many years and so getting an MET from UBC was the next logical progression to help further my learning.

The University of British Columbia MET graduate-level program compliments my focus towards improving my education in the area of educational technology. Unlike most others, this institution supports a rich online environment where students are challenged to develop their goals within an active cross-cultural learning community . It is my intention to develop my skills as a technology educator and having the ability to study and participate online with MET curriculum specialists, students, and professors will only enhance my need to further my knowledge in technology supported learning environments. As a current educator, one of my goals is to develop an effective and interactive learning environment for students and teachers but finding ways to extend this type of learning has been challenging.

My intention and primary reason for taking the ETEC 565A course is to gain critical experience in the design and development of Learning Management Systems, social software, and multimedia so I may have the ability to supplement my teaching curriculum with rich interactive software, online blogging expertise, and knowledge of how to design and develop a complete Moodle course site. Having the experience, knowledge, and ability to develop a LMS like Moodle will enable my school the ability take the classroom online. Students will have the unique ability to do quizzes online, upload images, videos, and audio reports, embed encyclopedia pages, add twitter streams and Flickr slideshows, share their Glogster poster, create location based learning scenarios with mobile tagging or GPS locking, and many more options as I begin to learn and explore the course content. In Module 1 of the course I look to get inspired by Bates and Poole’s writings on ‘Framework for Selecting and Using Technology”, as they map out their SECTIONS framework providing critical background knowledge on how to design a usable model for selecting and using technology in my school and classroom. I look forward to learning more about becoming an effective technology teacher by studying the ‘NETS-S’ model discovering how facilitate, design, and model digital age teaching and learning. In addition, I am also curious to know how Moodle, WebCT, and Vista all stack up together and look forward to finding out which LMS is right for online learning. Other web-based approaches will also catch my attention like the ‘Pro-D’ case study and the practice of ‘Cradleboard’ which I’m sure will force me to think about when should and shouldn’t I use the web. The design and development of rubrics has always been a weakness of mine and I’m looking forward to developing that skill as I work together in groups to create a ‘Delivery Platform Evaluation Rubric’.

To be a better educator means staying on top of all the technologies and embracing them as potential teaching tools. As current technology coordinator for my school, I am currently working towards creating a curriculum for our school district using a class set of iPads and iTunes University. It is my goal to understand how people learn in order to develop an effective interactive online and tablet-based curriculum and using the techniques taught in ETEC 565A I believe I can reach that goal. Time spent developing my understanding of online communication tools via the Blackboard Learning System with my peers and correspondance with my instructor may help me achieve my goal. In addition, learning about the trending social media will keep me in check and provide me the opportunity to create assignments that are in tune with how students use online websites and social media in their lives. Alexander, in his article ‘Web 2.0: A new wave of innovation for teaching and learning?” may help me make more decisions in this area. I have always had an interest in multimedia, and so I’m very excited about learning how to use that medium to help achieve my learning outcomes for my technology classes. George Siemens’, article “Evaluating Media Characteristics”, will prove to be complicated but none the less help further my knowledge on using multimedia to further achieve my learning outcomes. Learning about flash, creating audio via the open source program Audacity, discovering PalTalk and VoIP alternatives will help provide the necessary tools I need to master multimedia in the classroom.

Having a very busy life on top of dedicating long hours to my career I feel that time will be the deciding factor in my journey through this course. Using technology as a teaching tool requires time to familiarize yourself with resource and then time to create a teaching plan. As an intermediate teaching professional, I feel that some of the concepts revealed in this course make take years to fully develop while others can be implemented immediately. Getting students ready for blogging via kidblog.org will not take me much time, however, implementing a Moodle learning module may take a good portion of this year. Learning the way around a web 2.0 site might not be too difficult to understand, but determining how to create a rubric for it my prove more difficult.

For me technology is a powerful tool for collaborating and learning. Classroom learning activities can follow different pedagogical approaches and didactic concepts depending on the educator. It is important to realize that without a complete understanding of how to implement technology with student learning I will not be able to maximize my potential as an educator. With the guidance, direction, and understanding of Natasha Boskic, the ETEC 565A course is a step for me towards achieving many of my professional goals.

09/29/12

Group Evaluation Rubric

Recommendations for a Viable Learning Management System

Precis

BC Campus (BCC) is a government funded organization that acts as a hub to collaborate online resources for B.C.’s students, teachers and administrators from all public postsecondary institutions in the province. Like many government-funded organizations, BCcampus is downsizing its IT department by December of this year. BCC is presently under contract with a vendor based Learning Management System (LMS), but also uses an open source LMS. The vendor based LMS license will expire in 2013. As a result, BCC will need to streamline its IT services and decide on an appropriate LMS for the organization to use.

Our team has created an evaluation rubric to help guide the decision making process for the leadership team at BCCampus. Based upon our research, we would like to recommend that BCcampus consider the SECTIONS framework proposed by Bates and Poole (2003) when selecting an LMS since it’s focus is towards meeting the needs of its member learning providers and their students. This framework, in addition to our group rubric can help facilitate BCcampus’ decision at both the strategic and tactical level giving them the edge and balance between an affordable, safe, and customizable Learning Management System.

After reviewing the current role of BCcampus and considering the financial constraints this entity and its members are facing, the most viable LMS would be one that meets the following criteria:

– It has a cost structure that is affordable for BCcampus

– It centralizes and automates administrative functions including all records and assessments

– It is easy to use for students for self-directed, self-paced learning

– It customizes and delivers learning materials rapidly

– It supports portability and follows e-learning web standards

– It maintains a high level of security and encryption for everyone using the system

– It provides multiple avenues of technical support

– It allows for flexible online collaboration

– It conforms to all recent web standard designs

– It provides accessibility to all users independent of their OS, browsers, or device type.

– It has to provide uptime using current UPS technology while maintaining reliable backups.

Executive director, David Porter and his management team need to have faith in a system that is dependable, scalable, safe, secure, and affordable. There are many questions that need to be asked before a final decision has to be made. It is the consensus of our group that if BCcampus adheres to the criteria put forth in the rubric below that should help set the groundwork and provide the necessary answers for a final decision.

Evaluation Rubric

Group Articulation & Rationale:

Due to the fact that BCcampus has a variety of learning management platforms to meet the needs of the various learning providers, our rubric’s criteria needed to maintain a broad view when taking into account a viable Learning Management System. To ensure a that our rubric was thorough we based some of our evaluative criteria on the SECTIONS framework in Bates A. W. & Poole, G. (2003). A Framework for Selecting and Using Technology. As a result, it was determined that “Ease of Use”, and “Costs” must be considered important rubric criteria if one tends to agree with Bates and Poole’s argument; both students and teachers must feel comfortable using the system giving them a convenient but reliable experience. We also had to consider the cost of a LMS due to the impending budget cuts at BCC and the resulting reduced tech support. Opting for open source technologies like Moodle or Blackboard, for example, instead of a vendor based LMS; or Skype instead of Adobe Connect, are options to consider for cost reduction.

Choosing cheaper but reliable services like Stickam or uStream instead of Kalutra for video streaming might also help the final budget and would not compromise the user experience. If budget cuts affect the amount of services BCcampus provides then we would recommend removing web collaboration modules that might take up tech resource time/money as the LMS can still function effectively without them. Free alternatives like Google Drive, Dropbox, Box.net, iCloud, and SkyDrive might be a possible solutions. In addition, ensuring that potential open source alternatives have large community-based support who would assist BCcampus added tech support to make up for any jobs cuts. Be that as it may, it is our group’s imperative that BCcampus should ensure that other vendor based learning modules would need to be removed (for instance Desire2learn or Kalutra) if tech support could not meet the needs of the remaining infrastructure. With that in mind, security of the LMS should not be compromised when budget cuts are imminent.

Having the learning system online makes it accessible to anyone in the world and so determining the best LMS would mean making sure that system was secured using the most current encryption certificates by the most credible providers. In conclusion, it is the group’s decision to submit this rubric as an effective tool for choosing an appropriate LMS based on the constraints provided with respect to funding and support. We would caution BCcampus that it would be in their best interest to ensure that they do not make their decisions based on limited research and product demos and therefore use our rubric as an effective and thorough guide for making the best choice for their LMS implementation.

09/17/12

NETS.t Self Assessment

There are a couple of quotes related to technology and learning that I keep in my list of reminders and after reading the ‘2008 Internationally Accepted Standards’ fact sheet I thought it pertinent to pull out the one that seems to connect to all 5 elements listed so I can use it as a guide to help me decide my personal goals for the MET program.

“The top 10 in-demand jobs of 2010. . .did not exist in 2004.We are currently preparing students for jobs that don’t exist yet. . .using technologies that haven’t been invented. . .in order to solve problems we don’t even know are problems yet.”

Being a very busy tech teacher in my current school does not leave much time for reading or reflection on policies and so I found myself lacking in some areas more than others. When trying to facilitate and inspire student’s to become better learners by fostering their creative side you don’t have to go very far outside of the computer lab. Having some software or an Internet connection can be motivation enough.

With that in mind, I have used websites likeWolfram MathWorld to help engage as many students as possible when showing them how to solve authentic problems using digital tools. Students were given notes previous to the lab and then I would setup the second class in the form of a WebQuest where students would research their answers. After finding their information they would compile it to show to the class via slideshow using either Powerpoint or an online version much like SlideRocket. From there, students would get into groups and compile their findings by creating an account on FakeBook. This educational-like spinoff of Facebook would give them the ability to customize and personalize their learning activities which might help address the diverse learning styles. Assessment would be in the form of individual and group work rubrics along with an online digital portfolio post or tweet.

This activity, in itself, seems to cover most of the steps within the first two performance indicators however I do see room for improvement. In my tech class I have been trying out a new activity with my grade 7’s (as of last year) whereby students have to organize an election campaign and create an election video where one member in the group will be running for an imagery school/class president. All members in the group have duties (lighting/video recording/video editing/video publishing/props/script writer…etc..) all using a camera, green screen, Apple computers and an iPad as a teleprompter. The kids love it! It takes time but well worth it in the results. Within this entire process, students have the ability to learn by watching videos, video conferencing with local film producers (hoping to get someone from The Republic of Doyle this year), and take an online survey/tutorial on the importance of copyright and digital citizenship. This last element is where I do believe I fall a little short and might be where I begin my MET goal of concentrating my efforts a little more.

After reading the post by Justine “..get a thorough understanding of intellectual property..” and have it verified by Alexis when she says “..What does it mean to be a responsible digital citizen..” (thanks for the link to your site as well), I feel that I should truly re-visit this area and dedicate more efforts on informing myself and students of their rights and responsibilities. With so many peer-to-peer file sharing programs out there students need to know the do’s and don’t’s in this digital age. For the past 7 years at our school we have been very lucky to host an intermediate provincial Skills Canada competition which is open to all registered grade 7-9 students in Newfoundland and Labrador. This is a full day of competition, workshops, and demonstrations and it normally takes place at the end of November. It is organized every year by Skills Canada, a not-for-profit organization whose main focus is to encourage young people to consider careers in skilled trades and technologies.

Areas of competition include: 1. Lego Robotics 2. 2D/3D Animation 3. Graphic Design 4. Job Interview 5. Job Skill Demonstration 6. IT Network Systems Administration 7. Prepared Speech 8. TV/Video Production 9. IT Software Business Applications 10 Website Design 11. Model Wind Turbine

This Intermediate Challenge offers much more than just student competitions. There are also on-site demonstrations in areas such as automotive service, carpentry, welding, plumbing, aesthetics, and hair styling. The community really seems to get involved! At this point in the year Skills Canada has registered over 350 competitors from nearly 40 schools across the province and as acting school organizer I normally have my hands full. I’m sure this year will not be any exception! After reading over the last performance indicator in the list, it looks like some of the work and effort put into the Skills Canada competition can be applied to engaging in professional growth and leadership by connecting with local and global learning communities.

Again, I do see room for improvement here as well. So, in light of the competencies listed in the NETS, if were to pick two of my weak areas that I would like to further develop it would have to be performance indicators 4 and 5. Within those some key skills, approaches, and goals I would like to further develop would be the following: 1. Finding ways to promote digital etiquette and responsible social interaction related to the use of technology and information. 2. Learning how to be more of an advocate and begin more creative on how I teach safe, legal, and ethical uses of digital information. 3.

Finding time and ways to evaluate and reflect on current research and professional practice on a regular basis to make effective use of existing and emerging digital tools. Be that as it may, I can’t help but go back to my initial quote and then be reminded of how diverse and ever-changing the area of technology is. At this point in time, knowing that I can at least provide a foundation for learning using the current technologies while exploring the areas that are most important to my own goals in becoming a digital-age teaching professional is enough to keep me going. Hey, did anyone notice that the NETS 2008 standards are 4 years old? Would you think they should be updated a little more frequently to reflect the changing technologies?