When I started this course I had a relatively strong background in using computers and technology in the classroom, in large part due to the area and school that I have taught at over the past 6 years. However, I did not feel as if I was the strongest teacher in terms of designing a complete course or unit of instruction. I have always been able to come up with project ideas that were engaging or challenging to students, though I did not always have a clear learning goal in mind with those projects. Through this course, I saw definite improvement in my design strategies and in developing strong and clear learning objectives for the students. The objectives that I created for my course, carried over into how I decided to plan out my Making Games unit. This course also introduced me to the backwards design strategy which I successfully used with the unit I developed.
When I reflect back on my initial goals, I can see how some of the goals kept me focused, but I did not necessarily reach them in the manner I had originally envisioned. Once of my goals was to develop a deeper understanding of WordPress, specifically with using forums. This goal was partially met as I did develop a strong foundation of skills in designing a course through WordPress, but also in attempting to reach this goal I was introduced to the Edmodo platform. As the UBC platform for WordPress does not allow the use of forums or a forum widget I had to look elsewhere for this feature, and this is where I began to work with Edmodo. In a way this was a lucky accident, as I thoroughly enjoyed working with Edmodo and found ways to incorporate it into my course design. Another initial goal I had was to find a platform that could connect my extracurricular coaching with technology. This did not happen exactly, but through my unit development I was able to test out a screen capture video program, called Camtasia, and I could see many possibilities about how this could be used as a coaching tool. It would be a great tool for marking up and editing game/practice film for athletes to watch and learn from.
Through the duration of this course I was able to explore and try out many different educational technology tools. My first group project provided me with the opportunity to evaluate Moodle and determine if it would be a good fit for my course and unit design. Moodle appeared to have many positive qualities, and for a large course or an organization with strong technical support, it would be an excellent program to use. In my time evaluating it, I did not find it to be very user friendly and I envisioned myself struggling to create the design and look I desired for my course. Ultimately, based on how I anticipated my course functioning, I decided to work with WordPress and Edmodo as those platforms better suited my teaching needs. I was also able to explore various tools for digital communication and assessment, including PowToon, Edmodo, Quizlet and Camtasia. Each had benefits and functions that would be useful to educators in certain situations. For my needs, I stuck with Edmodo and Camtasia, though I did attempt to create a PowToon video as an introduction to my ICT 10 course. I was not impressed with my quality of this PowToon video so I decided to not include it in my final product. Each individual assignment also provided me with an opportunity to reflect back on that particular task. Those reflections can be found through these links – reflection 1, reflection 2, reflection 3.
Overall I found my experiences with this course to be very positive and helpful to my overall teaching practice. The wide range of information, ideas and tools that we were exposed to was very helpful. I found the structure of the course to be designed in a way that was very logical, and each unit helped expand on my previous learning. With respect to the reading materials, I found the readings at the beginning of the course to be very informative. The readings that focused on developing strong learning objectives, effective design strategies, and methods of assessment in a digital environment were helpful not only in allowing me to create a better overall online course and unit, but also applicable to my current practice. For the most part, I found the discussion themes and questions to be helpful in the way that they connected in to the assignments. There were a few discussion questions that I found myself making stretches to connect the theme into what I was learning and currently working on, but overall these posts helped me strengthen my design work. The order of the course activities was very well designed. It was beneficial to evaluate various LMSs before deciding which to use for my respective assignments. In addition, the wide range of tools that were available for us to explore was very helpful. I also found the discussion forum postings around the different tools to be engaging. Many students shared their experiences with tools that were not always on our initial list, and this gave further options for things to test out and learn from others experiences. Overall, I can say with confidence that my teaching practice has improved as a result of this course and the activities involved with it. I am more confident in my ability to design an effective course, and create meaningful learning outcomes for the students I work with. I am excited for the next time I teach ICT 10 and can actually use the course/unit that I worked on developing.