I started off my career wanting to be an elementary school teacher. I worked with children for a number of years. I taught art, assisted with teaching math and reading, and I tutored science and math. But I ended up getting side tracked and taking a computer program in graphic design. I ended up working in at the training college where I took the program. I took the web design program there as well. (Remember Netscape? A lot has changed since I first learned web design). From there, I got a position at the Justice Institute of British Columbia. Over the years there, I’ve worked in several departments at the JIBC in various roles. My work went from creating support materails for face-to-face learners, to working solely on online courses. I’ve also worked with other organizations, to create online, and blended courses, websites, marketing materials or other publications.
Somehow or another, I always end up being involved (workwise) with education or as in the case of the MET program, working on getting an education.
My goals through the MET program are:
- To learn about good course design
- To gain specialized skills and knowledge
- To complete a Master’s degree
One of the reasons for these goals, is a practical one. I would like to have skills and knowledge, (and the piece of paper) to have some security in the work place, and perhaps even advance my career. Another reason is that I actually enjoy the work that I do. I feel very lucky that the work is challenging enough, and allows me to be creative, and input my ideas into the training. I really enjoy planning, writing content, creating graphics, and finding or creating media to re-enforce the learning.
A couple of years ago, I worked on a course where the subject matter expert was very open to including some of my suggestions. I felt I was able to introduce a different perspective to some of the key concepts covered. I enjoyed the whole process, from planning to learning about how students experienced the course. Eventually, I would like to do more work like that.
As far as specific skills from this course, I want to learn more about LMS platforms. I’ve worked in WebCT, Blackboard (Learn, Connect, Community), and I’ve dabbled in Canvas, D-2-L, and Moodle. Moodle in particular interests me, because it is open source and has been around for some time now. But also, I’ve noticed that book publishers are creating companion-learning sites. For example, Jones & Bartlett, uses Moodle, re-branded as Navigate, to deliver their courses based on their print texts. Actually, I would not be surprised if textbook publishers will find away to sell courses in the future. Maybe a financial model similar to how MOOC’s work. I can see that working for 1st year university courses, such as Psychology, or Anatomy and Physiology where it’s a matter of learning (or memorizing) information.
Personally I am not keen on the world of business creeping into education. I noticed that Blackboard has a tool which also some publishers to sell directly to the students. I don’t like the idea that educational institutes are letting these businesses access to students. I think the values embedded in the LMS impact the students. It is exploitative publishers in the guise of convenience are accessing students to sell books to. That is another reason why Moodle appeals to me, is that there doesn’t appear to be that same corporate interest associated with it.
Another topic that I would like to learn about is learning interaction and interactivity in online courses. I remember years ago, when Flash was popular, it was trendy for website to use flash intros. Now hardly anyone does that, because no one wants to wait to watch those. Similarly in the world of online courses, it used to be popular to include “interactivity” to make the course more engaging for students. But often that translated into making students click on something or move their mouse to reveal content. All that type of interaction did was to ensure there was a living, breathing, clicking person at the other end. I think those types of interactions do little to enhance the learning. I’m interested in learning more about what interactions are useful, and how they can be used. Chapter 7 in the PDF by Bates covers some of the information I would like to learn about.