After more than three years, ten courses, several papers and projects and hundreds of discussion posts, this is my last ever assignment in the Master of Education Technology program at UBC, before I graduate this May!
In my flight path, I talked about wanting to learn how to design an online course, which I have. The word “Moodle” meant about as much to me as “Mars” did before this course. I knew it existed, and vaguely knew what it did, but had never been there. I would now say I am much more familiar with Moodle than with Mars! I had also stressed the importance of my ePortfolio, something I have not worked much, but I intend to work on it over the next week or two for it to present a rounded picture of my MET experience.
In the first week of Module 1 we reviewed the ISTE standards (2008). Of the seven standards, one that has really been crystallizing for me in my latter MET courses was “Promote and Model Digital Citizenship and Responsibility”, particularly in relation to copyright, which would come up again in Week 10. These issues comprised a big component of ETEC 540, and through that and the making of my Moodle course here in ETEC 565, I have come to realize I have a distinct advantage over many other educators, the fact that I have spent much of the last 20 years creating original works of art, music and photography. Thus, I have a great body of past work I can delve into to inject my assignments with a certain originality without having to worry about royalties, so even if no one else is paying for my art, at least I won’t have to! This was evident in our digital stories, in which most used VideoScribe or PowToons, and royalty-free images and music which leave an indelible aesthetic mark. My personal story was not as marked by outside aesthetic influences because I had created most of the material and made it in iMovie, a video editor that takes less control over the end product that some of these other multimedia platforms.
In week 2, we were introduced to Tony Bates’ (2014) SECTIONS framework, and the Nels, Dyer and Carstens (2010) reading. I got more out of the Bates reading and definitely intend to refer back to it, both in my own practice and that of my teaching colleagues. It serves as a practical guide to choosing technologies. The concrete nature of some of the advice it contained contrasted the abstract nature of much of the reading in MET. For example, in the “Ease of Use” section, Bates recommends taking no more that 20 minutes to learn a piece of software, because time learning the tool is time taken away from learning the content. As I mentioned in my video reflection, I was required to purchase Bates and Sangra’s (2011) Managing technology in Higher Education: Strategies for transforming teaching and learning for my first MET course, so returning to Bates in my last course underlined a unified vision in my MET experience.
So, just when I was getting comfortable with my knowledge of educational technologies thanks to the consistency of Bates, the Porto (2015) article on LMSs threw a curveball and let me know that things change very quickly in this field. In past MET courses, I had spend a great deal of time and effort analysing and evaluating different LMSs. Hearing that even the term LMS might be passé when most of my work colleagues have never even heard it yet came as quite a shock! The article basically argues that LMSs are limiting, that students should be able to use a wide range of tools available on the web for education, including social media. I used to work a school that used an LMS called Schoology, for free initially but later with expensive licensing fees. This year, the entire board has made Google Classroom available, an LMS in it’s own right but which, being Google, allows for freer interaction with the web at large.
In week 4, we began our case studies, so besides helping the hypothetical Lenora with her problem of building a website with little knowledge or web access, I feel like I established a great working relationship with Victoria Olson, whom I had “known” (without ever actually having met face-to-face) from a previous course. I now consider Victoria to be an essential part of my Personal Learning Network, as she helped me immeasurably with my Moodle course.
Week 5 saw the introduction of the controversial topic of BYOD, another theme that keeps coming up in MET but differs from others in that the public at large is very aware of this issue as well. I have written extensively on this in the past, but would just like to add that radiation is still a concern for me. I personally still use an iPhone 4, and I’m reluctant to get a personal electronic device for my children (who are still 5 and 9 years old) and intend to avoid it as long as I can, despite almost being a Master of Educational Technology! I see friends whose children have their own iPads and I see the tantrums when these children are separated from their devices.
The sixth week concentrated on synchronous and asynchronous communication, something I really hadn’t thought about before taking this course but now find myself thinking about daily. I just got an email on my phone. It’s on my phone, so I could respond synchronously, but it’s an email, so the sender thinks of it as asynchronous. Do I need to respond immediately? For the case study I role-played and answered as Trinh, again trying to bring a more outside-the-box approach to discussions.
Week 7 brought the Anderson reading (2008), something I had also encountered earlier in MET, but needed a refresher on. The ideas of community-centred, assessment-centred, knowledge-centred and learner-centred keep coming up through course colleagues, professors and readings and are another important way of categorizing learning to keep in mind when choosing and evaluating different learning technologies.
Week 8 involved assessment. This was about the time I began working on my course in earnest, so the Bates (2014) and Gibbs and Simpson (2005) readings had a strong influence on the assessments I included in my course. For example, Gibbs and Simpson pointed out that multiple choice questions don’t necessarily lead to shallower learning; it depends on how students prepare (p. 15). Because my course is more of a general interest course than an academic one, some multiple choice wouldn’t hurt as students aren’t engaging in the activities to get the best scores, but hopefully just because they are enjoyable in and of themselves.
In the discussion in week 9 I found myself taking a position that I figured might not be popular in MET, namely that education ought to keep its nose out of certain social media because we all need places and spaces where we don’t need to think too hard, don’t need to deeply analyse, revise and question our work before posting, and can just relax and have fun. Not that social media need be kept out of schools entirely, but that thick lines should be drawn, not just for students but for teachers as well. A few of my colleagues seemed to concur that Twitter was more of a professional space while Facebook remained more social.
Week 10 got more into questions of intellectual property, which I mentioned earlier. During week 11, I mostly concentrated on creating my digital story and discussed certain frustrations with getting my subtitled text over the images as I had wanted in iMovie. I realized through participation in the discussions that others had allowed the medium to shape their message, while I stubbornly stuck to the idea of my message and manipulated the medium as much as possible to fit it.
I am wondering why the discussion suddenly shifted from WordPress back to Blackboard in week 11. As mentioned in my video reflection, I found navigating between two different platforms confusing. If I was on one platform, I’d question what I might be missing on the other, until I’d become comfortable in one and stop checking the other, only to find out I had missed something!
I will admit that I didn’t get very in depth into the readings last week, though I am fascinated by MOOCs and, since I will soon be done with MET, should have more time to delve into some. I started taking one from MOMA on teaching art a couple of years ago, and though I didn’t complete the course, I gleaned some useful lesson ideas that I actually used with my class at the time.
Well, it’s been quite a ride, and now to post my last MET post ever! There will be a lot I’ll miss about this program but I look forward to new challenges, and know that I can never really stop working if I hope to remain concurrent with these ever-changing educational technologies.
References
Anderson, T. (2008a). Towards a theory of online learning. In T. Anderson & F. Elloumi (Eds.), Theory and practice of online learning. Edmonton AB: Athabasca University. Retrieved from http://www.aupress.ca/books/120146/ebook/02_Anderson_2008-Theory_and_Practice_of_Online_Learning.pdf
Bates, T. (2014). Teaching in digital age http://opentextbc.ca/teachinginadigitalage/(Chapter 8 on SECTIONS framework)
Bates, T., & Sangra, A. (2011). Managing technology in higher education: Strategies for transforming teaching and learning. John Wiley & Sons.
Gibbs, G., & Simpson, C. (2005). Conditions under which assessment supports students’ learning. Learning and Teaching in Higher Education, 1(1), 3-31. Retrieved from: http://www.open.ac.uk/fast/pdfs/Gibbs%20and%20Simpson%202004-05.pdf
International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE). (2008). Standards for teachers. Retrieved from: http://www.iste.org/standards/standards-for-teachers
Nel, C., Dreyer, C., & Carstens, W. A. M. (2010). Educational technologies: A classification and evaluation. Tydskrif vir letterkunde, 35(4), 238-258. Retrieved from: http://www.ajol.info/index.php/tvl/article/download/53794/42346
Porto, S. (2015). The uncertain future of Learning Management Systems. The Evolllution: Illuminating the Lifelong Learning Movement. Retrieved from: http://www.evolllution.com/opinions/uncertain-future-learning-management-systems/