Author Archives: Véronique Brunet

Lifelong learner, techno-geek, educator, proud mother of two daughters, cooking enthusiast, proud franco-ontarian. Find me on Twitter @BrunetVeronique.

Final Synthesis – ETEC 565A – Véronique Brunet

Précis of flight path :

Twelve weeks ago, at the beginning of this course, my primary objective was to learn more about the selection process of appropriate and effective technology by educators, for learning.  I was hoping this course would broaden my views of different LMS and their purpose for online and hybrid learning. ETEC 565A provide me with an endless array of learning opportunities to pick up new technical skills and further refine my existing skill set which I drew upon the course of the program.

One of my goals for this course was to acquire the knowledge to be able to present some guidelines and criteria to my school board,  in order to enable them to make more educated choices when it comes to spending large amounts of money in technology for our schools.  Although I haven’t been as active in the forums as I would have wanted, with each week’s readings I learned more about the process of selecting technology for educational purposes.  I had weekly discussions with my colleagues, supervisors and with the educational technology committee at my board about what I was learning in this course and how it could help us find our path.  As a board, we need to “model digital age work and learning” (ISTE Standards, 2008 p. 1). Since January, we have had a collective reflexion on the board’s practices for selecting, purchasing and making technology available in our school.  While the IT department is still responsible for the purchase of technology, it is now up to the educational technology committee to evaluate and select technologies for the board.  This committee is formed of one teacher, one curriculum advisor, two ed-tech consultants, the IT director, the educational director, one school principal and one board supervisor.   The mandate of the committee has been clearly defined:  to set a long-term plan for the digital shift for the school board.

Social media was also a topic I wanted to know more about.  Although I use social media daily for personal and professional purposes, I am still unsure of its exact purpose and place in K to 12 education.  There is a huge debate when it comes to security and privacy in social media, especially for kids under the age of 18. So I thought Bates (2014) SECTIONS was very pertinent and allowed a complete evaluation process for selection of multimedia tools for education, since it addresses the security issues.  I still believe that not all educators have the knowledge to use all the criteria in Bates’ model.  Therefore, it is my belief that selecting proper tools or making social media use policies in school, should be issues that are addressed my heterogenous committees where educators, principals, administrators, and IT personnel can have a voice.

OVERALL ETEC-565A EXPERIENCE:

Overall, I found my ETEC experience to be an invaluable and a practical learning opportunity. I was able to explore and gain a better understanding of the tools that I would need to help guide me in the development of my Blackboard Connect online Course module.  I was able to learn about different LMS like Moodle and Connect, and compare them to the LMS I am currently working in (D2L) using valid criteria like Bates (2014) SECTIONS and Nel, Dreyer & Carstens’s (2010) primary and secondary criteria. Although Bates proposes a methodical model that can be used pretty easily by educators, Nel, Dreyer & Carstens’s model also resonated with me as it acknowledges the reality of educators who are too often left alone with poor background information to make multimedia selection decisions for their classrooms.

Weekly discussions, in the forum and with my colleagues at work offered a great deal of insight, support and inspiration throughout my learning process.  I did find it confusing at times to have to navigate between two platforms for this course.  I which the course was all held in one place, allowing me to make sure to follow all conversations. I liked that our instructor was very open-minded about her selection of a platform for this course and always had an open ear for comments, suggestions and concerns about this.  This contributed to creating a community of learners within the course (Prensky, 2010).

Creating an online course for an LMS isn’t something new for me, as it was my primary job for the past 5 years (at certain moments of this course, I wished I would have taken it five years ago, which would have made certain parts of my job so much easier).  I still learned a great deal from this assignment. At first, it felt awkward to me to start by designing as assessment while developing the introduction module of the course.  I struggled a great deal with this part of the assignment, not sure of what I needed to include in the assesement.  When I began working on the content module, I felt as if I knew exactly where I was going.  Having the assessment for the module designed before, gave me clear orientation for learning goals and teaching strategies (Wiggins, G. & McTighe, J, 1998, 2011).

Next Steps – #profdev

In my current role at the school board,  I will continue to be the voice of the literature and research on our educational technology committee, bringing light to the decision-making process by providing valuable information about what research has to say on multimedia tool selection and design. I will admit that not all decisions are taken at the board level.  Certain tool like a cloud based suite (our choice is now set on Office 365) have to be chosen my the board, but certain decisions are still in the hands of our schools and teachers.  For example, schools still hold their budget when it comes to computer or mobile device purchases.  And although the board supplies certain standard software, it is up tho the schools and/or teachers to select and purchase any other software or application they choose.  It is with that in mind that I am currently working on an evaluation rubric (based on Bates’ SECTIONS, 2014) that can help teachers select the best technologies to enable students to reach their learning goals.  I also want to work on creating a more collaborative culture in our schools and in our board.

Moving forward, I will certainly continue to be a lifelong learner. I have the opportunity to attend a few educational technology conference every year.  I have also dabbled with Twitter in the past, as I see the potential for developing a professional network (November 2012).  I would like to learn more about the use of social media (particularly Twitter) as a means of professional development and collaborative learning (Bates 2014).

Furthermore, I hope to deepen my knowledge and understanding of HTML authoring and digital video-creating and editing tool (although a very time consuming task, I enjoyed creating a digital story and agree it can be a powerful learning tool, especially in an online course).  I hope to achieve this goal through self-directed learning and by soliciting help and support from my professional network (which I will also be working on developing!).

References

Bates, T. (2014). Teaching in a digital age. Retrieved from http://opentextbc.ca/teachinginadigitalage/

Ciampa, K. (2013). Learning in a mobile age: An investigation of student motivation. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 30 (1), 82–96. Retrieved from http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jcal.12036/epdf

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

Prensky,  M. (2010). Teaching digital natives : Partnering for real learning. Thousand Oaks, USA: Corwin.

Wiggins, G., & McTighe, J. (1998). Understanding by design. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Merrill/Prentice-Hall.

Wiggins, G., & McTighe, J. (2011). Understanding by design guide to creating high quality units. Alexandria, VA: Association for supervision and curriculum development.

My Digital Story : Facts and Opinions and Assignement 3 Reflexion

Here is the digital story that will be intergrated in my Content module for an online Grade 7 English class.  In this module students have an opportunity to inquire about, synthesize, and respond to the role websites play in their lives. In this digital story, they will learn how to differenciate facts and opinions.  The activities in the module will help you to become more media literate around the online content with which they interact.

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Reflexion on Content Module – Véronique Brunet

Introduction

When I first began thinking about this assignment, I couldn’t help it but reflect on the group discussion we had in week 3 regarding Benoit’s decision in using either Blackboard or Moodle.  Part of the task was to estimate how much time Benoit would need to develop his online version of the course.

Although I had access to some course content from teaching this course myself, face-to-face and from the Educational resource bank of Ontario (Online resources for teachers provided and validated by the ministry of Education), this assignment helped me realize the effort and attention that is required in transitioning content from a face-to-face teaching to an online learning course.  The initial design process was similar to what I am used to in the classroom, a backward design approach (Wiggins, G. & McTighe, J, 1998, 2011).  After identifying learning goals for the module (Ontario Ministry of Education, 2008) I developed assessment strategies that would help me better assess student learning in order to provide valuable descriptive feedback. Then, when I began to develop content for the module, I realized that this step had to be far more rigorous than with face-to-face instruction since there is no teacher to adapt or make up for missing information in the course.

The Choice of LMS

Looking at Bates SECTIONS model, I chose Connect as an LMS for my content module. The first element I considered was time, as we had to do in week 3 of this course with Benoit’s decision.  Since I am already familiar with connect and with this type of LMS (I work in D2L daily), it would be timesaving to opt for this platform for design.  I also had in mind student demographics and ease of use.  The platform is accessible to anywhere with Internet access and fairly easy to use if a course is well designed.  It is also a secure environment for students to access.

Assessment

Since it is an online course, technology had to be an important part of the assessment strategies (ISTE, 2008). Many factors had to be taken into account when choosing which tools to use for assessment. I wanted to integrate technology seamlessly into the learning process in an authentic way to increase student engagement (Nel, C., Dreyer, C., & Carstens, W. A. M., 2010), therefore, my choice of tools were the discussion forum and the Wiki in Connect and My Site for blogging in O365. In order to support students that may not be familiar with those tools, I provided them with support documents and links placed where the tools (Discussion forum, Wiki, My Site) are used for the first time in the Module.

The discussion forum is used throughout the module and the course.  It is meant for students to collaborate and share ideas on different topics related to what they read and learn in the course.  It is meant to create a sense of community within students which can have a positive impact on student learning as literacy educator Frank Smith (1998) explains, children “ learn from the company they keep”. Wiki is also a tool that will be beneficial to allow students to co-create documents without having to go to an external tool.

Since it is a language course, students will be doing reading and writing and I wanted them to be able to do it in an authentic collaborative context. Almost 90% of 12 to 17-year-old teenagers use text messaging applications on their phone or post in social media (Lenhart et Al., 2008) and do not think of this type of communication as real writing. Therefore, I opted for the blog as a means for students in the course to publish their writing assignments, as well as for peer-to-peer assessment. With Bates (2004) model in mind, I opted for My Site in O365 for its ease of use for students but also because students will be able to keep everything they publish beyond the end of the course, as opposed to the blog in Connect.  My Site will also allow students to share posts with external users. Our board provides all of our students and staff with the cloud-based suite O365 which includes My Site, therefore, Grade 7 students will be familiar with its applications and functionalities.

I found it challenging to create a course that could be used for a Grade 7 online course in Ontario and that corresponded to all criteria for this assignment.  The assessment and evaluation process is very specific in Ontario (Ontario ministry of Education, 2008).  There is no breakdown of grades (like it is in post-secondary institutions or primary and secondary schools in other provinces).  In Ontario, teachers are expected to assess students’ learning through a wide range of methods (observations, conversations, productions).  Teachers cannot calculate an average (like 30% for assignments 1 and 20% for assessment 2 etc.).  The mode (so the most frequent grade) and teacher’s professional judgment are to be used to give students’ final grade.  Students are evaluated with grade levels (1 to 4) as per the evaluation criteria (that are co-constructed with students and added to the evaluation rubric).

Content and Presentation

I developed this content module with a group of Grade 7 students in mind.  These students are French speaking and are registered in an English course.  In Ontario, students can follow the English second language curriculum from grade 4 to grade 6.  When they get to grade 7, they have to follow the regular English language curriculum which can be challenging for students in most areas of our school board.

One of the things I found challenging when creating the content module was deciding what to include in terms of introductory information at the beginning of the module. Unlike a face-to-face class setting, where students are able to ask questions for clarification immediately, in an online setting one must anticipate what might be more difficult for the students. Therefore, it seemed necessary to decide which type of information may be required to provide students with sufficient background information prior to their independent or collaborative learning activities, such as readings, blogging and discussions. Bates (2014) states that it is important make relevant core information easily available to students when designing a course. For this reason, I included a brief introduction at the beginning of the module and of each activity.  To differentiate for students that are still struggling with language, I included a written and a video introduction. This allowed me to give an overview of the important content and tasks students have to accomplish and present the different tools that will be used.

In his article, Bates (2014) discusses the importance of student learning preferences. I wanted to include instructional material using video, text, images, interactive learning activities and the digital story as a means to provide a “range of options for students learning” (Bates, 2014).

According to Chow et al. (2012), high school students tend to scan online material when seeking information. Therefore, I paid close attention to how much text I included in each of the topics’ overview, making sure that only relevant material was being presented in order to avoid overwhelming students with too much information.

Reflection: A Digital Story

Creating a digital story was an interesting assignment. What I liked most about it was how it focused on creativity and allowed me to experiment with a variety of technologies. The effectiveness of a digital story depends on the actual story is to be told and how its author wants to present it (Boase, n.d.) trying to tell and how you present it.

I found it difficult to find a topic for my digital story in a language course.  I absolutely wanted to avoid creating something that would be strictly descriptive or instructional, the story had to mean something and have a purpose in the module. Once I decided on my storyline, I then had to choose the proper tool to create it.

My goal was to create a story that would be interesting and appropriate for the students’ age group and that would have them reflect on the importance of differentiating facts and opinions in their everyday life and in what they read and see on the Internet.

Why was this the right tool for you to use to tell your story, from a pedagogical perspective? How did you purposefully select this for your storytelling tool, in pedagogical terms?

Deciding which tool to use to create my story was a learning experience on its own because it forced me to try various software and programs in searching for the right one. Using Bates’ SECTIONS (2014) proved to extremely useful once again in helping me to organize my ideas and rationalize my choice to use GoAnimate for Schools for the most part of this project. Here is a rational of my analysis using Bates model:

  • Student: When considering the audience, I wanted to find a tool that would enable me to create something that was appropriate and engaging for a young teenager. I wanted my digital story to be told from a teenager’s perspective, so, it also needed to incorporate either cartoons or animation. Furthermore, students will have to create a digital story themselves in another module, so, GoAnimate for Schools was easy to use enough for students to use it in their own digital story later.
  • Ease of use: In order to tell my story, I needed a program that would allow me to animate cartoons easily, without too much animation experience, add voices, create a setting and add sound effects and music. This was easily achieved in GoAnimate as sounds could be quickly uploaded and a good variety of images for cartoons and settings were provided with GoAnimate. Adding items was as easy as a simple click and drag to where I wanted them in the timeline. I was also able to edit the duration of each scene. One downside to GoAnimate is that the automated voices, Voxal Voice Changer.  Using the free version of this software, I was able to record my own voice and modify it to adapt to the characters in my story.  Then I could import the recordings in GoAnimate. GoAnimate is pretty straight forward to use.  I had created one animation with it before and never had to consult any tutorials.Overall, when considering the ease of use, Go Animate was intuitive and did not require a lot of time to learn how to use it.
  • Cost: GoAnimate For Schools is a Web-based program. A 14-day trial period is available.  A single teacher can purchase a yearly subscription for 59$.  Class subscriptions are also available so students can create and share their animated videos.  My school already had a subscription to GoAnimate for schools, which made it a very affordable option for this assignment.

 

How would this story work within a course that you teach (or would like to teach) based on pedagogical arguments?

I think this story would work within the course for various reasons. Students are bombarded with information on the web, on social networks, on television.  It is essential that they develop the ability to think critically about the information in front of them.  In this first module, students are learning about Internet and media literacy.  It is important that they are able to discern fact from an opinion in order to understand an author or a person’s perspective on a subject so they are able to think about it critically. The digital story will provide students with a different learning opportunity that would enable them to visually create meaning (Dreon et al., 2011) and engage with the content early on in the course. I believe this video could be useful in facilitating the learning process by providing students with visual aids with which they can create links between what they see and what they’ve read in a text.

By using this story, it would provide students with a different approach to learn some of the material and in turn, could help accommodate the varying learning styles or preferences (Bates, 2014). Furthermore, using media that engage more senses can help students make meaning from the experience and can facilitate the construction of new knowledge, making the lesson more memorable.

Conclusion

Overall, I found this assignment to be extremely useful in applying some of the knowledge acquired in this course. The assignment’s criteria (like the digital story) not a guided me in the project and encouraged me to step outside my comfort zone and experiment with new technologies.  I enjoyed the creativity this assignment allowed me while still being a valuable learning experience.

 

References

Bates, T. (2014). Teaching in a Digital Age (Chapter 8 on SECTIONS framework). Retrieved from http://opentextbc.ca/teachinginadigitalage

Boase, C. (n.d.). Digital storytelling for reflection and engagement: a study of the uses and potential of digital storytelling [PDF Document]. Retrieved from https://gjamissen.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/boase_assessment.pdf

Chow, A. S., Smith, K. M., & Sun, K. (2012). Youth as Design Partners: Age-Appropriate Websites for Middle and High School Students. Educational Technology & Society, 35(3), 402-422.

Dreon, O., Kerper, R. M., & Landis, J. (2011). Digital Storytelling: A Tool for Teaching and Learning in the YouTube Generation. Middle School Journal, 42(5). Retrieved from http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ934075.pdf

International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE). (2008). Standards for teachers. Retrieved from http://www.iste.org/standards/standards-for-teachers

Lenhart, A., Arafeh, S., Smith, A., & Macgill, A. R. (2008). Writing, technology and teens. Washington, DC: Pew Internet & American Life Project.

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

Ontario Ministry of Education. (2008). Growing success: Assessment, evaluation and reporting: Improving student learning. Toronto.

Smith, F. (1998). The book of learning and forgetting. New York: Teachers College Press.

Wiggins, G., & McTighe, J. (1998). Understanding by design. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Merrill/Prentice-Hall.

Wiggins, G., & McTighe, J. (2011). Understanding by design guide to creating high quality units. Alexandria, VA: Association for supervision and curriculum development.

Mobile device policies in Ontario

There has been a shift in mindset toward the use of technology in K-12 classrooms in Ontario.  In fact, the provincial ministry of education has led different research projects studying the link between the use of different types of technologies for learning and student engagement and achievement (Jenson, 2011; Shields, 2012; Shields, 2013).  The conclusions drawn in these published study reports state that in classes where technology was used to enhance student learning, teachers noticed a renewed student engagement and better overall achievement (Shields, 2013).  This has led to new initiatives by the government to support the purchase and use of mobile technologies in all Ontario English and French school boards.

My school board was not ready for this.  Large sums of money were received for the purchase of mobile devices and improvement of our infrastructure (i.e. Wi-fi access in schools, improvement in bandwidth, etc.).  Most of our schools now have a Wi-fi network reserved for the board’s mobile devices and another (very limited) Wi-fi network for students and teachers personal devices.  The school board’s official has not yet revised its policies (it is a work in progress), therefore, it is still forbidden for students to use their cellphones in our schools.  Some schools don’t enforce the policy,  some schools do.  It becomes very challenging for teachers that want to use technology for learning projects in their classrooms but don’t have enough devices for all their students.  Since there is not yet a defined policy, our schools are very heterogenous when it comes to technology.   Some school principals have put aside important parts of their school budget to purchase mobile devices for students.  Some schools prefer to wait for an official policy from the board.

We have a lot of challenges, but the two greatest ones are to create a flexible policy for the use of mobile devices that will allow teachers to have a clear view of the board’s vision.  Since we are further north of the province, access to proper Internet speeds (bandwidth) is also a big issue and a big investment (if we compare with boards in the south who can choose from a variety of internet providers).

 

References

Jenson, J., Taylor, N., & Fisher, S. (2011). Critical review and analysis of the issue of “skills, technology and learning”. Retrieved from https://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/research/Jenson_ReportEng.pdf

Shields, C. (2012). A shifting landscape: pedagogy, technology, and the new terrain of innovation in a digital world. Retrieved from https://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/research/Shifting_LandscapeE.pdf

Shields, C. (2013). Extending the Landscape and Enlarging the Vision: Pedagogy, Technology, and Innovative Practices in a Digital World. Retrieved from https://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/research/Extend_LandscapeE.pdf

Reflexion on Group assignment #1

Our group’s evaluation rubric can be consulted here.

Group work

Carrying out this first assignment allowed me to pose a critical judgment on my school board’s LMS, or which I am the administrator.  All team members collaborated well in order to complete this task.  At first, we had an asynchronous brainstorming session in our group’s discussion Forum section of Connect.  It was a challenging task for us because of the different time zones.  We were never able to have a synchronous work session.  I was impressed at how, even though we were working asynchronously, all team members contributed ideas for our evaluation rubric.  After doing some research to see what already existed, we opted for an evaluation rubric similar to the ones teachers co-construct with students to better guide them in assignments and evaluation.

Our Rubric

We opted to construct our rubric around the criteria from SECTIONS (Bates, 2014).  We felt like Bates addressed most of the imports points that needed to be considered to thoroughly evaluate which  LMS would best suit Athabaska University’s needs.  We then took selected components from SECTIONS that applied to our scenario.  We included a 4 points scale to allow the ad hoc committee evaluation the different LMS to pin point how effectively it met each criterion (4= exceeds expectations, 1= does not meet expectations).   When selecting evaluation criteria for our rubric, we considered the upcoming expansion of Athabasca University’s programs to the South Asian Market. The main concern was accessibility, which is addressed with the Student component of the SECTIONS model.

References

Bates, T. (2014). Teaching in a Digital Age/ (Chapter 8 on SECTIONS framework). Retrieved January 29, 2016 fromhttp://opentextbc.ca/teachinginadigitalage

If I were in Benoit’s shoes…

Before I could make a definite decision between both LMS, I would have a couple of questions to ask Benoit and his head of department.

Questions and concerns

As a teacher, I firmly believe that pedagogy and student learning should always come first which are primary criteria for evaluating technology use in education (Nel, Dreyer & Carstens, 2010).  Therefore, my first question would be for Benoit: What teaching and learning strategies will be put forward in the course?  The answer to this question would help me evaluate the potential of both platforms.  If socio-constructivist strategies are to be used, the need for an LMS that would allow synchronous and asynchronous communications would certainly be beneficial.  Collaboration tools like wikis and blogs would also be important.  Would one platform offer more flexibility than the other for a wider variety of teaching strategies? (Coates, James & Baldwin, 2005: 27)

My second concern is time.  As I have developed online courses in the past (both design and content), I know that it can be very time consuming.  Therefore, it would be best to choose an LMS that Benoit could be most efficient with and have support along the way.  Solely based on this criteria, I would have to say that Blackboard could be a good option, especially since Benoit is familiar with WebCT (which is similar).  The wide IT support offered for Blackboard users will also be most useful and timesaving when comes the time to upload content in the LMS.  It would also be important to know, since Blackboard is the University’s official LMS, if templates or guides are available to help Benoit develop the course material.  Working with models or templates can significantly contribute in reducing his workload allowing him to focus on the pedagogy rather than the technical aspects of the course. (Coates, James & Baldwin, 2005: 22)  Without being able to answer these questions, it is difficult to estimate how much time Benoit will need to develop his course.  Based on my experience in the field, I would say that it will most likely take him a whole term to design the course and develop content.

My last concern and question is in regards to ease of use. What LMS will students be more comfortable with?  According to Bates (2014) SECTIONS model, students should spend no longer than 20 minutes learning the technology in order to concentrate on learning rather the technical issues related to media and technology.  If Blackboard is the official LMS for the University, would students be more familiar with its functionalities then with Moodle’s?

Choosing between both LMS

Before making a choice, Benoit will have to find answers to the questions mentioned above.  Then, considering key factors like the teaching strategies he wants to use, the time and IT support that is needed to develop the course and the ease of use of the LMS for both teacher and student, he will be able to make a decision.

References:

Bates, T. (2014). Teaching in a digital age. Retrieved from http://opentextbc.ca/teachinginadigitalage/

Coates, H., James, R., & Baldwin, G. (2005). A critical examination of the effects of Learning Management Systems on university teaching and learning. Tertiary Education and Management, 11,(1), 19-36. http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11233-004-3567-9

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

Véronique’s Flight Path for ETEC 565A

A little bit about me and my experience

I am from a very small, mostly francophone, city in north-eastern Ontario.  I was born and raised here.  After completing my Bachelor’s degree in history and bachelor’s degree in Education, I started working as a French and history teacher for the French Catholic school board.  Technology has always played a role in my classroom even if this was not the case for most teachers in my school.  I saw myself in the description of the “Lone Ranger” described in Nel, Dreyer and Carstens’ article, making choices of technology and media based solely on my experience and intuitions.  Five years later, I was hired by CFORP (an enterprise dedicated to developing French resources for teachers in Ontario and across Canada) as an online course designer and developer and later, a project manager.  I was very knowledgeable when it came down to teaching strategies and curriculum but LMS was a new tool to learn.

Over the next 5 years I worked on designing and developing (but not implementing) over 20 online courses for the Ontario ministry of education.  Although I had to comprehend the inner workings of an LMS (for design and development purposes), I never had to actually use the LMS since programmers would import the developed content in the LMS for us.  For the past 2 years I’ve been working as a teacher consultant and e-learning contact in my original school board. I play three different roles: I model how to effectively integrate technology in the classroom for K to 12 teachers, I manage our school board’s LMS (D2L/Brightspace) which is provided by the ministry of education and I’m part of the board committee dedicated to renewing our vision and creating a long-term plan that takes into account the changes in education brought by the digital era (Prensky, 2010).

My Goals for This Course (or perhaps MET)

I will start this section by saying that I love my job because it is a blend of all the things that I like about education: collaboration, learning, teaching and technology.  When I applied to the MET program, it was because I wanted to gain more knowledge and competencies that would make me better at my job.  I can say that which each course that I take, I can see that I am improving at what I do, I am becoming a better and more knowledgeable leader in my field.

By the end of this course, I would like to present my board with some guidelines and criteria that can help them make more educated choices when it comes to spending large amounts of money of technology for our schools.  At present, technology and media are being approved solely by the IT department who don’t have any guidelines to base their decision on (they basically say yes or no to a purchase based on gut feeling or solely on the technical aspects, pedagogy is never part of the equation).

I also want to know more about different LMS and how they compare with one another.  I know D2L/Brightspace from top to bottom but am not familiar (except from a student standpoint) with other LMS like Moodle and Connect.  A question I often get from teachers is “Why should I use our school board’s LMS instead of [fill with the name of some other technology or LMS name]?” I try to answer the best I can but I am hoping this course can help me better articulate the pros and cons of using and LMS to enhance student learning in K to 12 classrooms.

Social media is a huge debate amongst K to 12 educators.  Some say to stay as far away from it as possible as others think that it is an absolute necessity.  I am somewhere in the middle of that spectrum.  In my opinion, social media is a very important tool that the teacher should comprehend and possibly use as one of many teaching strategies.  Social media can allow educators and students to do things that would be otherwise impossible like following an author on Twitter and ask him questions about his novel (and get a response!), collaborating with students from across the province to create an original song (iStudio project in Ontario) and so much more.  I realize that there must be some concerns when it comes to social media, the main concern being security and privacy (Bates, 2014). But what if we educate our students about digital citizenship?  Does this criterion become less of a concern?

References

Bates, T. (2014). Teaching in a digital age. Retrieved from http://opentextbc.ca/teachinginadigitalage/

Chickering, A.W., & Ehrmann, S.C., (1996). Implementing the seven principles: Technology as lever. American Association for Higher Education Bulletin, 49(2), 1-6. Retrieved from http://www.aahea.org/aticles/sevenprinciples.htm

International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE). (2008). Standards for teachers. Retrieved from http://www.iste.org/standards/standards-for-teachers

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