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A simulated email from Trinh to her student

Dear Randy,

I’m glad you are enjoying the course so far. As we say in our field, museums are not just for dinosaurs!

Some of the problems you mention are part and parcel of a distance learning experience with class colleagues in distant time zones. That being said, you’re right and I will try to make the course more flexible to meet people’s time constraints by making our guest lectures available asynchronously after they have been held live, along with the text of questions and answers that come up during these lectures. As for meeting with your colleagues in groups, I would encourage New Zealanders to make their own groups, and our South African and Finnish students to work together in another group since they are in the same time zone, unless one’s schedule is such that they would rather work at say, 7 AM than 7 PM (since N.Z. is 11 to 12 hours behind S.A. and Finland), in which case you might want to join a group from the opposite time zone. This should make it easier to meet synchronously with group members.

Lastly, because I’ve had several similar queries from other students, I hope you won’t mind me copying and pasting this response to the Q & A discussion board so others can see it? I would prefer that all such queries be posted there from now on, unless you would rather keep it private, in which case you can email me at trinh@uuu.edu. If you would rather meet in real time, please do email me and we can make an appointment via Skype or Google Hangouts. If you see a question from your peers that you can answer on the Q & A discussion board, please do so.

Thank you for your patience as we work out some of the inconsistencies in the course.

Sincerely,

Trinh

Some ideas for Trinh

I think there are a few things Trinh can do in her situation. The first thing I can suggest is that she make a forum on Blackboard where questions can be asked publicly, such as seen in our course. This way, if other students have the same question, they can refer to the relevant forum discussion. This will decrease some of the duplicated emails. Also I think she should be clear how she wants students to communicate with her so she does not have to check in so many places. She could encourage her students to use the forum unless its something they don’t want publicly posted, in which case she should give them ONE personal way of contacting her, such as her university email.

My second suggestion would be to use a live chat at the end of each guest lecture live-stream. I have participated in some live stream lectures with chat capability, which I found useful to clarify material or ask a question. This way the guest can answer some questions, taking some of the workload off of Trinh.

My third suggestion is to hold office hours where students ask questions via chat. Kind of like our Collaborate session over the weekend. She could also do it by video or audio but that might get a little crowded. She can then post the chat content so others can also look at it for reference. If students know there are office hours and it is convenient for them to ask questions during this time, it might decrease the number of emails she will receive.

Mobile Devices in the Legal Context

As I have mentioned in earlier posts, I work in Professional Development at a law firm. Our department runs both optional and mandatory CPD (Continuing Professional Development) programs for a wide range of audiences. Mobile devices are a staple at our firm. The firm issues devices to all lawyers, law students, and senior management (or they can opt to use their own phone with firm access). Despite the prevalence of mobile devices, they are often not incorporated into our learning programs.

The firm does not really have a position when it comes to using mobile devices in learning. It is a given that most (if not all) attendees will have their mobile devices at our programs. Lawyers especially like to be connected at all times and will often check their email during our programs. You will even see facilitators checking their phones during group activities. Sometimes I think this points to a lack of engagement, but often it is driven by workload. The downside of live sessions is that they will never be convenient for everyone. If you are in the middle of a large deal it is challenging to disconnect and focus on a CPD program.

In the past, we have used polling software like Poll Everywhere and Socrative at our programs and the feedback has been positive. Participants enjoy the real time results and like seeing how they stack up against their peers. I also think it adds a level of interest and “fun” to our programs. The main challenge when utilizing such technology is teaching facilitators how to use it. Our programs are typically delivered by SMEs and they have varying levels of comfort with technology. It is not always feasible to have a member of our team who is well versed in the technology at the program.

With that said, I think we are missing an opportunity by not utilizing mobile devices more. As the Ciampa article pointed out, mobile devices (when used properly) can lead to both intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. In the case of our lawyers, I see the extrinsic rewards being slightly more appealing: competition, cooperation, and recognition. We have found friendly competition and bragging rights to be highly motivating in the past. However, the Ciampa article talked a lot about learning apps and games. I don’t think there are any learning apps/games that would have content reflecting our firms’ procedures, standards, and expectations. The same (to a certain extent) can be said of social media. The firm’s social media and privacy policy make utilizing applications like Twitter a bit challenging.

Any suggestions of software/programs that can be used in a professional context?

References

Ciampa, K. (2013). Learning in a mobile age: An investigation of student motivation. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 30(1), 82–96.

Missing out on cool stuff

When I left from working in a high school, it was back in 2011. Our school policy at the time was that students were not allowed to be on their phones during class hours. The reasoning behind this decision from the administration was because we as an institution emphasised face-to-face communication and socializing as an element of the learning experience. While I suppose that teachers could have used their phones for learning purposes, not a lot did and I would assume that more than a few would feel it as contrary to the goal of the school to build community. However, when I left, the iPad had just come out and quite a few teachers/administrators were excited about the possibilities of the new device. It took the school until 2013 but they did end up implementing an iPad program for all the students. So there obviously a change took place within the administration’s idea about mobile learning technology. Coming from the tech support side of things, I could see many management and administrative obstacles with regards to going with a campus-wide mobile environment. Unfortunately I didn’t get a chance to be a part of that rollout.

Personally speaking though, mobile devices have really transformed my life as a student. It is really amazing to use my iPad to load up all my reading materials, plan out my schedule, and browse the web easily and seamlessly. I am a big advocate of using mobile devices and I look forward to seeing them mature in educational environments.

If Lenora builds it, they will come.

In short, yes, a website is the way to go.

Lenora has found Indigenous online communities of practice, such as Cradleboard, to be very helpful. In today’s world internet is the most useful to connect to other people, over long distances.

I noticed the Cradleboard Teaching Project Teacher’s Circle (http://www.cradleboard.org), is designed in a way which would work well on low bandwidth or dial-up internet connections. The site used frames, basic formatting, and is not media rich. Taking a simple approach to the anti-bullying website design would make the site more accessible even in remote regions.

The problem still remains, that Lenora does not have the skills to create her own website for the anti-bullying resources. There are a number of ways she could address this:

Lenora could ask others for help and support with her initiative. Since she is already participating in Indigenous online communities, that would be one place where she could ask, outside her regular connections.
She could approach SD 83 (North Okanagan) with her idea and ask if they can host or sponsor such an educational initiative.
Since the web site she needs is very basic, she could sign up to learn how to create basic web pages.
She could pay someone to do this for her.

For her purposes, print or other methods of broadcast communication will not be able to foster the type of connections that she could in an online community.

Lenora’s Anti-Bullying Resource

I went back and forth on whether an online medium is the best choice for Lenora. I’ve landed on yes, but not a new website. The reason I was torn is because of the dial-up internet. I’m sure Lenora is not the only person in her community (or in other indigenous communities) that struggles with internet access. With that said, Lenora would have a hard time reaching a larger audience using a print source. Further, a print resource would be more costly and harder to maintain. I created a pros and cons chart based on the SECTIONS model to weigh out Lenora’s options.

	Print Medium	Online Medium
Students	Limited by mailing list	Open to entire community
Ease of Use	Easy to reference once received	Require internet access
Cost	Printing cost	No cost (if use free platform)
Teaching/Media Selection	Images only	Various media formats
Interaction	No interactivity	Post comments & share links
Organizational Issues	Appropriate branding	Appropriate branding
Networking	No networking	Collaborative tools
Security	Can be shared	Can be shared

Since an online medium is more costly, reaches a larger audience, and allows for interactivity/ networking I think Lenora should pursue it further. However, because Lenora has no experience creating websites and has limited time, I think she should consider other online mediums. Three options I thought of are: a blog, an online newsletter, or adding content to existing online communities. While each of these options pose their own challenges, I think overall they will play to Lenora’s strengths and resources.

Blog

Sites like WordPress and Weebly allow you to create a blog for free and have very user friendly platforms. Lenora could develop a series of post relating to anti-bullying resources. She can also upload documents or embed links (which would be faster). Blogs also allow for open communication, so members of her community and comment and contribute their own stories/resources.

Newsletter

An online newsletter is a great way to share information without having to maintain an online platform. Lenora can draft the newsletter offline and embed documents within it. She can then circulate her newsletter to various indigenous communities.

Online Communities

Instead of creating a website from scratch, Lenora could add her content to already existing online communities (like Cradleboard). These communities already have a following which will allow her to reach a large audience. Further, she would not be responsible for maintaining the website.

References

Bates, T. (2014). Teaching in digital age http://opentextbc.ca/teachinginadigitalage/ (Chapter 8 on SECTIONS framework)

Edwin’s flight path

I have been working as a registered physiotherapist in Ontario for over 10 years with experience in a full range of clinical settings. Having worked in the following areas of rehabilitation which include acute care, inpatient, outpatient, community and private practice I have gained a solid understanding of the Canadian health system. I purposefully sought out a wide breadth of experience to broaden my perspectives of the health care system and my skills as a clinician. In addition to the common sprains and strains, I have treated conditions ranging from sports injuries, joint replacements, trauma, spinal cord injury, stroke, brain injury and amputees.

In my current role as physiotherapist on a large multidisciplinary team I am accustomed to close collaboration between disciplines. The traumatic brain injury patient population that I treat is complex and requires our team to work closely together to optimize outcomes. Individual acknowledgement is seldom sought and patient-centered goals are the team’s priority. With this experience, I am committed to dissolving the distinct division of disciplines when it comes to product development for patients and families. New ideas and innovations come from different perspectives and are unified by a common problem.

In pursuing my Master of Educational Technology I am determined to combine my clinical experience with my growing knowledge of information and communication technologies. With my clinical experience as a physiotherapist I have a solid foundation of empathy which will be valuable to approach design thinking to ensure commercialized products have true applicability and usefulness for patients and family members.

My goals for the MET program are to learn how to systematically evaluate health care problems as it pertains to patient and family education to determine what would be the most appropriate technology medium to solve that problem, if in fact technology is the solution. I would like to build my knowledge of the affordances of various technology systems and be able to make sounds decisions for technology use that is supported by pedagogy in the design and commercialization of products. Ultimately, I aspire to add value to a multidisciplinary team consisting of anyone from researchers, engineers, graphic designers, analyst, and marketing consultants on innovative healthcare technology products.

My goals for the ETEC 565A course are multifaceted. With regards to Learning Management Systems, I would like to learn how to set up a course and understand what is involved in tracking the participation of the enrolled students/patients in order to identify those that may need more support. Gaining practical experience working with an LMS will help to build my confidence to be able to transfer my knowledge when dealing with different LMS platforms (ISTE 2008, 3a ‘fluency in technology systems’). By actively building a course through an LMS I hope to improve my understanding and abilities in basic coding and learn novel ways of adding interactivities to a course which are not limited to simply watching and answering questions from embedded videos. I plan to deepen my understanding of how students/patients can interact with the material and cognitively process multimedia (Bates 2014, p283, 287).

From an assessment perspective, I would like to know how to ask the right questions to gain a sense of the needs of my students/patients in order to identify learning gaps. Developing the skills to create useful assessment tools in the form of tests or quizzes will allow me to determine the most valuable learning content to achieve learning objectives. Through the identification of learning gaps, I would like to be able to design into the learning management system a way of supporting the students/patients. This may take the form of feedback from the teacher or peer support from online collaborative tools. Through this approach I strive to achieve ‘prompt feedback’ and ‘cooperation among students’ (Chickering & Ehrmann 1996).

Learning how to use social software effectively to create a community of patients for shared support who are dealing with a common condition is another goal of mine. I would like to understand what the design factors that make them effective are and what are the factors that deter patients from using these collaborative spaces.

Lastly, I would like to expose myself to some new multimedia programs that I have not used before to improve engagement in learners and improve the design of online content. I will choose a select number to use for my own course design and gain exposure to others through viewing what my classmates have used.

The resources that I will need to master the chosen technologies are time experimenting with the technology (Chickering & Ehrmann 1996, Emphasizes Time on Task), money perhaps if the online resources are not free to create upon signing up and support from the course instructor and classmates who may be more familiar with certain aspects of the variety of technologies. I will need to put forth purposeful efforts to engage with the technologies and critically analyze my design decisions throughout this learning journey.

References

Bates, T. (2014). Teaching in digital age http://opentextbc.ca/teachinginadigitalage/ (Chapter 8 on SECTIONS framework)

Chickering, A. W., & Ehrmann, S., C. (1996). Implementing the seven principles: Technology as lever. American Association for Higher Education Bulletin, 49(2), 3-6. Retrieved from http://www.aahea.org/articles/sevenprinciples.htm

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

Pros and Cons

Pros and Cons: Synchronous and Asynchronous Discussion

While there are a variety of potential communication and collaboration spaces available via the Internet, for this module, we would like you to restrict yourself to working with those we have set up for your use in this course, directly in LMS. Both Moodle and BlackBoard Learn have some quite sophisticated tools built into their interface, making it possible to set up all manner of communications, ranging from internal mail to threaded discussions, to weblog-like forums and wiki-like collaborative writing spaces. As well, and as importantly, LMS provides some tools to help organize the flow of information within the course site as well as track the usage of tools. Both of these characteristics can be quite important for student management and basic information management (for students and teachers).

Take some time to explore the various communication tools within your selected LMS. You can find help resources in both platforms that will provide you with information on how to set up different kinds of communication. Do pay particular attention to some of the peer assessment tools that are now built into discussion forum options. The presence of such tools indicates that LMS developers are paying attention to how peer interaction can be supported within these communication tools.

In your group, complete the tables about benefits and drawback of synchronous and asynchronous communication. Start with adding only one benefit and one drawback of each, allowing other group members to add their own. If all members have done their part, you may add more.

This activity is not graded, but it is required. It will help you decide on your communication strategies for the Assignment #2: LMS Introductory Module. You will also reflect on it in your post on Assignment #2.

Due Sunday, February 14th 2016.

Review the other groups’ work and post your comments here. You don’t need to create a post, just write a comment if you have something to add to your group’s Pros and Cons, or you have a feedback for another group. These comments are optional.

Maple group

Oak group

Aspen group

Assignments and Tasks

The successful completion of ETEC 565A requires you to demonstrate educational development process, educational technology competence, and critical thinking skills. Your performance in the course will be based on the completion of assignments, work on your course in LMS, and reflecting on your assignments in your ePortfolio. Each component constitutes an important aspect of learning technology selection, design and application.

Not all components of your ePortfolio receive a score, but they are all mandatory. You will also receive summative qualitative feedback for each assignment: those that have a mark associated with them will also be quantitatively assessed. At the end of the course I will assess your final assignment and your synthesis reflection. Shortly after the conclusion of the course I will release your final assignment score—and overall course grade—via Connect‘s My Grades tool.

For each assignment or task, please see the detailed description and instructions under Introduction: Course Orientation/Overall Assessment.

Distribution of grades

Assignment and tasks	Grade
Flight path	not graded
Assignment #1: Online delivery platform evaluation rubric	15
Synchronous and asynchronous communication – wiki	not graded
Assignment #2: Intro module	25
Assignment #3: Content module, including a digital story	35
Assignment #4: Synthesis	10
Participation	15
Total	100