I always find it interesting to look back at my goals from the beginning of the course and reflect on what I have accomplished during these last 13 weeks. I had many goals this course and they were:<\/p>\n
I believe I have accomplished many of these goals through this course. I certainly learned about LMS and specifically I learned how to use Moodle. Learning how to use Moodle through making a mock course was very effective, as learning was situated in the environment in which it was meant to be used (Brown, Collins & Duguid, 1989). Not only did this help to learn how to use Moodle, but it was also instrumental in my development as an educator. It helped me think about how I wanted to structure the course and how I wanted to assess what was learned in the course. It made me reflect on my pedagogical beliefs, and how I would incorporate that into an online environment, restricted by the affordances of Moodle.<\/p>\n
Working within Moodle helped me to develop my ideas of what I would want in an ideal LMS. For example, from a course\u00a0editing perspective, I found the chart function not as user friendly as other programs such as Microsoft Word. I also found importing of images to be slightly cumbersome and would ideally like less steps each time I import images. I would also like to make the process of linking pages easier (through hyperlink). Perhaps it was my inexperience with the program which caused my inefficiency but once I hyperlinked one page, and gave it a title, it would be nice if linking it again would be an easier process.\u00a0I found I had to cut and paste the link each time which was time consuming. I wish moving around module was an easier process, such as a drag and drop. In this version, I had to make my own graphic interface but I wish there was an easier method to do this. I think my expectations for LMS could be further developed if I had the opportunity to be a student using Moodle. I had a chance to look at courses developed by my peers using Moodle, but experiencing a whole course would give me a whole different perspective.<\/p>\n
However, I was able to experience Connect and UBC blog as a student, and this also gave me some ideas. For example, I really liked the way the discussion forum was laid out in Connect compared to the blog site. I feel this had a direct impact on my motivation to read each post. I found it easy to look at discussions and reply in Connect whereas the blog made it more cumbersome. Once I read a discssuion thred in the blog site, I found it more difficult to get back to the posted page to look at another post. I also liked the video collaborate session, though my audio\/video kept cutting out. I`m not sure if it was a connection problem on my end or an issue with the LMS. I liked the alyout of the blog site over Connect. I found it easy to move from one module to the next and the badge system was an added bonus and motivator. I also really liked getting RSS and mobile access with the blog. Based on my experience, I would like an LMS that has the following:<\/p>\n
From\u00a0a course development perspective, I gained an appreciation for the importance of assessments. Given that student learning is most influenced by assessments, I will place a lot more effort\u00a0on this aspect of my teaching (Gibbs & Simpson, 2005). This includes the incorporation of frequent, useful feedback as well as group based projects.<\/p>\n
Bates` SECTIONS criteria was also a valuable tool I learned and used during this course, which I will surely use during my academic career (2014). The act of reflection and use of this tool during this course has critical in proving its usefulness and practicality.<\/p>\n
I am a commited life long learner, both in medicine and education. I will continue my education in Ed Tech by\u00a0 engaging in my remaining ETEC courses and by learning from my peers. As mentioned by many students in this course, I have found very useful information on\u00a0Ed Tech through social media. I plan to continue to read these feeds to\u00a0further my education in this field. Furthermore,\u00a0as I have taken on a\u00a0bigger role at our medical school as a course coordinator, I will\u00a0participate both at a\u00a0local level and national level in\u00a0medical education planning. This in turn will lead to\u00a0\u00a0will continued learning in Ed Tech that is specific to my field of interest.<\/p>\n
I believe that simulation will be a large component in medical education in the upcoming years. Therefore, I plan to further my knowledge in this area as well. I am conisdering a course out of McMaster University for this purpose. Of course, I think I will wait until I complete my MET courses first. Other technologies I am interested in are differnt forms of digital media. This course, including experiences of my classmate, has opened my eyes to the pedagogical possibilities of differnt forms of media and I hope to become familiar with them by using them and incorporating them into my classes. I think using them for my projects and classroom activities is the best way to learn to use these varied resources.<\/p>\n
As mentiond earlier, I am now a course coordinator for our undergraduate medical program. Our course has much to improve upon as it is rated quite poorly compared to other courses. I am hoping to use what I learned from this course to make improvements. Specifically, I would like to include more team-based learning activities, frequent formative assessments and feedback, and incorporate differnt forms of digital media. I believe this will lead to a greater level of engagement, and help with student learning. I plan to make substantial changes to the current form of assessment, which is single best answer multiple choice examination. I do not think this form of assessment achieves the learning outcomes I am looking for, which is higher order thinking skills specific to our field. None of our patients come to see us with a list of possible diagnoses of which we choose the best one, so why should our students be assessed in this manner? I will be making these changes this summer and starting the course in October of this year. I am exctied that I have an opportunity to apply what I have learned. I am aware that this will be an evolving process, in which my course will change from year to year as I gain more experience and recieve feedback from the students. I am hopeful that the changes I make will be in the positive direction and will help my students become competent physicians.<\/p>\n
I would like to take a moment to thank everyone in this course. I have learned immensly from their experiences and discussions. I find that my learning is takne to another level because they share their experiences with me through the course discussion forum. Finally, I find the level of engagement by Natasha to be another aspect of the course that I apprecite greatly and feel that it deserves mention. I have found that in some of my other ETEC courses, my instructors did not have the teaching presence that Natasha gave us and this added greatly to my learning experience.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
References<\/p>\n
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I always find it interesting to look back at my goals from the beginning of the course and reflect on what I have accomplished during these last 13 weeks. I had many goals this course and they were: learn about LMS in general Develop my own expectations for what I want in an ideal LMS […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19154,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1455701],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5371","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-assignment-4-synthesis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/ldash2015\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5371","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/ldash2015\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/ldash2015\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/ldash2015\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/19154"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/ldash2015\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5371"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/ldash2015\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5371\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5380,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/ldash2015\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5371\/revisions\/5380"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/ldash2015\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5371"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/ldash2015\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5371"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/ldash2015\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5371"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}