Artifacts
Artifacts
Artifacts
Included in this section are three significant artifacts that represent my learning journey in the MET program and relate to my metaphor. These artifacts have impacted me as a life-long learner and an educator. They reflect my purpose and growth of my ePortfolio. I chose the following three artifacts to represent my journey of transformative learning and application.
“One’s mind, once stretched by a new idea never regains it original dimensions.”
Oliver Wendell Holmes
Artifact 1- ETEC 531- Digital Story
ETEC 531 I Am An Artist (please click on the title to link to artifact #1a)
I chose this digital story as my first artifact as it helps me to analyze what art means to me. Throughout the story I explore how I see myself in the world in terms of an amateur photographer who captures and displays various structures and earthly treasures through technological medias. This digital story explores the question,” Am I an Artist?” The platform that I use to present ‘I am an Artist’ is Animoto. It is a fun, easy to navigate software that promotes creativity, yet does all the html. programming.
I am looking forward to experimenting with Animoto on a personal level, as well as in the classroom. ETEC 531 was one of my favourite courses that stimulated lively and thought provoking conversation, as well as personal reflections about “Culture and Technology.”
ETEC 565 Leslie’s Digital Story (please click on the title to link to artifact #1b)
I took ETEC 565 at the same time as ETEC 531. This elective course was a challenge for me and as Vygotsky would have said, ” A learner needs to be in their zone of proximal development.” However, I did create another Photostory. This Animoto digital story focused on me as a teacher, which is my precious pearl. The technology that Animoto offers makes creating stories fun and exciting. I thoroughly enjoy exploring my creative side with the affordances of this technology.
Theory
Using today’s technology to tell yesterday’s stories for tomorrow’s generations is a well worded description of digital storytelling. Digital stories support literacy in primary years. It is also the introduction (knowledge scaffolding strategies) to dynamic processes used in reflective ePortfolios.
I find this statement by Helen Barrett (2009) appropriately descriptive and supportive of the value of digital stories. “Rhetorically, a digital story is a personal narrative that may show the author’s identity: strengths, weaknesses, achievements, disappointments, learning experiences, passions, and hopes for the future; in other words: reflection.”Digital Storytelling is appropriately described as…….. the modern expression of the ancient art of storytelling. Digital stories derive their power by weaving images, music, narrative and voice together, thereby giving deep dimension and vivid color to characters, situations, experiences, and insights. – Leslie Rule, Digital Storytelling Association.
Transformation and Application
I use digital storytelling with my grade ones in a whole group project base learning activity. Students take pictures of their favourite place at school, write and illustrate their story and then orally record their story in Photo Story 3. This represents digital literacy in a constructivist environment of learning. It is a gem in my learning and teaching. It is my pearl.
Artifact 2- ETEC 512 -Personal Learning Theory
ETEC 512Personal Learning Theory, Revisited final (please click on the title to link to artifact #2)
My Personal Learning Theory has evolved as I have journeyed through the MET program. It has become the foundation with which theoretical knowledge about how children learn has been built. This knowledge building has been scaffold to become transformative in my teaching practices and it has helped me make informed decisions as to best educational pedagogy.
Creating a Concept Map of learning theories has helped me to think about how I am providing a learning environment that addresses those learners who respond well to goals and incentives, behaviorism; an environment that provides interactivity and collaboration, designed with Vygotsky in mind; as well as modeling and discovery as per social learning and activity theory.
Theory
These theories combined with my previous knowledge of Piaget, Pavlov and Skinner clarify that learning occurs in environments that address and foster multi-layered approaches, much like the layering in the creation of a pearl. One important consideration that is foremost in my teaching and assessing is determining what are the best learning environments for my class of diverse learners. As stated by Olsen, D. & Bruner, J. (1995) it is to “explore more general ways in which learners’ minds are conventionally thought about, and the pedagogical practices that follow from these ways of thinking about mind.”
Transformation and Application
It has helped me to look at the learning goals I want for my students. My hope is for them to become self-regulators who develop critical thinking skills, self-esteem, problem solving abilities, reflective practices and inquiring minds. By understanding learning theories and the affordances of online learning, as per Anderson, T. (2008) my teaching goal is to help facilitate a lifelong love of learning for my students. My Concept Map is a multi-layer of interconnecting learning theories and linking of my understanding to their applications, much like how the nacre is linked from one layer to the next in the process from transforming a grain of sand into a pearl.
Artifact 3 – ETEC 500 – Research Paper
ETEC 500 Literature Review final copy (please click on the title to link to artifact #3a)
Writing a Literature Review was a very interesting and enlightening exercise in examining relevant and supportive studies that I could use in my Research Proposal. I find critiquing and reviewing a learned skill that I am more confortable with now. Critical thinking and inquiry are constructivist skills that I use in my classroom teaching. My hope is that my learners develop a questioning practice in their learning and make connections and applications to their real life experiences.
ETEC500 Research Proposal (please click on the title to link to artifact #3b)
My research proposal came about after many long hours of thinking, pondering and labouring over what to do. Finally, after going through the process of formulating ideas, it occurred to me that I needed to focus and reflect on my purpose for taking the MET journey. I decided to take this amazing journey so that I could transform my learning into best teaching practices. Also, to answer my original question, “To what extent does one integrate technology in a grade one classroom and what activities produce collaborative scaffold learning that support curriculum objectives?”
Theory
My research proposal question looks at the effectiveness of collaboration and technology. “Does student collaboration with software on laptops raise student understanding and interest?” As long ago as 1916, John Dewey referred to interaction as the defining component of the educational process that occurs when the student transforms the inert information passed to them from another, and constructs it into knowledge with personal application and value (Dewey, 1916). Simply put, Dewey wrote, “learning is a social activity” (Smith, K.A. 2006). Collaboration is a purposive relationship (Schrage,1991). According to Tom Boyle of British Telecom, we are in an age of interdependency and that one’s ability to make connections and collaborate with others is now more important than individual intelligence (Cohen et al., 2001). It helps me to examine and put into practice this constructivist strategy; especially now taking ETEC 530 on Constructivism.
Transformation and Application
My discovery that two learners on one computer promotes knowledge building, as well as helps to strengthen understanding of the affordances of the software helps me recognize the positive elements of constructivist strategies to use in my teaching practices. One article that helps me synthesize exploring collaboration with digital devices is “Cooperative Learning and Computer Supported Intentional Learning Experiences,” Sherman, L.W. (2000). My understanding transforms from theory into practice with a new pedagogical perspective. My belief that every child needs a computer under went cognitive dissonance. After completing my research paper and taking MET courses I now see situations where two students per one computer enhances and supports learning. My grain of sand is transforming from the layering of new ideas and applications to the beautiful lustre of a pearl.
References
Anderson, T. (2008). Toward a theory of online learning. In T. Anderson & F. Elloumi (Eds.) Theory and Practice of Online Learning, Chapter 2 (pp. 45-74). Available online at: http://www.aupress.ca/books/120146/ebook/02_Anderson_2008_Anderson-Online_Learning.pdf
Barrett, H. C., Ph.D. (2009). Electronic Portfolios as Digital Story of Learning-Digital Storytelling as Reflective Portfolios. Center for Digital Storytelling. Retrieved January 17, 2012. http://electronicportfolios.org/
Cohen et al., (2001). In Good Company: How social capital makes organizations work. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Business School Press. Retrieved March 10, 2012.
Chalmers, C. & Nason, R. (2003). Developing Primary Students’ Group Metacognition Processes in a Computer Collaborative Learning Environment.
Kuswara, A. & Richards, D. ( 2008-2009). Matching the Affordances of Wikis to Collaborative Learning : A Case Study of IT Project Students. Proceedings of the 44th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences- 2011
Miller, P. H. (2002). Vygotsky’s socio-cultural approach. In Theories of Developmental Psychology, 4th ed. (pp. 367-396). New York: Worth.
Moon, J. Reflection in Higher Education Learning. University of Exeter. LTSN Generic Centre.PDP Working Paper 4.
Poris, Steven. (1997). Effects of Computer –Based Cooperative Learning on the Problem Solving Skills of Grade Six Students. School of Computer and Information Sciences Nova Southeastern University. ISBN: 1-58112-101-6
Resta, P. & Laferriere T. (2007).Technology in Support of Collaborative Learning. Educ Psychology Rev, DO1 10.1007’s10648-007-9042-7
Seymour, S. (1994). Operative Computer Learning with Cooperative Task and Reward Structures. Journal of Technology Education. Vol. 5 No.2 Spring 1994.
Sherman, L. W. (2001). Cooperative Learning and Computer-Supported Intentional Learning Experiences. In (Chris Wolfe, editor), Learning and Teaching on the World Wide Web. San Diego, CA: Academic Press, 113-130.
Schrage, M. (1991). Shared MInds: The new technologies of collaboration. Retrieved March 10, 2012.
Siemens, G. (2004), A Learning theory for the Digital Age. Retrieved November 10, 2011, from http:// www.elearningspace.org/Articles/connectivism.,
Smith, K.A. (2006). Pedagogies of Engagement; Preparing Students for an Interdependant World. Engineering Education- Purdue University, Annual Conference on Case Study Teaching in Science. Retrieved, March 10, 2012.
Willoughby, T. Wood, E. Desjarlais, M. Williams, L. Leacy, K. Sedore, L. (2009). Social Interaction During Computer-based Activities: Comparisons by Numbers of Sessions, Gender, School-level, Gender Composition of the Group and Computer-child Ratio. Springer Science & Business Media, LLC 2009. DO1 10 1007/s11199-009=9687-4
