ETEC 510-  Design of Technology Supported Learning Environments

“Students in this course learn to 1) use different theories of learning to examine models of instructional design and 2) apply what they have learned to their own educational settings. This is a course that truly blends theory and practice as a way of illustrating an optimal learning environment.” UBC MET Program.

ETEC 510 was a very interesting course that supported theory, as well as provided opportunities to experiment with digital tools in an educational format. It helped me think about how the design spaces support collective intelligence.

I learned to contribute and edit a wiki while thinking and examining the importance of authorship and orginality. The biggest challenge that impacts our understanding of authorship and originality is that as collective, collaborative learning environments are being encouraged to enhance knowledge, the assumption that ideas are owned does not promote the collaboration. Plagiarism and ethics are important considerations associated with digital learners. Contributing to a collaborative learning space gave me a different perspective about wikipedia; cognitive dissonance. I use it more often now, though questioning information is still important.

The other project in ETEC 510 was a collaboratively designed project created by our group of five using Vista (U.B.C. online learning space). The online learning space was called The Design of a Virtual Delivery Medium for Digital Storytelling.  It was an exciting project that focused on online storytelling. Jason Ohler’s statement,”Digital Storytelling allows today’s students to speak in their own language” (Ohler,2008,p 10) captures our group’s values and beliefs about how students learn. In our design, we created an environment that assists students to stimulate intellectual activity and synthesize new meaning. This  framework was based on the idea that “the mind filters input from the real world to produce its own unique reality”(Jonassen, 1991, p.29).

Our design goals, filtered through our ideas and values, were promoted by one single inquiry: how does a virtual environment, guided by the creation  of a historically based digital story, become a practical application with sound intructional design? Our project became a logical outgrowth of our desire to transform theories of learning into ‘optimal instuctional actions ‘(Ertmer, 1993, p.50).Our design goals preclude considerations for turning learning theory into curricular practice by meeting students at their need, according to 21st century standards.

The design of our interactive virtual environment is based on constructivist learning theories, which posit that learners learn best through methods that allow them to construct their knowledge through a variety of activities. Vygotsky was a developmental theorist who stressed the importance of culture and language to learning. He argued that the stucture of conversation becomes the structure of thought. Through it’s use of narrative stories, digital storytelling emphasizes the use of language as a way to transmit culture. Storytelling has been the method of cultural transmission since our earliest civilization. Digital Storytelling embraces the value of language and culture while challenging learners to work in their ‘Zones of Proximal Development’ as they learn new ways to transmit information in a digital format. ( Our group consisted of H. MacLellan, S.Osborne, T.Steffensen, L.Dawes) My thanks to all for a great collaborative project.

The online learning environment was aimed at Grade 8-10 and complied to the B.C. IRPs Social Studies and Language Arts learning outcomes. I learned a lot from everyone in our group, as well as how to successfully communicate online asynchronously and synchronously. I was very pleased with the final product, as well as I made good connections with other MET students.

My transformative learning and how it applies to my teaching practices came about through learning about constructivist learning environments and the art of storytelling. I have used a similar learning activity with my grade ones to introduce them to telling their stories digitally. It is a fun project that includes presenting to their parent group during student-leds. 

This was an experience that contributed to forming many levels of my learning; layers of nacre that were weaving together to create my pearl.

“Demonstrating the power of technology to transform learning energize communities and inspire innovative thinking.” – unknown

References

Jonassen, D. H. (1991). Evaluating constructivist learning. Educational Technology, 31(9), 28-33

Jonassen, D. (1999).Designingconstructivistlearningenvironments. In C. Reigeluth (Ed.), Instructional design theories and models: Volume II. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Keats, D., & Schmidt, P. (2007). The genesis and emergence of Education 3.0 in higher education and its potential for Africa. First Monday, 12(3).

Mizuki, et.al. (2008). Living and learning with new media: Summary of findings from the Digital Youth Project. Retrieved March 25, 2011, from: http://digitalyouth.ischool.berkeley.edu/files/report/digitalyouth-TwoPageSummary.pdf

Ohler, J. (2008). Digital storytelling in the classroom. Thousand Oaks, California: Corwin Press.

Palloff, R., Pratt, K. (1999). When Teaching and Learning Leaves the Classroom. In: Building learning communities in cyberspace: Effective strategies for the online classroom. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Papert, S. (1980). Mindstorms: Children, computers, and powerful ideas. U.S.A.: Basic Books, Inc.

Prensky, M (2001). Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants. On the Horizon. 9(5). Retrieved March 25, 2011 from: http://www.hfmboces.org/HFMDistrictServices/TechYES/PrenskyDigitalNatives.pdf

 

 

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