Flight Path Precis
My goal for this class is to continue building my skills in selecting technology for use in the classroom. This is important as a lot of time can be wasted learning a number of new programs, and those programs may not be the most effective for use in the classroom. However, I would also like to continue developing my skills in those technologies that have proven to be useful for other educators.
I would specifically like to learn more about providing prompt feedback to students through an LMS. I would like to be able to instantaneously give automated feedback to students once a task has been completed. I would also like to find effective ways of bringing social media into the classroom in order to increase student engagement and communication.
eLearning Toolkit Experience
If I was to be completely honest, I would have to say that the eLearning toolkit was probably the least useful aspect of this course for me. I felt that the tasks in the eLearning toolkit were a little bit too introductory, and for the majority of the toolkit items I felt that my knowledge had already surpassed the basic information provided in the toolkit.
Even the Moodle toolkit was not extremely helpful, and I had pretty much never used Moodle at all before. The toolkit was kind of nice in that it did make Moodle appear less intimidating to me (I was pretty overwhelmed by Moodle the first time that I looked at it), but realistically I think that it really only saved me half an hour at best.
The links to outside sources of info were somewhat helpful, but I think that I would have learned more from the toolkits if there were a series of activities in them that covered gradually more and more complex tasks. I realize of course that this would be a tremendous amount of work, but I think that for most people that are at least moderately comfortable with computers the toolkits may not have been especially helpful.
Overall ETEC 565 Experience
Overall I had a very positive experience in this class. I felt that there were a lot of good articles that really stimulated my thinking, the activities were both well supported by the readings and applicable to classroom use, and the discussion boards were very enlightening. I also really appreciated that the course was not heavy on reading, and that we were able to spend a lot of time actually working on our LMS and tinkering with tools that we will actually use in the future.
I would have to say that the two most influential readings on me in this class were Bates and Poole’s (2003) “A Framework for Selecting and Using Technology,” and Chickering and Gamson’s (1987) “Seven Principles for Good Practice in Undergraduate Education.” When combined with Jonassen’s “Designing Constructivist Learning Environments” from ETEC 510, these three papers provide a strong base of information for using technology to improve student learning outcomes.
Bates and Poole’s Sections model is easy to follow, simple to apply, and it covers all of the major components required to make good decisions when choosing a technology for use in the classroom. The ease of use and reliability part of the model especially struck a chord with me, as I think that is an easy aspect to overlook. I know that for me personally, when I am choosing any tool/resource for my students, I always have their interests/strengths/skills/etc. in mind, along with how educationally effective it is. If widespread implementation is planned, costs involved are also an apparent consideration. However, ease of use is often not looked at as carefully… it is more something that is noticed when a technology is very difficult to use. I also think that “Ease” is very important, because things that have a steep learning curve and things that do not work reliably are often given up on very quickly.
Although Chickering and Gamson’s article is very short, it is straight to the point and it covers a good range of quality practices. There were many times as I read and re-read that article that I thought to myself, “I hadn’t really thought of that, but it is very true.” I particularly enjoyed reading the section on giving feedback. In many ways, quality feedback is what makes a great teacher. A robot could deliver curricular content, but education requires a skilled teacher to identify not only where a student has deficiencies, but also to communicate how to effectively address those weaknesses, and then provide the support necessary for the student to succeed on that path. I also very much agreed with the importance of communicating high expectations to ALL students, as that is something that we sometimes only do for one type of student.
We didn’t do a ton of different activities during the class, but I thought that the setup of activities was very well done. We had a smaller group activity, the large LMS course site, and then a few more small things here and there. This gave us a brief introduction to a few different things, while allowing us to delve deeply into a large project.
The rubric was actually a lot of fun to put together. It’s hard to imagine working in groups where you never see anyone face to face, until you actually do it. I was fortunate to be a part of a very hardworking and intelligent group, so I had an excellent experience. I have to say that it was almost shocking to see how much work could get done in a short amount of time by a group of individuals sitting in totally different rooms around the planet! It was also nice to have the group activity near the start of ETEC 565, so that you can make those connections and then build on them throughout the course.
Building a complete LMS online course site was at times frustrating, challenging, eye opening, and gratifying. I’m glad that I went through it, but at times I had to leave it for a while to give my brain a chance to take a break. I like the idea of putting together large projects, and having students put together large projects, because I think that it reflects a lot of real world experiences. Students can gain a lot from completing every step of a project, but I think the key is to keep students from being becoming overwhelmed, indifferent, or both. It was nice to have smaller assignments that contributed to the larger one (making the test for the course), and I think that if I were to organize a large project for my students I would try to have a greater number of smaller activities like that.
A second part of the online course that I really appreciated was having the opportunity to learn webpage design. I have always wanted to learn how to make webpages, and this was a good chance to do so. I could not believe how finicky web pages are, and I had to re-start a number of times in order to get the files organized in a manageable structure. However, I believe that the next time that I generate a webpage, things will go a lot smoother the second time around.
As usual, the discussion boards in this class were excellent learning tools. It is always nice to see a variety of opinions, and everyone always seems to have such good ideas that they bring to the table. Obviously the calibre of discussion found on these boards is much higher than would normally be found in most online locations, but it is good to see what online discussion “should” look like in higher learning. This gives us as educators something to strive for if and when we moderate discussions in our own online courses.
One discussion topic that I really found stimulating was “What could Trinh do?” I found this interesting because Trinh was creating a situation where by being more efficient, she was actually becoming less efficient. This is because as her online course was getting better and better, she was creating an unmanageable workload in terms of communication. This was a topic where I really began to find myself following more of a web 2.0 train of thought, which was the first time I really started to do so. I really started thinking that students learning as a group and learning from each other was the way to go, and I’ll admit that it hasn’t been easy to let go of the traditional teacher role… I kind of like being the “expert!”
If there was one aspect of this course that I did not feel that I explored to its fullest extent, it was the blog. I am generally a pretty private person, and I rarely announce my thoughts to the world, so doing so in a blog was a bit unnatural for me. I regularly reflect on many aspects of my life, but I almost never make those reflections public. I even find it a little odd reading personal blogs, as it feels a bit like an invasion of privacy. I certainly realize that not everyone feels this way, and that blogs could be a very useful educational tool. However, I believe that they are best used as an option, rather than a mandatory assignment.
The Next Steps
In terms of learning technology in the near future, I would like to begin spending more time learning about webpage design. I’d like to learn more about adding various different components, and I’d like to explore different styles of web design in order to create products that are easier to use and more efficient in delivering information. One of my more long term technology goals is to learn Adobe Flash, and action scripting. I feel that learning these skills will allow me to add a much higher level of interactivity to my webpages, which would give me more tools to reach and engage a wider range of students.
In my classroom, I’d like to begin experimenting with more activities that encourage students to work together to learn not only from each other, but also from the community around them. I definitely plan on incorporating wikis to do this, and I will also be keeping my eyes out for other methods that will allow students to transcend both geographical and temporal boundaries.
If there is one thing that I can take away from the MET program so far, it is that online learning is about making connections with all types of people from all reaches of the globe. It is about having access to those cultures, experiences, backgrounds, and contexts that you normally wouldn’t have available to you in a face to face class. Due to this realization, I would also like to learn more about social media, which I admittedly know very little about. I would like to spend more time using social media tools themselves, but I would also like to attend social media conferences and begin networking with frequent users of social media. From there, I hope to make connections with other professionals that have an interest in educational technologies.
Conclusion
Although I found this class a lot of work at times, I learned a great deal in it. I met many of the goals that I set out at the start of the class, and I also discovered a few areas that I have an interest in taking further. I’m glad that I had the opportunity to work on some very practical applications, which ironically enough, actually changed my thinking more than many of the academic papers that I’ve worked on in the past. I look forward to continuing my search for effective educational technologies, and I hope to pass some of my experiences on to colleagues with similar interests along the way!
References
Bates, A.W. & Poole, G. (2003). Chapter 4: A Framework for Selecting and Using Technology. In Effective Teaching with Technology in Higher Education: Foundations for Success. (pp. 77-105). San Francisco: Jossey Bass Publishers.
Chickering, A.W. & Gamson, Z.F. (1987). Seven Principles for Good Practice in Undergraduate Education. American Association for Higher Education Bulletin, 39 (7), 3-7.