Rob McElroy’s Flight Path for ETEC 565C
Write a proposed flight path during ETEC 565A. Tell us a bit about yourself, your experience, and your goals for this course (or, perhaps, the MET). Explain what you want to learn about Learning Management Systems (LMS), assessment, social software, and multimedia. Give your best estimate about what resources you would need to master these technologies as a novice professional. Be sure to cite relevant literature to support your decision. Be as specific as you can, even at this early stage: you won’t be penalized for your priorities evolving as the course proceeds. But you might not get the full benefit of ETEC 565A if you start out with too general an idea of your aspirations.
Hello all, my name is Rob McElroy.
This is my 8th course in the M.E.T. program and the end is in sight. I have enjoyed all the challenges and opportunities to grow that this program has offered me and 565C seems like it will be a great chance to improve my practice as an educator. I am originally from Canada but have lived in South Korea for the past 12 years, spending the last 7 at my current school. Our school was the first in Korea to offer a bilateral curriculum. That is a western style curriculum taught alongside the Korean one. Our school is open concept and progressive where an English was not taught as a subject but instead English is used as the bridge to allow our students to learn about a variety of subjects in a inquiry based environment. I have been a large part of the drive to push our school to include technology in everyday learning and have seen the introduction of 1:1 Interactive Whiteboard:Classroom program as well as a school wide tablets sharing program. I am married to a wonderful woman and am the proud papa to two lovely and spirited little girls. Living in Korea has been tough at times but I feel it is my home now and understand life here better than back in Canada. My undergrad is in primary education and sociology but I have always been interested in tech. When my thoughts turned to getting my masters choosing Ed. Tech seemed the most interesting to me. Seeing that this course was on the calendar was a great joy to me because I want to learn better how to introduce tech successfully into my school. Money has never been a big problem for our school but I have been frustrated by the lack of forethought and long-term planning that needs to go into the inclusion of any new technology into a school. Furthermore, my goals for this course are:
- To learn how to best use an LMS to reach my students in a meaningful way. I have used LMS like Edmodo in the past but still struggle with getting 100% traction with my students. Part of this might be due to the fact that my school still insists on using a basic message board for official communication (due to the Korean side of our school being behind the English side tech wise), but nonetheless I want to find the most effective ways to integrate a LMS seamlessly and effectively into my everyday classroom routine.
- To find tools that will allow my students to be prepared for the future. It it a fact that we are teaching our students for jobs that do not exist yet. That being said I feel it is important to not just teach students to use the tools I am comfortable with but to teach them the skills they need to be tech savvy and adaptive to the tools that I myself have never imagined.
- To learn how to effectively use a LMS as an assessment tool that will allow me to better understand my students and more quickly/efficiently meet their needs and improve my own teaching practice.
- To learn how launch a new technology effectively so that teachers and students get the most out of it and feel that they are being supported. I want to know the best practices for preparing and training both students and teachers so that resources spent on new technology are used most efficiently.
I hope that as my journey through 565C my flightpath is met and I continue to develop it so that I can get the most out this course and myself.