One of my personal and professional goals for this course is to hone my web publication skills. I had started a blog a couple of years ago to showcase educational technology in my classroom, but regrettably used Weebly for Education as my platform (I know, I know). I have since purchased a WXR feed for my Weebly blog in order to export to a WordPress platform. At this point, I am going back and forth between self-hosting a domain or simply letting WordPress host. It all boils down to what my personal and professional goals are right now and for the future. I would like to blog about my experiences as an educational technology specialist in my Board, since we are currently going down unchartered territory in terms of new technology and pedagogical initiatives. I believe it will be beneficial to document this journey, and to reflect, so that I may perhaps help others in the same position now and in the future. I would love to learn some simple coding and web design in order to unveil these reflections in an aesthetically pleasing and powerful way.

I have experience working within a few different LMS, including BlackBoard Connect and d2L. I also have experience using Google Classroom, although this is most certainly not an LMS (yet). My experience stems from being a student, as well as a professor administering a course from the BlackBoard Connect platform. Perhaps the most important component of an LMS is the ability to connect with your peers and professor/teacher/facilitator in a variety of ways, and allow for both synchronous and asynchronous communication. This is important, especially for an adult education type of setting, where various schedules (and time zones!) often collide. However, I would like to learn more about HOW to use an LMS effectively and creatively in an inquiry-based classroom.

Because I am collaborating on a virtual field trip website, I would like to learn more about how to quantitatively measure student collaboration and engagement when participating in VFT’s – how to assign numerical values to this type of learning! CISCO is working on a project called Connected North, in which a classroom in Iqaluit was virtually paired with classrooms in other provinces (an example was a classroom in Alberta), where these isolated students were exposed to other parts of the country through the wonderful world of TelePresence. Their analysts are working on a way to quantitatively measure the impact of such a service and experience.
I would also love to delve deeper into social media tools, and the different “schools of thought” on using these tools in K-12 classrooms. I believe that (upper-level) students are using them anyway, and it is our job to guide them down the digital citizenship path – perhaps not the path of least resistance; however, a path that will not lead to a muddied digital footprint!