My two goals which I set out to achieve – exploration and affirmation – have been realized through the ETEC 565A experience. This experience, situated within the Connect LMS, supported by an expanding e-Learning Toolkit, and collaborated amongst a group of highly skilled professionals (my fellow MET’ians) helped me to reflect upon several new technologies and their potential uses in education as well as on my current pedagogy.
Exploration – An Analysis of the Toolkit.
As I reflect upon my original Flight Path, I described my eagerness for exploration of new e-Learning technologies, such as Moodle. A powerful resource used to create and manage course materials, track and evaluate student contributions, facilitate correspondence amongst learners, teachers, and parents; Moodle can effectively deliver educational content in a highly accessible format. After logging dozens of hours within our Moodle shell, this course has definitely helped me make some key realizations about Moodle:
- It is not something to tackle on your own. I feel that learning to use Moodle should be a team effort. The logistics of understanding all of the activities and resources within Moodle, and their corresponding affordances is staggering. Perkins and Pfaffman (2006) discuss the necessity of teamwork when setting up Moodle; “Though it [Moodle] is fairly easy to install, maintaining a Web server, especially one that will be accessible at all times, will almost certainly require cooperation and help from those who manages schools network further, most school networks are behind firewalls so even if Moodle is installed on a teacher’s desktop, people may not be able to access it from home.”
- The decision to utilize an LMS such as Moodle is not solely mine. Having taught for over a decade I have seen many decent ideas refuted by teachers who felt that decisions had been made for them, rather than with them. The decision to use an LMS is something that should be debated. And now we have a framework to host such a discussion within: SECTIONS. ETEC 565A has brought forward several tools with which to conduct a critical analysis of technology, of which my favourite is SECTIONS, an acronym for “Students, Ease of Use, Costs, Teaching and Learning, Interactivity, Organizational Issues, Novelty, and Speed” (Bates and Poole, 2003). SECTIONS allows educators to weigh carefully the pros and cons of the use of any technology, something that we practiced within our ETEC 565A groups when we developed our LMS rubric. If staff were interested in discussing the potential of e-learning, I would suggest using SECTIONS to examine the benefits versus the detriments of such an investment in time.
- It is going to take years to become proficient within a LMS such as Moodle. While Perkins and Pfaffman (2006) speak high praise for the affordances of Moodle, nothing is mentioned in their article of the understanding of “Moodle-ese” – a dialect including administrative terms such as “restrictions” and “timings” of which only those who situate themselves within the world of Moodle for months on end could possibly understand. Like a giant elephant, getting Moodle up and running takes time, and a concerted commitment towards attention to development and revision of content, as well as updates to software need be expressed before delving into this LMS.
As we investigated various software and online tools, I also took time to analyze the affordances of those that struck me as interesting through a TPCK [“Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge”] lens. First described by Lee Shulman (Shulman, 1986) as simply “PCK”, “TPCK” builds on those core ideas through the inclusion of technology[1]. Mishra and Koehler (2006), further refined the TPACK framework casting light on how technology, pedagogy, and content knowledges affect one another and effect learning. More specifically, I have had time within this course to investigate the affordances of blogging and discussion forums.
Development of this blog has helped me reflect upon sharing knowledge and content through platforms such as WordPress. In the past, I outright shunned blogging as simply a form of voyeurism wrapped in a narcissistic cloak. I couldn’t understand why people were excited to share their digital diary with a global audience. I see now that blogging isn’t just for egomaniacs. I agree with the views of Stephen Downes (2004), who outlines that blogging can be used “to replace the standard class Web page,…to link to Internet items that relate to [a] course, …to organize in-class discussions, …to organize class seminars and provide summaries of readings”, as well as a tool of accountability [ie. learners can develop their own blogs as a reflection of their learning, just like we have].
Moreover, blogging has the potential to bring a learner’s reality into the classroom. “The process of reading online, engaging a community, and reflecting it online is a process of bringing life into learning” (Downes, 2006). I believe that blogging is a powerful tool for today’s student who invests a great deal of time developing digital literacy. “Students are, increasingly, digital content producers, and participate extensively in evolving online social networks” (Alexander, 2008), and, as Yancey (2004) points out with the blogging phenomenon, “Note that no one is making anyone do any of this writing” (Alexander, 2008). I believe using tools which are familiar to our students and helping them develop critical thinking and writing skills within such domains is a win-win situation.
From an educator’s perspective, blogging technology also has great functionalities, such as RSS feeds, which can be used to track student progress of their blog creations. Bobbi Kyle (fellow MET’ian) introduced me to an online service called “feedly.com”. Integrated with Google, Facebook, Twitter, and more, feedly.com is a service which allows a user to track RSS feeds in a clean, easy to follow format. If so desired, I can be instantly notified to changes in any of the blogs tagged within my feedly account. Very slick. No more tracking piles of annoying emails to inform me progress is being made in my students’ blogs. As soon as they add or revise their blog content, I am notified. Thank you Bobbi.
Another major theme within this course (and all MET courses) is the Discussion Forum. I enjoyed the ETEC 565A forum much more than other previous forums. Having a fictitious, but reality-based scenario each week helped me to critically analyze an array of digital tools commonly used by educators. I feel this approach to learning was much more fruitful in its design than simply allowing learners to voice their opinions of weekly readings. In my experience, Discussion Forums which are “unguided” simply turn into a “bulletin board of proof” that students use to show they did in fact do their weekly readings. A weekly “scenario”, incorporating issues with a variety of technologies and cutting across cultural and geographic considerations, was a refreshing way to situate our scheduled learning and gave us the opportunity to bounce ideas off one another as well as offer experiential wisdoms.
I believe a well-designed Discussion Forum is a tidy way to meet the “challenge [placed before] teachers and course developers working in an online learning context, [that] is, to construct a learning environment that is simultaneously learner-centred, content-centred, community- centred, and assessment-centred.” (Anderson, 2008). When course design allows students to explore new concepts, read contemporary literature on these concepts, and facilitates professional discourse centred on new knowledge, while tracking and offering feedback on progress, then we are approaching effective teaching pedagogy that encapsulates TPCK. One question I have regarding Discussion Forum is, “Would debate and learning improve within a discussion if there is a limit placed on the amount of ‘summarizing’ which occurs each week?” The reason why I ask this question is that I have noticed that within many weekly Discussions, students who arrive late to the forum simply provide a summary of the week’s readings, or post a new thread which is almost identical in scope to threads posted earlier in the week. I think that if there was a guideline to specify the number of summaries provided within each week’s forum, student engagement would improve. For example, what if there was a limit of three summaries of the weekly readings? Or, alternatively, what if there was a limit to the number of original threads (ex. 5 threads maximum per week)? Would this then force students to engage within existing dialogues and improve concept analysis? And how could we measure such an ‘improvement’?
Affirmation.
During the first week of this course, we were cast into NETS[2](The “National Educational Technology Standards”, now more commonly known as “ISTE” which stands for the “International Society for Technology in Education”). This activity took me by surprise. While I was concentrating ‘outward’ in the search for new ideas, this activity made me pause and look inward at my current practice and pedagogical approach to teaching. NETS helped me question whether I was actively engaging in 5 areas of effective teaching, specifically, do I…
a) Facilitate and Inspire Student Learning and Creativity?
b) Design and Develop Digital Age Learning Experiences and Assessments?
c) Model Digital Age Work and Learning?
d) Promote and Model Digital Citizenship and Responsibility?
e) Engage in Professional Growth and Leadership?
Use of NETS helped me to realize that I do a good job of providing learners with “varied formative and summative assessments”[2] and also “promote, support, and model creative thinking”[2]. Two areas where I need to improve upon are, “Customize and personalize learning activities”[2], and “Engage students in exploring real-world issues”[2].
Conclusions and a Path Forward:
I realize now that my investigation into technologies which support or enhance learning has been reinvigorated. ETEC 565A has given me the foundations of how to approach analysis of new technologies as they emerge as well as given me time to investigate some current Web 2.0 tools. I now see that while some tools (such as Glogster) simply allow students to express ideas in new ways, other tools (such as Moodle) situate learning in new ways, and therefore require a different approach to analysis.
As an educator, following my own passions has always been an important part of teaching. If I am passionate about a topic, or about a technology, then this is apparent to my students and will impact upon them differently than if I am just maintaining the status quo. Allowing students to follow their passions and utilizing digital tools within a learning framework in turn scaffolds the learning experience to a new level – one which is hopefully viewed as relevant and worthwhile. And as I move forward, I am excited to learn about new digital tools which help enhance students’ visualizations of abstract concepts. I will further explore digital realms, such as PheT, to investigate the use of simulations in my Physics and Chemistry courses. I will consider new ways to encourage collaboration amongst learners and between learners and myself. I will revisit many of the resources offered within this course, such as CogDogRoo, to dig even deeper into ways for students to tell their stories.
In addition, I will start discussions with colleagues around the idea of blended learning environments. This doesn’t mean that I will try to encourage the dismantling of traditional classrooms. I believe that F2F courses are still an important option to learning. The feeling of relief I experienced after attending the optional “Moodle Live Demo” was palpable. I have found that by establishing a visual connection with whom I am learning, even if only once, helps reduce my anxiety towards online learning and I think that the absence of such a connection is contradictory to the idea of establishing community.
My colleague Jeanne teaching students at Halloween.
For me, learning online doesn’t mean avoiding personal contact; rather, our digital tools should enhance our connectedness and give us improved ways through which to express our ideas. Above all, learning online shouldn’t dilute the ways in which we engage with one another. As our society moves more towards the virtual, I feel it is important to be grounded within the real, and when at all possible, take opportunities to help guide learners build knowledge that is rooted in an offline existence.
Alexander, B. (2008). Web 2.0 and emergent multiliteracies. Theory into practice, 47(2), 150-160.
Bates, A., & Poole, G. (2003). A framework for selecting and using technology. Effective teaching with technology in higher education, 75-105.
Downes, S. (2004). Educational blogging. Educause review, 39, 14-27.
Mishra, P., & Koehler, M. (2006). Technological pedagogical content knowledge: A framework for teacher knowledge. The Teachers College Record, 108(6), 1017-1054.
Perkins, M., & Pfaffman, J. (2006). Using a course management system to improve classroom communication. SCIENCE TEACHER-WASHINGTON-, 73(7), 33.
Shulman, L. S. (1986). Those who understand: Knowledge growth in teaching. Educational researcher, 15(2), 4-14.
[1] (2006). Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge – Wikipedia … Retrieved April 8, 2014, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_Pedagogical_Content_Knowledge.
[2] (2012). ISTE Standards for Teachers. Retrieved January 7, 2014, from https://www.iste.org/standards/nets-for-teachers