Synthesis
My Final e-Portfolio Synthesis Reflection for ETEC 565
Intro
My ETEC 565 course has come to a close, but carrying my tools forward the journey has really only begun. I have really enjoyed my “inaugural flight” from taxiing down the runway to my final destination gate arrival. I can honestly say my path was an incredible flight that I did not do alone, with a little turbulence here and there, I always felt there was someone in the cockpit with me. Reflecting on my initial “Flight Plan” I would have to say this has been the most significantly rewarding course for me thus far.
Flight Plan précis
After all, my initial flight plan was quite general as I wasn’t quite sure what to expect, and when I was asked to revise and be more specific it helped me realize my real intentions for not only this course but my overall MET journey. Ultimately, my goal was to be able to create online LMS that would allow me to implement and assess student learning on a consistent basis while socially connecting students. This would allow me to better understand course development and the tools necessary to create/deliver/teach courses online and help inspire other teachers to do the same.
In further reflection of the Flight Plan I can honestly say, I have achieved these goals through the best methods of pedagogy I know: excellent modeling, constructive collaboration with peers and experiential hands-on doing it! Not only that, I have a better understanding of what excellent pedagogy really means according to the seven principles using technology (Chickering & Ehrmann, 1996) and what good practice looks like in action. Of course this is still an area of practice that I need to focus more attention on, but I have developed some great concepts of this and I will work on implementing these better in the future.
eToolkit
I found the eToolkit very helpful and supportive of the different aspects of the course, especially the moodle development. Even though I feel I had some of the basic skills covered in the kit, it really helped me put things into practice and “do” short activities. While I did explore the toolkit regularly (especially for good links and ideas with mlearning in my other course) my challenge was to reflect on these activities promptly and not leave the posts to the last minute.
Ooops, I need deadlines and course in time management and maybe for people like me it might be good to have activities like the eToolkit and responses to the blog done by a date well in advance of the LMS. Perhaps this might be a suggestion to save the sanity of the deadline minded.
Reflection of my ETEC 565 experience overall
As I mentioned previously this course has been my favourite and most rewarding educational experiences in memory. In 565 I was able to not only read and learn new material, but I was able to put this into practice, building my skills and creating a significant product to use and build upon for my own pedagogical practice.
Not only that, right from the starting activity with the Wimba voiceboard, I felt connected to a community of learners who supported and inspired each other to strive for excellence. We shared experiences when we couldn’t possibly do every program ourselves and we took different avenues and ideas to share critically in our weekly forums.
What better way to learn than with a squadron of support from other learners on the same journey and a squadron leader who was always supportive and helpful but not enabling. John Egan practiced what he preached following, and inspiring us to follow Chickering and Gamson’s (1987) Seven Principles for Good Practice in Undergraduate Education in our pedagogy. John consistently was there when you needed him and he provided: excellent direction, meaningful engaging activities, a supportive collaborative environment and a quick wit to lighten the learning.
What does the future hold for me?
Honestly, more MET courses -seven more- hopefully as engaging and rewarding as this one (please feel free to comment on this point). Much more than this though are the important skills of trying, learning and evaluating new software and media to tie into meaningful pedagogical experiences for my students.
Using the SECTIONS model (Bates & Poole, 2003) to help evaluate new technologies and their implementation will help me a great deal as I am the Site Contact for our school and am often involved in recommending new technology for implementation.
I am excited to move forward on my journey through the MET program and gain further practice with my new skills in LMS and Moodle. My students will love having some independence and I will love having an arsenal of tools to teach with and create assessable meaningful projects online in a management system, and now that I like it so much, it will probably be Moodle-rific.
Ultimately, I would like to start leading and inspire more technology use into the classrooms here in PEI and maybe beyond those borders. The potential for reconnecting with our students and engaging them in more meaningful activities is within our grasp. Overall I feel I am ready to take on whatever comes next…
References
Bates A. W. & Poole, G. (2003). A Framework for Selecting and Using Technology. In A.W. Bates & G. Poole, Effective Teaching with Technology in Higher Education (pp. 75-108). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. 4.
Chickering, A.W. & Ehrmann, S.C. (1996). Implementing the Seven Principles: Technology as Lever. American Association for Higher Education Bulletin, 49(2), 3-6. Accessed online 11 Mar 2009 http://www.aahea.org/bulletins/articles/sevenprinciples.htm
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. Accessed online 11 Mar 2009 http://www.aahea.org/bulletins/articles/sevenprinciples1987.htm