vicki's e-portfolio

Thirteen weeks and a plethora of knowledge has worked its way into the file folders of my mind.

I set out this past May to start to apply some of what I had learned so far in UBC’s MET program and to fill in some of the gaps that then felt like abysmal vacuums of knowledge and know-how.  And so, through ETEC 565, perfectly combined with ETEC 532 for my purposes, I have.  In May, I  set out some personal learning objectives for this summer.  I have attained some of them, and those I am yet missing I now feel competent enough to learn on my own when the time comes.  Work accomplished through these past two courses have scaffolded me to a place of improved comfort.  I am not yet on my laurels, nor will I be for some time (and that’s a good thing), but rather I rest at that happily-motivated-to-go-on-having-tackled-the-first-big-mountain-and-feeling-like-I-will-actually-make-it-to-the-top place.

Reflection on Goals

I have now not only learned what Moodle is, but I have created a course in MET’s Moodle.  The design is a blended approach to enhance and extend the learning from my face-to-face (f2f) classes.  I am quite happy with what I designed, but I can see a shift from the balance I originally expected.  My students will be writing quite a bit online, which fits with what I want, and I think this will have a positive effect on our f2f time, allowing us to be more interactive rather than needing to sit down to write quietly quite as often.   I am now capable of using html tags.  I remain limited in how many I know, but reading html is not as intimidating and I have dappled in and used with reasonable proficiency some of the more common tags, including those for linking.   I have been able to trouble-shoot by reading code.  Blogging and online discussion forums are tools I am now excited to use in my teaching, instead of hesitant and anxious.  Wikis and online tests and quizzes, I think I can handle them from an instructional standpoint.  I have created a digital story on Roxio’s PhotoShow and cartoons on Toondoo.  I have been able to embed them in my course site.

But I’m not done yet.  I have not integrated let alone learn more about online whiteboards – an exciting tool I saw on another MET student’s teaching site back in my first semester – and I have not yet learned much about alternate LMSs.  I have dappled in the Vista sandbox that was set up for us and learned a bit about Desire2Learn (D2L).  There are some in my district who are interested in D2L and Moodle, so I have hope these will soon be active and available in my context – perhaps with assistance from my proposal, also written within the context of ETEC 565.  I have learned that the tools are seemingly endless, but I have also learned how to better evaluate them, choosing wisely which will be most appropriate for my students’ needs.

The Toolkit

Thank you, John, for the toolkit!

Whereas I could have posted endlessly to our discussion forum, “Does anyone know how to…” and “Can anyone tell me…,” or spent so much time on Google as to invest in shares, the toolkit allowed me to work through the foreign until it became friend – a friend I could then call upon when times were rough.  This is one site I will bookmark outside of Vista BB.

I am most familiar with the LMS and HTML-authoring/Web-design toolkits.  These were integral to setting me in the right direction. The m-learning box was interesting when it came time to take advantage of online learning’s online benefits and travel.  I learned my mobile limitations (m-limitations?) beforehand and was able to plan accordingly.  Multimedia and authoring tools was probably next most relied-upon, with wikis, social media and blogs being more familiar from the outset. Synchronous tools sat on the line of familiar and unfamiliar, with Wimba being the new biggie for my own repertoire.  Already a Skype lover, it was great to get into Wimba both in the toolkit and in our class sessions to broaden that horizon.  Elluminate, I have on my summer reading list, with regrets for not having investigated it much as of yet.  Many fellow METers seem to see good benefit in Elluminate, so I will have to visit soon.

The Overall – ETEC 565

I am so glad, and fortunate, to have chosen to take ETEC 565 at this stage of my MET experience.  I was feeling scarce in the technological skills department of my educational technology adventure.  ETEC 565 has pushed me off the edge of the pool into deep water… but not without first teaching me the principles of treading water and then swimming.

As with each of my MET courses, I have met great colleagues who have taught me much as well.  If ever I find in the research a finding that suggests discussion forums are less than beneficial, I will be sure to scrutinize the study for error in application, for the collaboration  and community of knowledge that comes through this not only phenomenal, but motivating, motivating to challenge myself further, to consistently do my best, to participate and contribute, making both personal and academic connections to people, text, and teaching contexts.

Next Steps

And so I leave ETEC 565 feeling enabled.  I have not completed everything, but then, I’m only 4 courses in.  6 to go.  And then – no, not “and then.”  And now, having enough to begin to feel both confident and competent, I can begin to adjust my practice to reflect 21st Century teaching, appropriate to the Net-generation (Tapscott, 2004), and as I move along, I will continue to add to my repertoire, adjust my practice as my pedagogy is influenced by the power of technology in education.

Reference

Tapscott, D. (2004).  The net generation and the school. Custom Course Materials ETEC 532.  (Reprinted from Milken Family Foundation.) http://www.mff.org/edtech/article.taf?_function=detail&Content_uid1=109.