Author Archives: Syndicated User

Teaching with WordPress

I am going to try to participate in the Teaching with WordPress course being offered by UBC’s Will Engle and Christina Hendricks. The course runs for the month of June. Earlier today, my BCcampus colleagues Amanda Coolidge, Tracy Kelly and Mary Burgess helped Will and Christina kick off the course with a live Collaborate session on open pedagogy.

This post is to get something into my new twp15 category which will (with any luck) have a few blog posts related to the course by the end of the month.

Initial thoughts and why am I doing this?

 

Open Pedagogy with UBC.

Week 1

I’m very much looking forward to this course by the University of British Columbia (UBC).  It is strange that anything with pedagogy in the title always strikes the fear of god in me. I remember my first lecture role at Nottingham University where I kept hearing this strange word and wondering what the hell it was. Most professions are strange and you drift into roles with no formal training. I’ve drifted from science to management to teaching and now vaguely drift between all three. There was never any formal training about pedagogy at any point.

So for my own benefit, “pedagogy is the discipline that deals with the theory and practice of education” (thank you Wikipedia).

But aren’t we lucky today with open courses such as this. We have such amazing knowledge and learning at our finger tips which I guess is the whole point of open pedagogy – to effortlessly share your materials and learning with others to benefit the sum of the whole. And this is underpinned by the most recent theories, thinking and ideas. How cool is that.

The course structures some topics around pedagogy, practice and design, again all separate but obviously inter-related. I’m planning an open course of my own later in the year so all of this will be invaluable.

The Only Way is Ethics

I’m certainly looking forward not just to the design aspects but learning about ethics for working out in the open. This is an area in need of attention and I look forward to the conversations that will take place. Our technology has out-paced our pedagogy which has certainly out-paced our ethical thinking, and I suppose tech always challenges us in these ways. I’ve talked and written about this a little, and also the bredth of the ethical challenges are wide ranging. My point now is well, what are we going to do about it?

Anyway I need to stop the open rambling and get open learning with UBC. By the way, open rambling is not a ‘thing’ yet. Just remember you heard it hear first.

Teaching on WordPress: Introduction

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Hello,

Here is my short bio for a long post secondary teaching career. I have joined this open, online workshop to learn more about using WordPress for my courses in conjunction with the university LMS.

Bio.

English faculty member at Kwantlen Polytechnic University since 1996, previously at UBC for 2 years and Thompson Rivers University for 6 years. 26 years of University English teaching experience. 12 years teaching online and loving it!! I have also become a bit of a cMoocoholic having participated in many online and networked communities with the theme of open education practices.

B.A. in Philosophy and English Literature (Concordia) ; M.A. in Liberal Studies / Interdisciplinary Studies of English Literature(SFU); TESOL Diploma (VCC); post graduate courses Faculty of English (UBC), Faculty of Education (SFU).

International Experience: In 2012 completed a scholarly exploration of the Romantic poets in Italy with SFU’s Graduate Liberal Studies Program; I spent May, June of 2012 on an Italian journey following the footsteps of Shelly, Byron and Goethe. Conducted a seminar on ‘Goethe in Rome’. April 2013 attended The International Journal of Arts and Sciences Conference in Florence, Italy. 2014 and 2015 International Academic conferences in Barcelona and Rome.

My latest open education project was as co- creator and mentor in Open Online Experience 2013 (#OOE13) which was a free, online PD opportunity in edtech for K-16 educators.

Here are some of the badges I have earned in the past 2 years by participating in various online programs, seminars and Moocs. I keep these badges in my Mozilla backpack!

Co-Creator

mymozillamentorbadgeMozilla Mentor Badge

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Hello #TWP15

Hi everyone, this is Mo Pelzel and this is my first post for the online course Teaching With WordPress. This course comes at a perfect time for me, as I am preparing a summer course, “How the Web Works: Building Your Digital Identity, Literacy, and Network,” which starts next week and runs for seven weeks at Austin College. So I’m blogging here on the site of that course. It’s a first time offering, so very experimental, so why not try out WP as a platform?

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